Speaking at the opening of the fourth Bay of Bengal Initia­tive for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooper­ation (BIMSTEC) Summit in Kathmandu, Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli said SAARC and BIMSTEC are complementary and there is no reason they cannot simultaneously succeed. He was clearly trying to assuage fear among smaller SAARC states like Nepal and Bhutan that India is promoting BIMS­TEC in lieu of SAARC. As these smaller countries see it, the reason SAARC has not succeeded is two-fold: one, India and Pakistan’s failure to agree on anything substantial and two, India’s traditional apprehension that other SAARC countries were somehow ‘ganging up’ against it.

 

The feeling is that India, as by far the biggest country in SAARC, both militarily and economically, and as a fulcrum around which most other SAARC countries operate, could have done more to promote regional trade and connectiv­ity, for instance by unconditionally backing the idea of the South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA). Even if Pakistan was obstructing regional integration, why was India then not keen on sub-regional initiatives? For instance it could have earned itself a lot of goodwill in Nepal by agreeing to let the landlocked country trade directly with Bangladesh, which is just 27 km from the eastern Nepali border?

 

India’s apparent reluctance to do even bare minimum to boost regional trade and connectivity in turn fueled skep­ticism about whether it was really committed to a more integrated, interdependent South Asia. And this is the same skepticism other countries have when it is now promoting BIMSTEC, comprised of five countries on the Bay of Ben­gal plus the landlocked Bhutan and Nepal. After ignoring BIMSTEC for over two decades, why the sudden change of heart? Perhaps there is a broader geostrategic component to BIMSTEC as well.

 

BIMSTEC, in this reckoning, is being promoted to isolate the ‘terror sponsoring’ Pakistan and to check China’s growing inroads in South Asia. At the last SAARC Summit in Kath­mandu in 2014, Nepal and Pakistan had even proposed that China be included as a full SAARC member, raising predict­able hackles in New Delhi. India has also looked at China’s catchall Belt and Road Initiative doubtfully, not the least because one of its core components passes through disputed Kashmir territories. To add to these suspicions, following the fourth BIMSTEC Summit, India is playing host to BIMSTEC military exercises. The onus is on Indian leadership to show that it has abandoned its security-centric approach and is now committed to common growth and development of this crucial part of Asia