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The sole neighbour
- The 17th summit of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation in Maldives this week happens at a rather opportune moment for India.
- For the first time in years, Delhi’s bilateral relations with most of its immediate neighbours are on the mend and have set a very different stage for annual regional consultations.
- While Delhi’s engagement with Islamabad is based on hope, ties with Dhaka are now driven by a shared commitment to resolve all outstanding bilateral political issues, deepen economic cooperation and build an enduring partnership.
- India’s trade and investment ties, as well as political and security cooperation, with Sri Lanka and Maldives are growing.
- India has every reason to celebrate Bhutan’s democratic transition under the new monarch and encourage the recent moves in Nepal to take the peace process to its logical conclusion.
- India’s engagement with Afghanistan has now been elevated to the level of a formal strategic partnership.
- Regional integration in the subcontinent is not going to come through the pitifully slow multilateral negotiations under SAARC. It can only come through decisive Indian leadership of South Asian regionalism.
- Leadership does not only mean India proposing new ideas for collective consideration and steering them through the painful SAARC process.
- That it is India’s task to lead the region, if necessary through unilateral actions, towards peace and prosperity is defined by its unique location in the subcontinent.
- Put simply, given India’s size and the economic geography of South Asia, Delhi’s national policy decisions would automatically shape the regional environment.
- Outlining a series of national steps that will promote regional integration should be at the heart of his engagement with the South Asian leaders this week.
- These steps could include, for one, further unilateral reduction of tariffs on imports from the neighbouring countries. India enjoys trade surplus with all its neighbours and it is in Delhi’s self-interest to make regional trade fair and beneficial to all.
- Second, India’s many non-tariff barriers to trade with the neighbours are notorious and Dr Singh must announce a plan to dismantle them quickly.
- Third, India must offer an ambitious plan for trade facilitation with its South Asian neighbours. India’s infrastructure for trans-border commerce and connectivity is poorer than most of its neighbours.
- Delhi will help its own border states and the neighbours by unveiling a credible action plan to modernise its border infrastructure.
