Fight Against Coronavirus: Will This Help in the Revival of SAARC?

Prominent European regional integration theorist David Mitrany was critical of the League of Nations (LoN) and said that it collapsed due to inaction. Mitrany was referring to the failure of the LoN to prevent World War – II.  Discarding the federalist approach ingrained in the legal framework of the LoN, Mitrany advocated cooperation in functional areas as a remedy for regional integration. Mitrany was aware of the fact that nation-states wary of their sovereign authority will oppose the idea of pooling sovereignty. However, nation-states may accept such a proposition if it delivers what they intend to achieve but cannot do so without cooperating with others. A Functionalist believes that regional integration is possible if nation-states work together in areas of mutual benefit. Sharing sovereignty for specific gains is not a zero-sum game for a nation. He further defined that functional areas will be technical that allows flexibility of approach; it blurs the distinction between national and international and shall interest both the public and private.  Finally, cooperation in functional areas will have a spillover effect that will further strengthen the regional integration process.

South Asia, unfortunately, is one of the least integrated regions of the world if evaluated in economic and political terms. The regional organisation of South Asia, ie. South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) has failed to invoke a strong sense of regional affinity amongst the political class of the region. Still, it will be wrong to blame SAARC  because in the post-colonial and post-partition South Asia nation-states preferred identity politics over regionalism. In South Asia, nation-states remained busy and engrossed in projecting as how they are different from their neighbours. The dominant political discourses in South Asian countries are about nationalism that stands opposed to regionalism. Obsessed with the idea of uncompromising sovereignty particularly at the regional level, South Asian states even failed to reach to each other in the post-cold war era of globalisation, when redundancy of absolute sovereignty was both theoretically and practically established. 

Notably, SAARC stopped reckoning in South Asia after 2016 when its 19th summit scheduled at Islamabad was cancelled. India, in protest of the Uri terrorist attack, decided to boycott the 2016 SAARC summit. Post-2016, SAARC struggled to move ahead. In short, there was pessimism for SAARC in the last few years, but recently it recurred in the major newspapers of South Asia. The Indian PM Mr. Narendra Modi requested all SAARC countries to join hands to fight Coronavirus. PM Modi invoked SAARC instead referring to select South Asian countries, and it implies an invitation also to Pakistan. The international community is scared of Coronavirus, and at this juncture, regional cooperation is desirable.

Every South Asian state is keen on containing the spread of COVID-19. India too is under stress but containing Coronavirus in South Asia is in Indian interest. India has open borders with some of the South Asian countries, and whatever precautions one takes, it will  remain insufficient if neighbours are not cured properly. As proven time and again, pandemics know no borders. A COVID -19 free South Asia is therefore necessary for India.   People everywhere are worried about the spread of Coronavirus, mainly due to the lack of any specific medicine and procedure to cure COVID-19. In such a scenario, any regional initiative to prevent the spread and to treat COVID affected people will get mass support. The fight against COVID-19 is impossible without the involvement of public and private sectors both at national and regional levels. Also, it requires some technical and scientific collaboration at the regional level.  In short, cooperation in dealing with the COVID-19 threat fits into the criteria of functional cooperation, as discussed in the opening paragraph.  The only caveat is that such cooperation shall not cease at dealing with Coronavirus and must spillover to other areas. Also, the role of India is essential, and a positive contribution from New Delhi can make a difference to South Asian regionalism.

To the dismay of many, India has not paid enough attention to South Asian regionalism.  Lately, New Delhi also turned cynical towards South Asia due to the intensive involvement of China in the region, and growing bitterness in the Indo-Pak ties. While some of the concerns related to China and Pakistan are genuine particularly the issue of cross-border terrorism in case of Pakistan but shying away from South Asia is also not a solution.

PM Modi has already made an impressive announcement pledging $ 10 million to the regional emergency Coronavirus fund. The point is that New Delhi should not stop here and put more efforts into fighting Coronavirus in South Asia and after that in revitalising SAARC.

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