Reclaiming SAARC from the Ashes of 2020

Context: Thirty-six years after it first began, South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) appears to be all but dead in the water.

Challenges to SAARC:

• Indo-Pakistan conflict: India’s problems with Pakistan on terrorism, territorial claims and on its role in blocking SAARC initiatives on connectivity and trade hinders the collective action.
  • India did not attend a virtual SAARC summit hosted by Pakistan, which would allow the South Asian process to move forward.
• Impact of a pandemic: leading to a growing distaste for ‘globalisation’ of trade, reduced travel and migration, growing preference for nativism, self­dependence and localising supply chains.
• China’s challenge: Tensions with Pakistan and Nepal amplify the threat perception from China, while other SAARC members (minus Bhutan), are already a part of Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
  • China has continued to push its way into South Asia, as several statistical indicators for investment, trade, tourism and South Asian student preferences for universities.
  • Apart from sending medicines, personal protective equipment kits, and promising vaccines to most SAARC countries as part of its “Health Silk Road” initiative.

Factors Necessitating Revival of SAARC:

• Events in 2020: The novel coronavirus pandemic and China’s aggression at the Line of Actual Control (LAC) shone a new spotlight on this mechanism.
• India-China conflict: While China’s incursions in Ladakh and the Galwan killings happened, India did not decline to attend meetings with the Chinese leadership at the SCO, the Russia­India­China trilateral, the G­20 and others.

• To Counter Pandemic-Caused Common Challenges: South Asia’s unique experience of the pandemic needs to be studied further in order to counter future pandemics and common challenges like  - 
  • Distribution of vaccines and trials needed for vaccines and developing cold storage chains.

• • Pandemic induced economic crisis

• • • Global job cuts leading to a 22% fall in revenue for migrant labour and expatriates from South Asian countries.
    • Expected loss of about 10.77 million jobs and US$ 52.32 billion in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the tourism sector alone.

• • Sense of collectiveness: World Bank reports that have reported losses have all suggested that South Asian countries work as a collective to set standards for labour from the region,

• • • This helps in promoting a more intra­regional, transnational approach towards tourism - 
    • For E.g. the ‘East Africa Single Joint Visa’ system, or similar joint tourism initiatives like in the Mekong region or the Caribbean islands.

• Acting as the ‘Goldilocks’: Despite protectionism, regional initiatives will become the “Goldilocks option” (not too hot/not too cold), or a happy medium between globalisation and hyper-nationalism.
  • While there are a number of regional agreements present (MERCOSUR, USMCA, TPP, RCEP), India is the only party to one – South Asian Free Trade Area, or SAFTA under the SAARC.