The Hindu : DOMESTIC COMPULSIONS

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jan 23, 2004

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DOMESTIC COMPULSIONS

PRIME MINISTER ATAL Bihari Vajpayee's preoccupations with the snap general election have resulted in his putting off a scheduled visit to Thailand for what would have been the first summit of the Bangladesh-India-Myanmar-Sri Lanka-Thailand Economic Cooperation forum, slated for February 8 and 9. Mr. Vajpayee's planned bilateral visit to Australia after that has also been called off. With a mini-session of Parliament called for the first week of February and a vote-on-account on the cards, the stage appears set for the dissolution of the Lok Sabha, perhaps by February 6. Mr. Vajpayee may not have wanted to attend a summit of leaders as a caretaker Prime Minister and therefore called his Thailand counterpart, Thaksin Shinawatra, to brief him about the "domestic preoccupations" and the need to put off the meeting. The postponement is a clear setback for sub-regional cooperation at a critical juncture.

After languishing for six long years for want of a push from the member-States, this summit seemed to be just the springboard it needed to take off. At one point of time, India was looking at BIMST-EC as an alternative to the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) that had bogged down because of bilateral problems between India and Pakistan. Now, with a SAARC summit going off smoothly this month in Islamabad, it is ironical that a BIMST-EC summit had to be postponed. This forum is seen not only as a link between South Asia and South East Asia, but also as a model for sub-regional cooperation. It has the potential to build a strong Bay of Bengal community that could be of strategic importance to India. With Nepal and Bhutan also expected to join before long, it could mean the entire South Asia minus Pakistan connecting with Myanmar and Thailand, which are members of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN). On top of the agenda for the derailed summit were the establishment of transport linkages, promotion of tourism, energy cooperation and facilitation of free trade — important issues that should benefit all member-states. Transport links hold the key to the future and there are concrete proposals for both highway and rail links. A rail link to Myanmar could be the beginning of the ambitious trans-Asia Railway that should ultimately lead to Central Asia. India's Northeastern States, the gateway to South East Asia, would have benefited significantly from this enhanced cooperation and trade with the neighbours.

Over the years India's attempts to float viable, economic-oriented regional trade blocs have not been very successful. The inability of SAARC to get on with an ambitious economic cooperation agenda can be traced to political differences between its two major member-states. But New Delhi's efforts to form a larger, pan-Asian Indian Ocean Rim Association for Regional Cooperation have also made no headway. Though the Group of 15 exercise, involving developing economies from Asia, Africa and Latin America, has got off to a start, there have been teething problems and India's Prime Minister has not been able to attend all its summits. Of course, there are bound to be genuine problems and domestic crises that can keep Prime Ministers out of such meetings. But it probably calls for more careful planning so that the domestic calendar does not impinge on foreign commitments and initiatives, especially those that are vital for regional cooperation and development.

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