Introduction

The making or unmaking of a regional organization is a function of politics and the dynamics of that particular region's international relations. Mohammed Ayoob, at the outset of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), argued that ‘the primacy of the political’ would determine the outcome of regionalism in South Asia and the following factors would play a crucial role in this context: (1) a common threat perception; (2) a common foreign policy orientation; (3) similar political ideologies; and (4) a consensus about the role of the pivotal regional power. He held a pessimistic outlook about the future of regional cooperation in South Asia based on his analysis of the four political variables and a comparative study of regionalism contextualizing the European Union (EU), the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). He concluded:

After three and a half decades, it appears that Ayoob could not have been more accurate. As posited in the Introduction and the analysis in the following chapters will make it clear that while SAARC started with much hope and the organization has achieved some tangible and intangible successes, it has largely failed to deliver the expected substantive material benefit.

Therefore, it is arguable that the state of political relations of the regional states and their security perceptions, foreign policy behaviour, political ideologies and the ‘India factor’ have shaped the evolution of SAARC in the past three and a half decades. Given such a context, the key aim of this chapter is to provide an overview of South Asia's international relations since 1947 and illustrates its key patterns and the determining factors. Such an analysis will pave the way for explaining the rise of the regionalist project in South Asia, its evolution, outcomes and effects.

Introduction

The proposal for the establishment of a regional organization for cooperation in South Asia, similar to that of South East Asia, was initiated by Bangladesh in the late 1970s. After several years of informal and semi-formal diplomacy led by Bangladesh, the ‘South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation’ (SAARC) was formally launched at the first ever summit of the seven South Asian states – Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka – in Dhaka in December 1985. Before the creation of SAARC, there were previous initiatives for regional cooperation, as briefly noted in the preceding chapter, which were pan-Asian in geographical scope and had different ideological orientations, aims and objectives. These initiatives went awry because Asian states could not agree on their structures, aims, modalities and ideological orientations. Subsequently, regionalism in Asia emerged along sub-regional lines; that is South East Asia, South Asia and so on, and with narrower focus and scope. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) was the first such initiative, which was launched by signing the Bangkok Treaty in 1967. SAARC is also a product of this evolutionary process of Asian regionalism.

The establishment of a regional organization is essentially a political project. Generally, economic integration is presented as the key rationale for the creation of a regional body. It is posited here that notwithstanding its goals and rationale, it is politics that drives regionalism and the establishment of a regional organization. In the context of SAARC, it is, therefore, essential to explain the political subtext that drove its formation (and its evolution as will be illustrated in the following chapters). The analysis in this chapter is presented from such a standpoint.

Arguably, three sets of factors are significant to explain the rise of a regional organization. The first set relates to the role of international systemic forces, which function in accordance with the structure of the international system. Second, the regional attributes and the structure of a regional system are significant in the rise and the evolution of a regional grouping. Third, the socio-economic profile of a region and the regional states generally forms the basis of the formation of a regional organization.

Introduction

Bangladesh, after pursuing several years of informal and semi-formal diplomacy for regional cooperation, formally approached the six South Asian states (Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka) to establish an ‘ASEAN-like’ association in South Asia in May 1980. In response to the proposal, the six South Asian states asked Bangladesh to prepare a working paper on regional cooperation. The Bangladesh government in November 1980 circulated a draft document, entitled ‘A Paper on the Proposal for Regional Cooperation in South Asia’. Afterwards, a series of meetings of foreign secretaries and foreign ministers took place in which various aspects of the organization and probable areas of cooperation were worked out. This initial process was culminated into the formal launching of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) at the first ever summit of the seven South Asian states in Dhaka in December 1985. Following it, various initiatives were undertaken to consolidate the modalities of SAARC, which roughly continued until 1992. The period from 1980 to 1992 is conceived as the ‘formative phase’ of the body. The organization strived to find a direction, identify probable areas of cooperation and build an institutional structure during this period.

Notwithstanding inherent tension and reservations expressed by the regional states when the idea was mooted, as discussed in the preceding chapter, they agreed to establish SAARC in the mid-1980s. There was the initial excitement that the organization would deliver concrete benefits to the member states and create a peaceful regional environment. A rapid expansion of the agenda of cooperation could be evidenced in the initial years following the formal launching of the body. SAARC also concluded several important conventions to deal with the pressing issues of the region during this period. A permanent secretariat was established in 1987 in Kathmandu for the coordination of SAARC's activities.

While the activities and the expanding agenda of cooperation reflected the potential of the organization, an undercurrent of tension within the grouping did continue. As discussed in the preceding chapter, the preliminary interactions and exchanges to build SAARC revealed strong mutual mistrust and inherent tension among the regional states owing to a variety of reasons. The smaller states of the region initially had two apparently contradictory perspectives about the association.

Introduction

Beyond SAARC, sub-regional and trans-regional initiatives to foster economic cooperation represent two other dimensions of regionalism in South Asia. The politics behind the rise of sub-regionalism and transregionalism is significant because of their implications for SAARC. Arguably, they may be viewed either as complementary or dilutional to SAARC-led regionalism. Initiatives such as the South Asian Growth Quadrangle (SAGQ) or the BBIN (Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Nepal) initiative grew within the context of SAARC. Theoretically, there could be other growth triangles or quadrangles within SAARC, such as a growth triangle comprising Afghanistan, India and Pakistan in western South Asia or another one comprising India, the Maldives and Sri Lanka in the southern part of the region. Such initiatives can be viewed complementary to SAARC-centred regionalism.

On the other hand, the Bangladesh, China, India and Myanmar Economic Corridor (BCIM-EC) and the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) are trans-regional initiatives to foster closer economic relations among the member states, which are different from the sub-regional bodies noted previously because they include states beyond the traditionally defined boundary of the South Asian region. Two key questions arise from this. What do they imply to regionalism conceived in SAARC? Are they complementary or dilutional to SAARC-centric regionalism?

This chapter has two key objectives. First, it explores the origins, aims and objectives, structures and dynamics of those sub-regional and trans-regional initiatives. Second, it illustrates their implications for SAARC-centred regionalism.

The South Asian Growth Quadrangle

Inspired by the success of the growth triangles in South East Asia, some South Asian states sought to take similar initiatives within SAARC in the 1990s to spur economic growth and reap benefits of greater economic interdependence. The SAGQ in eastern South Asia is such a sub-regional body within SAARC comprising Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Nepal which was approved by the SAARC Council of Ministers at a meeting in May 1996 in Male, the capital of the Maldives, and then it was formally endorsed at the 9th SAARC summit in April 1997.

Introduction

SAARC moved to a new phase in the early 1990s by undertaking efforts for regional integration and starting cooperation in core economic areas such as trade in goods and services, investment, finance and so on. While ‘intra-regional trade was earlier not included within the area of cooperation of SAARC, mainly due to the political overtones’, with the dawn of the 1990s it was apparent that the organization would need to move cooperation from functional areas to the core economic areas if SAARC was to be viable and deliver substantive benefit to the people of South Asia. At the Male summit in 1990, the SAARC leaders made the ‘in principle’ decision to move the regional cooperation to core economic areas. The first substantive step in this regard was taken in 1993 with the signing of the SAARC Preferential Trading Arrangement (SAPTA), thus opening a new chapter in the evolution of SAARC. The agreement was characterized as a ‘significant achievement’. The trading arrangement was upgraded by the conclusion of the South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA) agreement in 2004, which by historical measure was an ambitious economic plan for the region. In the meantime, SAARC added new areas in the agenda of cooperation.

Initiating cooperation in core economic areas essentially meant a transformation from neo-functionalism to ‘peace through trade, economic and financial cooperation’. While neo-functionalism as a framework of cooperation was not abandoned, cooperation in core economic areas certainly signalled an upgraded stage of regionalism in South Asia, which should be a natural process in its evolution. Indeed, cooperation (or lack of it) in core economic areas primarily defined the character of the organization after 1992.

Notwithstanding the ambitious programme SAARC adopted during the second phase of its evolution, this period also experienced disagreements and differences. This became vividly evident when SAARC failed to implement the SAFTA by the stipulated time that it set when the agreement was signed. The free trade agreement was meant to be fully functional by 2016; the member states not only failed to meet the deadline, but also the SAARC summit in November that year was cancelled due to political discord between India and Pakistan.

The 19th summit of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) was scheduled to take place in November 2016 in Islamabad, Pakistan's capital, but it was postponed due to tense bilateral relations between the two most powerful members of the organization – India and Pakistan. Although more than three years have passed since then, the summit is yet to be rescheduled due to the same reason for which the 2016 meeting was cancelled. As no visible sign of improvement in strained Indo–Pakistani relations is visible, the summit is unlikely to take place in the foreseeable future. And, even if the summit is rescheduled, it is unlikely that SAARC will be as effective as those of other regional organizations, that is the European Union (EU) and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), unless fundamental changes occur in the region's international relations.

Except for a few low-level functions at the SAARC secretariat in Kathmandu, the organization is largely stagnant now. Since 2016, the regional body has not undertaken any substantive work to advance regional cooperation for which it was created. Indeed, the postponement of summits in the past is only one manifestation of its shortcomings – there are many other failings, as will be discussed in this book, which have prompted observers to raise questions about the relevance and the future of SAARC.

Joining the global trend for regionalism, seven countries in South Asia – Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka – launched a regional organization (the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) in 1985. Since its inception, three and a half decades have passed; while it has accrued some intangible and lowlevel tangible benefits, it has yet to deliver substantive, visible material benefits to the people of the region. Most importantly, it has yet to realize the goals that were set out at its inception. SAARC has grown consistently over the years by extending its scope for cooperation, which gives an impression that it is a vibrant and successful regional institution. However, a careful assessment would indicate that its achievements, as one observer has put it, are mostly ‘on paper’.

This study has explored the politics of regionalism in South Asia. It has illustrated the politics of its origins and evolution by following a ‘process-tracing’ approach in which it has explained the causal mechanisms of its evolution and analysed its processes, events, actions, expectations and other intervening variables that linked putative causes to observed effects. It has also analysed the outcome and effects of regionalism in South Asia. To contextualize the study, it is developed against the background of the place of regionalism and regional international relations in world politics. South Asian regionalism was developed as a consequence of the development of regionalism in other parts of the world. It can be located in the evolutionary process of regionalism in the greater Asian region. As this study is essentially informed by the scholarship of IR, it has tested the key theoretical claims of the mainstream IR theories about regionalism in which it is claimed that neo-realism is good at explaining the origins of regionalism, neo-liberal institutionalism is apt at explaining its process and outcome, and constructivism provides insights about the effects of regional cooperation.

The study in Chapter 1 explored the regional international relations of South Asia and illustrated its key trends and patterns from 1947 to date. This chapter laid the foundation for the analysis of the politics of regionalism in South Asia in the subsequent chapters. Arguably, the establishment of a regional organization is a political project and its dynamics are essentially determined by the patterns of interstate relationships in the given region. As illustrated, a pattern of conflict has been the dominant feature of South Asia's international relations since decolonization and the rise of independent states. More specifically, the enduring rivalry between India and Pakistan has shaped the dynamics of the region's international relations. As analysed in Chapter 6, the proliferation of differences and disagreements within SAARC that eventually stalled its activities with the cancellation of the 19th summit in Islamabad in 2016 was due to Indo–Pakistani politico-strategic discord.

The study in Chapter 2 illustrated the contested nature of defining a ‘region’. Arguably, what constitutes a ‘South Asia region’ is a difficult question. Is it a geographic entity with a fixed boundary? Or, is it a changeable phenomenon?

Introduction

Being inspired primarily by the success of the European Union (EU) and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Bangladesh's late president General Ziaur Rahman took the initiative of establishing an ‘ASEAN-like’ regional organization in South Asia in the late 1970s. The Bangladeshi leader formally wrote to his South Asian counterparts on the issue in May 1980 and dispatched a working paper on regional cooperation in November of that year. The Bangladesh government's vigorous informal and semi-formal diplomacy paved the way for the holding of the first meeting of the foreign secretaries of the seven South Asian states in 1981 in Colombo to discuss the Bangladeshi proposal. They agreed to work together on this and hold further meetings in the future. The foreign secretaries held four more exploratory meetings before the discussion moved to the political level and the foreign ministers of the seven South Asian states held their first meeting in August 1983 in New Delhi in which they adopted the declaration of ‘South Asian Regional Cooperation’ (SARC). The foreign ministers also adopted the ‘Integrated Programme of Action’ (IPA) at this meeting with a set of areas agreed upon for cooperation. After several rounds of foreign ministers’ meetings, the first ever summit of South Asian states took place in December 1985 in Dhaka in which they adopted the Charter of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), thus formally launching the organization.

There was enthusiasm all around about the potential of SAARC when it was launched. As one of the poorest regions of the world and with low per capita income and standard of living, it was thought that the organization would elevate millions out of poverty and push towards better living standards. Also, it was expected that economic integration and interdependence would contribute to the rise of a peaceful regional environment leaving behind its traditional conflictual past. To lead the region towards that path, the SAARC leaders adopted, following the early pathway of European regionalism, the neo-functional approach for regional cooperation.

Introduction

Defining ‘region’ in IR is controversial. Some scholars emphasize geographical proximity while others give importance to the cognitive and ideational factors, yet a third group seeks to combine the two perspectives to define a region. Earlier studies on region and regionalism generally highlighted geographical proximity as an essential criterion of a region. Today, many scholars also posit that ‘a region is firmly rooted in territorial space: a group of people living in a geographically bounded community, controlling a certain set of natural resources, and united through a certain set of cultural values and common bonds of social order forged by history’. Region-ness, these scholars argue, is ‘the convergence of several dimensions’ such as ‘cultural affinity, political regimes, security arrangements and economic policies’, which generates ‘regional coherence within a particular geographic area’. The spatial factor is also considered important in contemporary studies on economic regionalism in which it is argued that economic regionalism primarily hinges ‘on the importance of geographic proximity’. Hence, ‘Geography’, as a scholar has concluded, ‘should not … be dismissed outright as a starting point for identification of regions’.

Many scholars, however, find the essentialist, conventional view of defining a region primarily based on the ‘geographic proximity’ factor problematic because it presupposes an objective, static phenomenon, which ignores the dynamics of social and political forces. Scholars belonging to the constructivist school of thought, in particular, dismiss geographic proximity as a critical factor and define region in nonphysical terms. They argue, countries sharing a communal identity comprise a region regardless of their location. According to Acharya, ‘regions are not a geographic given, but are socially constructed, made and remade through interactions’. Peter J. Katzenstein similarly maintains that regions’ ‘geographic designations are not “real”, “natural” or “essential”, they are socially constructed and politically contested and thus open to change’.

A third group of scholars seeks to combine the two perspectives and argues that members of a common region generally share cultural, economic, linguistic and political ties. Kym Anderson and Hege Norheim have noted that ‘while there is no ideal definition [of a region], pragmatism would suggest basing the definition on the major continents and subdividing them somewhat according to a combination of cultural, language, religious, and stage-ofdevelopment criteria’.

Introduction

As discussed in the Introduction, three theoretical approaches are generally employed from the standpoint of IR to explain the origin, process, outcome and effect of regionalism. Neo-realism is considered to be apt in explaining the origins of regionalism. This explanation is particularly drawn by examining the cases of regionalism in Europe and South East Asia in which it is argued that bipolar rivalry and the influence of US power and support helped to establish the EU and ASEAN. Neo-liberal institutionalism is generally viewed as the applicable explanatory framework for the process and outcome of regional integration. This theoretical approach has been aptly applied to explain the dynamics and the process of European integration and ASEAN regionalism. Theorists have generally employed the constructivist framework to explain the effects of regionalism. In this context too, the cases of Europe and South East Asia have been closely studied and the constructivist insights have been aptly used.

This chapter aims to assess whether these theoretical insights can be used in the case of South Asian regionalism. While looking at South Asia's integration experience from such a standpoint, this chapter also seeks to assess the general applicability of the three mainstream IR theories, which are essentially Western-oriented in nature, in the context of South Asia or broadly the non-Western world. The analysis here is developed in view of the debate about a ‘Global IR’, which has emerged recently in IR theorizing.

This chapter is divided into two sections. First, it analyses the utility of the three mainstream perspectives – neo-realism, neo-liberal institutionalism and constructivism – in analysing the origin, process, outcome and effect of South Asian regionalism. Second, it assesses the implications of the analyses of the first section for IR in general and seeks to contribute in the debate about a ‘Global IR’.

International relations theories and South Asian Regionalism

This sub-section analyses the origin, process and the outcome of South Asian regionalism in light of IR theoretical insights. The following is an analysis on: (1) whether the origin of South Asian regionalism can be explained in terms of neo-realism; (2) whether the insights of neo-liberal institutionalism can be used to explain the process and outcome of South Asian regionalism; and (3) whether constructivism is apt in explaining the effects of South Asian regional cooperation.