Commentary/Mani Shankar Aiyar
The co-opting of Tamil Nadu in a delicate foreign-cum-domestic policy operation
in Sri Lanka was wisdom itself
Gujral's third major achievement has been at the SAARC foreign
ministers meeting in New Delhi last December, at which SAARC
was persuaded to agree that co-operation need not only be pursued
at the pan-regional level but might also be pursued at the sub-regional
level. This is a considerable achievement because while India
shares land or sea borders with each of her South Asian neighbours,
virtually none of the other SAARC countries has a common border
with any other SAARC country (the exception being the sea boundary
between Sri Lanka and the Maldives).
While, therefore, there are
some things that the region as a whole ought to be doing all together,
there are many other things which it makes more sense to do on
a sub-regional or bilateral basis.
The greatest potential for economic co-operation in our region
lies not, in fact, in pan-SAARC co-operation but sub-regional co-operation
extending to neighbouring countries outside the region. Thus,
the development of India's North-East can best be undertaken in conjuction
with Bangladesh, Myanmar and possibly China. Chittagong, nor
Calcutta, provides the obvious sea-route to and from our North-East.
Equally, the Bay of Bengal, which now divides South Asia from
South-East Asia, could become, by way of a Bay of Bengal community,
the bridge between the littoral states of the bay, including Bangladesh,
the western sea-board of India, Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia, and
the least the island of Sumatra in Indonesia, plus, of course
Sri Lanka and, possibly, the Maldives.
In the north-west, the energy problems of India and Pakistan can
only be resolved by sub-regional co-operation that includes the
two countries, Afghanistan and the ring of natural-gas-rich countries
surrounding the sub-region: Iran, Turkmenistan, possibly Kazakhstan,
and extending westwards to Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia and, Inshallah
(InshClinton?), Iraq one day. By making sub-regional co-operation
an integral part of pan regional co-operation under SAARC, Gujral
has opened vast vistas -- of which he himself is possibly unaware.
And the fourth feather in Gujral's cap is Sri Lanka. The advent
of Chandrika Kumaratunga and her very suave foreign minister,
Lakshman Kadirgamar (president, Oxford Union -- and, therefore,
to be trusted!), had of course, set the stage some time ago. Gujral
was wise in stopping off in Madras to chat up Karunanidhi before
going on to Colombo. As there was no particular agreement to sign
in Colombo, it was not necessary to send Karunanidhi on a prior
mine-sweeping operation, as with Basu in Bangladesh, but the co-opting
of Tamil Nadu in a delicate foreign-cum-domestic policy operation
in Sri Lanka was wisdom itself.
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