Subhash Chopra

Subhash Chopra is a freelance journalist.- He began his journalistic career at The Indian Express, New Delhi. After about four years on the reporting and editing staff of the Express, he left for Britain where he worked on newspapers up and down the country for about 25 years, including The Times, London, at its business news desk. He also had a year's spell as Publications Editor, Commonwealth Secretariat, London. In India, besides working for The Indian Express, New Delhi and Madras, he worked as Associate Editor, The National Herald, and Asian News International, the print and television news agency, looking after its scripts for Reuters and other feeds and the print service for newspapers. He has been freelancing since leaving ANI and commutes between New Delhi and London. His publications include a much acclaimed and insightful analysis of Indo British relationship called India and Britannia – an abiding affair.

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SAARC –First steps from talking shop to action hub

The two-day 14th summit of the eight member countries of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation with Afghanistan as the newest member concluded on April 4 this year in New Delhi on an optimistic, even euphoric, note. Perhaps it had a bit of extra justification than previous summits in view of the decisions to set up a common food bank , a South Asian Development Fund with a definable initial corpus of $300 million and a concrete unilateral Indian step allowing imports from SAARC’s least developed member countries on a zero duty basis without any reciprocity requirement.

The summit declaration of the eight participating heads of state or government acknowledged through these and other decisions the urgent need to move from “declaratory to implementation phase.” Whether SAARC’s transition or transformation from a 22-year-old talking shop to a delivery group is actually achieved only the next few months or years (not more than two till the next summit) will tell.

The declaration had other laudable aims and targets in sight too, namely the setting up of a South Asian university in India with likely campuses in all other member countries, an action plan for the protection of environment, and a recognition of the need of “expediting development of conventional (sic) sources of energy in a sustainable manner and for strengthening renewable energy development such as in hydro power, bio-fuel, solar and wind.”

On the trade front the eight leaders in their declaration called for the implementation of the SAFTA ( South Asian Free trade Agreement ) “in letter and spirit.” Successful implementation of SAFTA, they recognised, “will catalyse other areas of regional economic cooperation” and to realise its full potential “SAFTA should integrate trade in services” at the earliest.

The importance of SAFTA and free flow of trade in the region cannot be overemphasised as one recent World Bank report suggested free trade within the region could easily touch $9 billion mark and unleash huge benefits all round.

Unfortunately there remains a stubborn gap between hopes and actions. And no single country can be entirely blamed for it. There are national compulsions, political and economic, which cannot be wished away. Pakistan’s well-known Kashmir-linked refusal to grant MFN (Most Favoured Nation) trading status to India despite India having given that status to Pakistan years ago is just one example.

Pakistan’s current inability to sort out its trade links with new SAARC member Afghanistan is again a political reality, hopefully to be resolved sooner than later. Once such a resolution is evolved land trade route to Afghanistan for India and other members could also unleash Afghanistan’s potential as facilitator of SAARC’s trade with Central Asian economies. Bilateral dialogues, such as between Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistan Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz or between the latter and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, will no doubt help iron out differences but till that happens SAFTA and its promise of regional prosperity must remain hostage to politics.

Underlining the need for road, air and other physical connectivity within the region is the expansion of people to people contacts which implies liberalised visa regimes across the region. The leaders’ agreement to allow 50 journalists from each country to travel for work to any member country is a welcome step to reduce the trust deficit that exists between some of the members.

Much greater movement of ideas, information and media and cultural products is the need of the hour and demand of the people. Working for that objective as part of back channel diplomacy, among others, is the South Asia free media Association or SAFMA whose persistent demand for free movement of journalists, newspapers and television programmes and other products across borders has just won easier visa concession for 50 journalists from each member country. Hopefully this is just a start with much more expected from foreign office diplomats of the region.

There is also some movement for a common legal framework for tackling trafficking in drugs, human beings, eventually even terrorism. Spotlight on action for poverty alleviation in the region has evinced welcome unanimity of approach on the issue. Poverty indeed is the common and core issue of the region which has a population of nearly 1.47 billion or a quarter of the world population.

The region also has the largest pool of people below the poverty line (BPL), nearly 25 per cent of the total at a conservative guess based on various official estimates which are notoriously non-credible. More than half of the region’s BPL people live in rural areas and are battling literally for subsistence, quite unlike European or American poor who suffer from huge inequalities rather than from lack of two square meals. The death of about 20 pensioners due to intense heat last summer in New York was regretted but attributed by the civic authorities to failure by the pensioners to switch on their air-conditioners – not the lack of equipment for survival!

In sharp contrast poverty in South Asia has its own definition and meaning. Lack of micro-credit for people below poverty line is the core issue of the region and unfortunately not enough attention ha been paid to the issue over the last 22 years of the existence of SAARC. Nor is it because of lack of a way out of this darkness. The success of Bangladesh’s Grameen Bank pioneered by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus has shown the way out of the morass of poverty.

Lot of lip service has been paid to the Yunus model but no concrete reform of the lending system has been undertaken. The old style Western or World Bank commercial lending system must be jettisoned if the poorest of the poor have to be helped. The Yunus model has no place for the compound interest lending system which has often led to suicides or worse – bonded slavery not unknown despite all legal banning. Nor does it demand any collateral. Repayment of a thousand rupee (a little over $20 dollars) loan can never go beyond double the original thousand rupees. And the beauty of this micro credit model is that there are virtually no defaulters. Over 98 per cent of the borrowers honour their debt.

Not until the regional leadership can create a Yunus-style micro credit system for the below poverty line people of member countries can SAARC do anything meaningful for its peoples. Perhaps a start can be made with half of the new South Asian Development Fund being reserved for the BPL borrowers who own less than two hectares of land and have no collateral. Spread of such micro credit banking among member countries may sound a tall order. Nothing short will do if SAARC is to show some collective leadership.

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