Like
chalk and cheese, the ethnic groups in South Asians regions, sometimes creates
insurgency problems in South Asia. This is one
of the reasons of distrust between the South Asian states. As India charges Bangladesh
for providing arms to Indian ethnic groups who are skirmishing for autonomy; on
the other hand, Bangladesh
blames India
for philanthropic shelter and arms to Bangladeshi insurgents. An ethnic crisis
between Tamil and Sinhalese creates bottlenecks between Sri Lanka and India. It is common trust in Sri Lanka that
Indian support for Tamil people has shaped this ethnic crisis. In relation to broaden
our horizons, Indian ethnic groups sometime create domestic crisis, which has stern
impacts in other countries of the region.
Language
differentiation creates hazards of communication among the South Asian people.
If we glance at Latin America, we observe that
Spanish is a widespread language there, which helps build up better
communication among the countries. On the other hand, in South
Asia, most of the states have more than one language. For case in
point, people in the south India
do not appreciate Hindi and Hindi interpolation people often do not realize
other languages. Sometime it creates separation movement also. For example when
Urdu was declared as the state language of Pakistan,
the Bengali people in the eastern wing of Pakistan started their language
movement, which eventually became the separation movement. Similarly, when
Sinhalese was declared as the state language of Sri
Lanka, the Tamil minorities started their separation
movement from Sri Lanka.
As
compared to other regions, the differences in size and population are very high
among the South Asian countries. The disparities between India and the
other states are striking. India’s
protective size is nearly four times that of Pakistan
and its population is five times larger than Pakistan. India’s region is more than three thousand times
as large as that of Maldives
and the difference in population is similar. Bhutan
is also a very small country as compared to India. The great diversity in size,
population creates predicament and as such India is not only bigger than other
members of SAARC, but is also bigger than all the others put together. This
creates psychological problem for the smaller countries. In the region India, Pakistan
and Bangladesh have access
to the sea, Sri Lanka and Maldives are island states and Nepal and Bhutan are land locked. Indian protestation
is a predicament for Nepal
to take pleasure in transit services has accessible by Bangladesh. The
Geographical locations of Nepal
and Bhutan have made them
dependent upon India.
For example, in 1979, the Janata government of India
removed its objection of transit facility to Nepal. After that Nepal established a transit liaison office at Chittagong (Bangladesh
port) to handle its export and imports from overseas countries via Bangladesh.
Geographical differences of south Asia are such that India separates one smaller
neighbour from the other. All countries of South Asia have common boundaries
with India, except Sri Lanka and Maldives. A geographical difference
increases the level of difficulty in multi-lateral negotiation for solving
common problems, particularly such common problems as the sharing of water
resources, and controlling pollution which require co-operation from more than
two co-members. Territoriality is an issue which has in the past created
irreconcilable problem of sovereignty leading to three wars between two co-members.
Territorial disputes continue to cloud the relationship between India and Pakistan,
and India and Bangladesh. The
opinionated heterogeneity in the midst of the SAARC states greatly hold back effective
regional co-operation in South Asia. The political
issues are not in attendance in SAARC schedule. It is the most vital issue
whose resolution is very smooth mixture obligatory for helpful regional
integration in South Asia. Political diversity
can be seen in relation to:
a)
philosophical values of supremacy;
b)
Issue of confliction ;
c)
opinionated security;
d)
parliamentary system;
e)
potential critics to resist
the regional domination;
f)
menace discernment;
g)
legitimate arrangements and
h)
Attitudes of verdict in
question of honour and security.
Political
interests among the South Asian states are highly diverse. As has been verbatim
earlier, both India and Pakistan are
very big in size and power in comparison with other smaller states. For that
reason their political interest is also different from other member states of
SAARC. Identification of common interests is a very difficult task in the
region. For the above
mentioned reason, they have diversity in their concepts of security also. For
example, India as a core
power of South Asia enunciates a strategic
unity of the region and considers the security of the small regional actors as
integral to its own security. It considers the latter to be the exclusive
strategic backyard of India.
On the other hand, the small states tend to perceive India as the main source of
external threat to their security. The
diversity in governmental systems prevailing problems in South
Asia. India and
Sri Lanka
have traditionally practised representative democracy. The Indian experience of
democracy has had stern tests in recent years, since the emergency period of
1975-77; while Sri Lanka
has had to compromise democratic norms more recently as a result of ethnic
crisis. The two are even so considered relative success stories among Third World democracies. Pakistan
and Bangladesh,
particularly the latter, have in the beginning of the 1990s witnessed sweeping
democratic transition in their domestic scenario. However, in a longer term
perspective, both of these countries have always been swinging between military
dominance in politics and democratic experimentation. Nepal’s
transition to democracy is also perceived yet to be firmly rooted. Bhutan has
been striving to retain the authority of monarchy as the dominant institution,
while the Maldives has been practising one-party rule and in due sense variance
in classes of people is manifested in values and principles pursued in
governance and statecraft. The Indian political system is professedly a blend
of democracy, socialism and secularism, though these lofty ideals have remained
far from fully translated into reality. Most significant is the recent trend
towards increased influence of Hindu fundamentalism in Indian politics. Bangladesh
started off with more or less same principles as the fundamentals in
statecraft, but it later changed course towards increasing influence of
religion, an issue on which a national consensus has yet to emerge. Pakistan has Islam as the basis of its political
system, while the Maldives
is an Islamic society with relatively less influence of religion in politics. Nepal remains under Hindu influence whilst Bhutan and Sri Lanka are Buddhist societies.
The
conflict as has been created strategically among the South Asian states is
diverse too and as such the nature of the conflict between India and Sri Lankan is different from that of
the conflict between India
and Bangladesh, Pakistan or Nepal. Some conflicts are ethnic,
others are religious, location or border related. For this reason India’s insistence on bilateralism gets
priority, and India
takes advantages of settlement of those conflicts as per its wishes. One
important dimension of the conflict is that all are Indo-centric. Pakistan has accepted the superior military
strength of India;
it has shown no readiness to curtail its freedom of action as an independent
state. Although Bangladesh
has limited scope of independence, for Nepal
and Bhutan
it is more difficult to resist or say anything
at all about such regional security doctrine. For example, Sri Lanka failed to resist Indian hegemonic
attitude when in 1977 the Jayewardene government opted for a free-market
economy, making Sri Lanka
increasingly receptive to western capital and technology. At that time the
relationship with Pakistan
improved dramatically. The Jayewardene government virtually tried to distance
itself from India.
India then took the
opportunity of the Tamil separatist issue to put pressure on Sri Lanka.
Apart from sheltering and arming the Tamil militants, the Indian ruling class
blew out of proportion some of the features of Sri
Lanka’s relationship with United
States and Pakistan. India cannot apply this type of hegemonic
attitude towards Pakistan
There are differences in objectives in
respect of SAARC among the South Asian countries. SAARC is indeed a facility
and an opening for Nepal and
Bhutan
to maintain close relations with their South Asian neighbours. Above all, it
has been perceived by the smaller members as a source of peace and stability in
the region. For these small states these contacts and frequent interaction
provide a means for generating mutual self-belief and understanding, which may
help in the resolution of bilateral problems and in creating harmony. Such
harmony could also, in due course, narrow down the prevailing strategic
divergence among SAARC members. Unlike the other members, Pakistan has
been cautious in expanding institutional and developmental aspects of SAARC.
Its objective was to put a stop to India’s presence and influence at
the same time to expand its interaction with all the other SAARC countries. Pakistani
representatives have sought to use the SAARC forum for disseminating their
specific policy proposals aimed at thwarting India.
For India,
SAARC has been both a challenge as well as
an opportunity. The challenge has lain in the collective pressures of
the neighbours, and the opportunity in the possibilities of making the
neighbours look inward, into the region, for their developmental and security
needs. India
has pursued a two-pronged strategy to advance its regional objectives through
SAARC. One has been to gradually push the expansion and deepening of the
Integrated Programme of Action so as to cover
core economic areas like trade, industry and finance. The idea was to
expand and consolidate infrastructure and social linkages at various levels among
South Asian countries and to create a basis for interdependence. This in the
long run could weaken the centrifugal tendencies of its neighbours and thus
narrow down the divergence towards SAARC’s ties with other regional
organizations. The inflow of foreign funds in the organization supported these
long- term objectives. The other aspect of India’s strategy has been to evolve
consensus in SAARC on international economic and political issues. Such
consensus would strengthen India’s
own bargaining position in international forum. This competitive game and
diversity in objectives may help to sustain SAARC but is not congenial for
effective regional integration.
There
are diversities in threat perceptions among the South Asian states. For
example, the presence of a superpower in the Indian Ocean
draws more fire from some South Asian neighbours than others. Practically,
threat perceptions in South Asia seem to be
quite a mixed issue. The smaller members of the community fear India,
and some of the South Asian states are concerned about American interests in
the region. China figures as
a possible threat in the Indian calculations, but China is uniformly absent from the
threat perceptions of most of the other South Asian states. These differences
in perception and response point to the absence of any kind of a regional
outlook on defence issues. For this reason different military capabilities have
emerged in the South Asian region, which is in no way congenial for effective
regional integration.
There
is diversity in constitutional arrangements among South Asian states. For
example, India and Pakistan have
provincial government, but others lack these. It takes much time in India to ratify
a treaty which as a consequence of having provincial governments. For smaller
states it is very easy to get approval from their parliaments. Sometime in India central
government’s willingness is not sufficient to solve a problem without the help
of provincial government and the Indian Supreme Court. Sometimes this
time-consuming system creates mistrust amongst smaller treaty partners. This
situation is also not congenial for effective regional integration in South Asia. Different attitudes among the ruling elite’s
is further factor that hinders effective
regional integration in South Asia. For
example, since 1971 the Indian ruling elite has gradually realised that if outside powers could be excluded from the
region, there would not be a single state in South Asia to challenge India
either diplomatically or militarily, or both. On the other hand, the elite’s of
Sri Lanka and Nepal have an
attitude to seek assistance from extra-regional powers. In Pakistan and
to some extent in Bangladesh,
the ruling elite’s hold anti-Indian attitudes. They frequently express and use
those attitudes in their policies and politics.
The
disproportionate size of the market appears to be one of the most important
obstacles to the expansion of trade in South Asia.
India
is a great economic power in the region. It accounts for 59 percent of the
import market, 62 percent of the export earnings, 41 percent the external
reserves, 79 percent of industrialized value added and 68 percent of mechanized
exports. In terms of exportable commodities, India owns over 5,600 commodities
to export. Only Pakistan,
which has about 4000 commodities, comes next in South Asia.
Nevertheless, Pakistan is no
match to India
in industrial development and size of the market. But the positions of other
smaller members of SAARC in this regard are not same.
In
view of the above, it is evident that the horror of Indian economic supremacy
over the economies of the smaller countries is a barrier to trade co-operation
in South Asia. India’s
economic ascendancy is reproduced in its trade imbalance with almost all the
countries of South Asia, except Pakistan.
In 1992, India exported US$
258 million to Bangladesh,
US$5 million to Maldives,
US$ 85 million to Nepal, US$
47 million to Pakistan, US$
192 million to Sri Lanka.
In the same year, India
imported US$ 5 from Bangladesh,
US$ 21 million from Nepal,
US$ 149 million from Pakistan
and US$ 13 million from Sri
Lanka. The strong industrial base,
technological development and its comparatively restricted market have given India a predominant position in South Asia. The spill-over effects of the fear of India’s
economic domination is also reflected in its neighbour’s psyche. For instance,
it is noticeable in the statement of a Pakistani psychoanalyst, who alleged:
‘It will be more apposite to say that Pakistan
is not willing to have unregulated trade with India without adequate safeguards
for its indigenous industries and comparatively high-wage labour force.’ If
passable safeguarding measures that are incorporated in the South Asian
Preferential Trading understanding for least developed members are not properly
applied to them, the lopsided size of the market may generate the imbalance
basis of trade among the South Asian countries.