SAARC against COVID-19: Flicker of a dying flame?

On March 15, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had a video conference with his counterparts in five of the seven other SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) nations to work out a joint strategy to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic in the region. Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan did not join, but his Special Advisor on Health Affairs, Dr Zafar Mirza, represented him. India set up a SAARC Covid-19 Emergency Fund with an initial contribution of $10 million. Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Bhutan, Maldives and Nepal followed suit. Pakistan also pledged its contribution after much dilly-dallying. The fund now has $21.43 million for the member-nations to use to meet emergency expenses. India sent medical supplies to Sri Lanka, Nepal, Maldives and Bhutan. New Delhi is also putting up an Integrated Disease Surveillance Portal for use by all South Asian nations. The health and trade officials of the SAARC nations also held video-conferences to discuss ways to contain the pandemic and its human and economic impact.

Follow latest updates on the COVID-19 pandemic here

So, is the fight against the pandemic breathing fresh life into the moribund regional grouping?

SAARC has remained in a limbo for almost three-and-a-half years since Modi decided not to attend the group’s 19th summit in November 2016. New Delhi had opted out of the summit to protest a series of terror attacks targeting security forces in India by outfits based in Pakistan. With all the other SAARC nations rallying behind India, Pakistan was forced to postpone the summit indefinitely. The regional organisation has since been in an impasse. With no let-up in tension between New Delhi and Islamabad, it could not reach a consensus on re-convening the 19th summit and end the stalemate. SAARC foreign ministers held meetings on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York in September 2018, but they could not break the impasse.

India has rather been exploring the possibility of developing BIMSTEC (Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation) as an alternative to SAARC. The 7-member BIMSTEC consists of five of the eight SAARC nations – India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bhutan but, most importantly for New Delhi, does not include Pakistan. India has been trying to promote BIMSTEC as the most important neighbourhood forum – not only to pursue regional connectivity and counterterrorism cooperation, but also to project itself as a net security provider in the Bay of Bengal region.

New Delhi surely had some diplomatic considerations in mind when it moved to revive SAARC to fight against Covid-19. Pakistan had launched a propaganda blitzkrieg against India after the Modi government on August 5, 2019, initiated the process to strip Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) of its special status and to reorganise the state into two Union Territories. China had joined the campaign against India, not only in solidarity with its “iron brother” Pakistan but also because it was worried about the implication of Delhi’s move on its own boundary dispute with India. Beijing nudged Kathmandu, too, to raise its pitch to seek expeditious settlement of its territorial dispute with India. The process to update the National Register of Citizens in Assam and the Citizenship (Amendment) Act that the Modi government brought into force in December 2019 upset Bangladesh, which has been one of the friendliest neighbours of India ever since Sheikh Hasina took over as Prime Minister in Dhaka. The violent clashes in North-East Delhi over the new citizenship law triggered protests in Bangladesh and Afghanistan. The return of Mahinda and Gotabaya Rajapaksa to power in Sri Lanka just made it all the more difficult for India to counter China’s bid to spread its tentacles in the Indian Ocean island nation. So, the Modi government saw in the pandemic an opportunity for Delhi to reach out to its neighbours and reassert its leadership in South Asia.

Nepal and Sri Lanka have of late been nudging India to let the summit be re-convened by Pakistan. So, the Modi government’s initiative to mobilise SAARC to deal with the pandemic was in response to that, too. Delhi demonstrated that while it would stick to its stand that “elimination of terrorism in all its forms” was “a precondition” for fruitful cooperation” within the SAARC framework, it would not fail to reach out to its neighbours in a time of crisis.

The fight against Covid-19 undoubtedly gave the 34-year-old regional organisation a new lease of life, but it could well be the proverbial last flicker of a dying flame.

As expected, Delhi’s bid to mobilise SAARC did not go down well with Pakistan. Not only did PM Imran Khan stay away from the virtual summit on March 15, but his representative also misused the forum to raise the issue of Kashmir. Pakistan also boycotted the video-conference the SAARC trade officials had on April 8. It argued that the SAARC secretariat in Kathmandu should administer the emergency fund and spearhead all the initiatives to fight Covid-19 – a plea borne out of the fear that Delhi would use the pandemic to regain its lead role in a rejuvenated SAARC.

Also Read: Coronavirus India update: State-wise total number of confirmed cases, deaths

The pandemic has also not stopped Pakistan’s all-powerful ‘deep state’ from exporting terror to India. The Pakistan Army has been routinely flouting the ceasefire along the Line of Control, resorting to heavy firing to help terrorists cross over to India. On April 5, the Indian Army foiled one such infiltration attempt and gunned down five terrorists at Kupwara in northern Kashmir.

What Pakistan has now clearly demonstrated is that it has no interest in reviving SAARC, unless it can use it as yet another forum to continue its tirade against India.

““The bonds will flow, through SAARC or outside it, among us all or some of us,” Modi had said in the 18th summit of the grouping in Kathmandu in November 2014. The Covid-19 curve will be flattened sooner or later. The pandemic, however, will surely leave behind a trail of destruction. It will leave the global economy in tatters. India should continue to make efforts to take its neighbours in South Asia along on the path of recovery. If Pakistan does not want to be part of this effort, so be it.