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The video conference among government and state heads of eight South Asian countries on March 15 has generated some hope about the revival of the moribund South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC). The conference was the first of its kind after an indefinite postponement of the 2016 SAARC Summit, and suggests that SAARC member countries are capable of collaborating on pressing common issues such as public health and climate change by setting aside their other differences.

The immediate response of other SAARC member states to Modi’s tweet proposing the conference signaled their eagerness to revive the regional body. In the tweet, Modi had also urged SAARC member states to chalk out a strong, common strategy to fight the novel coronavirus.

Some saw the conference as the first step towards the long-delayed 19th SAARC Summit originally scheduled to take place in Islamabad in 2016. Says Nishchal N. Pandey, Director of the Center for South Asian Studies in Kathmandu, “The video conference has renewed hope that the stalled SAARC process would be reinvigorated and we will soon see a SAARC Summit in Islamabad. It also underscores that there is no alternative to the SAARC in our region.”

Similarly, Nihar R. Nayak, Research Fellow with the Institute for Defense Studies and Analysis, a New Delhi-based think-tank, sees this as an opportunity for India, Pakistan and other member countries to revive the SAARC process. “If Pakistan cooperates, it could be an icebreaker. Otherwise, once the corona scare subsides, the tempo will die down.”

After the video conference, Pakistan also proposed to host a meeting of the health ministers of the eight SAARC countries to formulate a “coordinated response” to the health crisis. Other countries are yet to respond to the proposal.

Less than meets the eye

Since the postponement of the 2016 SAARC summit, Nepal, as the chair of the regional grouping, has been continuously urging India to agree to another summit. But India has not shown any interest, insisting that the regional environment for such a summit is ‘inappropriate’. Yet India has also expressed its readiness to sit in summit-level talks should they be held outside Pakistan—a proposal Islamabad has rejected outright.

The keenness of the Oli government in the SAARC process has been evident all along. Addressing the SAARC Standing Committee at the SAARC Secretariat in Kathmandu on 8 February 2020, Prime Minister KP Oli did not mince words. Stating that Nepal was eager to hand over SAARC chairmanship, he expressed his hope that “the SAARC member states will come up with consensus to convene the summit at an early date.” He said that as a founding member and current chair of SAARC, Nepal “strongly believes in regional cooperation to promote collective well-being of the people of South Asia.”

But there are also strong views that SAARC-level cooperation will not extend beyond the fight against the coronavirus. India, in this view, proposed the video conference as it cannot tackle the virus on its own given its porous borders with its neighbors. Moreover, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan was notably absent from the conference, sending a junior-ranking minister to take his place. According to Ashok Mehta, a retired general of the Indian Army and an old Nepal hand, “Narendra Modi government right now wants to firmly establish the Hindu agenda inside the country and thus is in no mood to talk to Pakistan. Similarly, Pakistan is also not keen on talking to India.”

Vijay Kant Karna of the Center for Social Inclusion and Federalism in Kathmandu seconds Mehta’s views. But Karna adds that even though he sees no possibility of another SAARC summit-level meeting, the video conference does give a message that “South Asian states can collaborate on common issues like public health and climate change by developing working relations with each other.”

India’s focus on BIMSTEC

In lieu of SAARC, India has been pushing the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) since 2016. Accusing Pakistan of sponsoring terrorism on its soil, India has since been promoting the regional group that does not include Pakistan. At a BRICS outreach program in October 2016, India invited state and government heads from BIMSTEC, not from SAARC. Likewise, when Modi was being sworn-in as Indian prime minister for the second time in May 2019, he invited leaders from BIMSTEC countries, unlike his first swearing-in when he had invited SAARC country heads, including the prime minister of Pakistan.

As the Indian Minister for External Affairs S. Jaishankar put it earlier this year: “SAARC has certain problems and I think we all know what it is [sic]… even if you were to put the terrorism issue aside, there are connectivity and trade issues. If you look at why BIMSTEC leaders were invited for PM’s swearing-in… we see energy, mindset and possibility in BIMSTEC.”

Not only government officials, even New Delhi-based think-tanks these days promote the idea that the BIMSTEC platform is more beneficial to India than the SAARC platform.

Yet this is not the view of other South Asian countries. Bangladeshi Ambassador to Nepal Mashfee Binte Shams categorically told APEX some time ago that BIMSTEC could never replace SAARC, as the two entities had completely different purposes. “SAARC brings together the countries of the region that were closely integrated before the British came here and created artificial divisions. Before the British arrived, the region had many principalities and kingdoms but we were integrated and there was a lot of internal trade. So SAARC tries to revive that pre-British integration,” she said. That is also the view shared by other SAARC countries bar India.

But India is not convinced. This is why many reckon the video conference over the coronavirus pandemic might only have been an exercise in India’s power-projection. “As the largest country in this region, India wants to show it has the capacity to play a leading role here,” says Chandra Dev Bhatta, a Nepali political analyst who has closely followed the BJP politics in India. “The video conference was a message that during a crisis India always stands with its neighbors”.

As is happening with the country’s other vital organizations, Nepal Police have also been in a constant quest to modernize themselves. The organization passed a significant milestone in this journey when they imported a DNA testing machine in 2014. DNA testing has since been handy, often playing a decisive role in either establishing guilt or clearing suspects in multiple criminal cases.

Nepal Police had its first success with DNA testing in a 1996 rape case against Rakesh Kumar Singh, an assistant sub-inspector of police (ASI). On June 8 that year, one Himali Gole of Dolakha district had charged Singh with raping her. Singh denied the charge. But a DNA test showed that the semen found in Gole’s petticoat came from ASI Singh. That helped the district court establish Singh’s guilt and to sentence him. The decision was later upheld by the Appellate Court where Singh had appealed. Another test that was performed upon the appeal also went against the accused.

Singh then went to the Supreme Court, which too upheld the lower courts’ decisions. It, however, mentioned the victim’s testimony and other circumstantial evidence as its basis for the verdict, not the DNA test. Maybe the court didn’t consider the test a credible evidence back then. One of the reasons behind this skepticism could have been that without a testing center of their own Nepal Police had to send the samples to India’s Kolkata for DNA testing.

The Central Police Forensic Science Laboratory (CPFSL) of Nepal Police started DNA testing in Kathmandu in 2015. It performed 85 tests in 2015/16, 137 in 2016/17, and 136 in 2017/18. In 2019/20, the number surged to 310.

“Due to a rise in the number of criminal cases and easier availability of technology, we conduct more DNA tests these days,” says Senior Superintendent of Police Rakesh Singh (not the Rakesh singh mentioned above), head of the
forensic lab.

Don’t trust CSI

“There is increased awareness about DNA testing. But people are still unaware that this is not an easy method to establish crimes, nor is it always credible,” Singh adds. “Maybe they think it’s easy because of the influence of movies and TV shows.”

Yet the contribution of DNA testing in establishing tricky crimes is hard to dispute. Take the case of Chameli and Rabin Khadka, in-laws by relation. They had an affair from which a baby girl was born. DNA testing established Rabin as the biological father of the girl and a great family dispute was settled.

Success in such cases develops public trust on DNA testing. Perhaps that is why it is gaining in popularity.

According to criminologist Madav Prasad Acharya, people have started trusting this test more and more and rely on it to give them justice, “although the recent increase in the number of DNA tests may also suggest an increase in the number of crimes.”

The number of criminal cases at the police forensic lab is increasing too. In 1997/98, the lab had to handle 707 cases. The numbers rose to 6,864 in 1998/99 and 7,435 in 1999/2000. In 2018/19, the number soared to 10,101, the highest till date.

But even as there are many cases DNA testing has successfully resolved, there are also more
tricky ones.

Exceptions and rules

One notable failure has been the unresolved 2018 rape-and-murder case of Nirmala Panta, where the DNA test inaccuracy derailed the whole investigation.

In sexual assault cases, it is difficult to get pure samples and keep them from contamination. While collecting vaginal swabs, victims’ epithelial matter may be mixed with that of the rapist(s), which hampers with the result accuracy. In Panta’s case, the prime suspect Dilip Singh Basnet thus remains free even though he has informally confessed to the crime. The National Human Rights Commission pointed out to big lapses in sample collection.

The misconception that DNA testing always works worries Acharya. “As a scientific method, it is effective in establishing facts. But not always,” he says. “DNA testing is complex and highly sensitive. As such, even a simple error can lead to a disastrouslywrong outcome.”

One such case is from Britain’s Manchester in 2011. A man named Adam Scott was accused of rape, and his DNA matched a sperm sample taken from the rape victim. Due to sampling contamination, the DNA wrongly matched with that of Scott. He was later cleared on the basis of other evidences that went in his favor.

“For the DNA test to be just and effective, special care needs to be taken in sample collection, its transport, and protection from contamination,” says SSP Singh.

Moreover, Nepal Police’s forensic lab has only four staff and is desperately short of skilled manpower for DNA testing. The test is also rather expensive, with even cheap ones costing around Rs 20,000. But according to SSP Singh, Nepal Police is getting progressively better at DNA testing and in ensuring that the results are mostly accurate.

In Soru Rural Municipality of Mugu district, women have multiple responsibilities. Most of the village men have gone to the proverbial ‘Kala Pahad’ (India) or other countries in search of jobs. So women here have to handle not just their families but other traditionally ‘male’ responsibilities as well.

Take construction. Women are working as construction workers in a number of local projects like the 1,100-meter irrigation canal from Majhgatta to Ekal Katiya of Soru-9, and another 1,100-meter canal from Bhuwane Khola to Naidhunga of Khatyang-2. Of the 484 laborers in the two projects, 330 are women.

“Men are out of the country. Even if they return, they won’t work as construction laborers,” says Gorikala Kami of Soru-9. “Development projects in the village are mostly in the hands of women these days.”

“This kind of out-of-home work gives us a unique outlet,” says Kami. “It pays as well.” The project office pays them through a bank, so women now have their own bank accounts. It helps them save money, and keeps them from being cheated by contractors, as happened when they used to get their wages in cash. The World Food Program is funding both the projects.

“As male members are away, many development projects in the village are unfinished,” says Ramdevi Yogi of Soru-9. “We women will finish what they started”. 

The scariest thing about the novel coronavirus is that any of you reading this may have it and yet be asymptomatic. Nepal has reported just a single case. Probably at least a few more are infected. In a coronavirus infection, the older you are, the more severe symptoms you are likely to show. Particularly vulnerable are the elderly with preexisting health conditions like heart and lung ailments. Thankfully, Nepal is a young country with an average age of 21.6 years. Just around four percent of the national population of around 30 million are over-65.

Thus, even if the global pandemic touches Nepal again, most of the sufferers here will fully recover. Yet that is cold comfort. First, we have inadequate test kits and a potentially large number of asymptomatic young carriers of the virus. In that case, they could pass on the infection to the more vulnerable elder members in their homes and communities. With our under-funded and over-stretched healthcare system, complications among the elderly may then explode. It is telling that in places with good healthcare systems novel coronavirus fatality rate is around 0.5 percent, compared to around 3.4 in places with bad ones.  

It is vital to test all those who show even some symptoms of novel coronavirus quickly. But that is not enough. Over the past week or so, China and South Korea, the two Asian hotspots of coronavirus, have been able to cut the number of new infections drastically through a rigorous tracing and prompt isolation of all those who have come in contact with proven coronavirus carriers. The results have been drastic: the number of daily new cases in China has plummeted from 3,500 in late January to under 24 (as we went to press). 

This gives us hope that even if the virus reenters Nepal, it can be contained. But only if the country can strictly adhere to the rules that have worked elsewhere. Our ability to contain the virus depends on the ease of availability of protective masks and sanitizers. On whether we can build enough isolation units in our hospitals, on whether temperature checking at all our public buildings can be made mandatory. Other effective measures include shutting down schools and cinema halls, limiting the use of public transport, and minimizing hospital visits. 

This is no time to panic though. The government should discourage hoarding of essential commodities like medicines, LP gas and daily edibles through the assurance of their continued and timely supply. It’s all too easy to become selfish in times of crisis. Citizens may only need a gentle nudge to their conscience to behave more magnanimously. But after the WHO has declared the novel coronavirus outbreak a ‘global pandemic’, Nepal will do well to brace for the worst. Again, it will be dangerous to bank too much on the low number of reported infections.