BIMSTEC: What next?

 

 We have to give a big thank to Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli for bringing the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooper­ation (BIMSTEC) to national atten­tion. Had PM Oli not taken the ini­tiative to host the fourth summit, this regional organization would probably have gone unnoticed in Nepal for years to come. All said and done, this was one of the biggest international events Nepal has ever hosted, costing the state Rs 2 billion (nearly $17.6 million). The chaos in Kathmandu during the meeting forced Kathmanduties to get to ‘know’ BIMSTEC, whether they wanted to or not. There is no doubt the memory of this meeting will last long in the minds of the millions who saw the way the meet­ing was organized. Now the meeting is over and resources have been spent, I do not want to dwell on whether it was necessary. But the meeting got me to thinking—and reading—on how/if Nepal can benefit from BIMSTEC.

 

Many opinion makers in Kath­mandu had no idea what BIMS­TEC was—a 20- year-old regional organization. That was because till date no one knows of a single ben­efit Nepal has derived from being its member. However, having spent so much to convene the meeting last week, Nepal now seems heavily invested in it. In other words, every one of us now knows what BIMSTEC is and that it costs us quite a lot to keep the membership.

 

PM Oli has claimed the BIMSTEC meeting was a huge success. He touted the agreement on energy as its biggest achievement. He further said Nepal has expedited talks with India and Bangladesh to facilitate power trade. Now, the question is, and excuse me if it is layman, but, why does Nepal need BIMSTEC to discuss such issues with Bangladesh and India? They are our immedi­ate neighbors as well as founding members of SAARC, the oldest regional organization. And if PM Oli thinks this meeting helped boost his image internationally, and has benefitted us all, that too would be naïve considering BIMSETIC is a questionable endeavor even on the international front.

 

Factoring in how much criticism SAARC gets for being ‘redundant,’ going by the fact that the BIMSETC Secretariat didn’t even bother to tweet or update social media on the summit in Kathmandu, it is clear that BIMSTEC, too, is no hub of learning, exchange and diplomacy. Let’s face it: the productive function­ing of the initiative is questionable at best. But again Nepal has already invested Rs 2 billion on this unpro­ductive exercise.

 

Five out of the seven BIMSTEC members are SAARC countries. It should thus be no secret that the purpose of BIMSETC is to under­mine and keep SAARC divided. BIM­STEC is actually aggressively push­ing the agenda of the Brother India Managed Small Territorial Economic Countries (or BIMSTEC, if you will). And that is not an agenda Nepal should support.

 

For as long as our resources are spent on a parallel regional ini­tiative, SAARC will continue to be undermined, in tune with the for­eign policy strategies of our south­ern neighbor. It is no secret that SAARC has been made redundant by the political tussles between India and Pakistan, and that BIMSTEC, as such, has no future so long as those tussles are not resolved, for it will not be able to move beyond being an exercise in Indian foreign policy and its hegemonic intent. If the political tussles between India and Pakistan were to subside, BIMSTEC will cease to be relevant, even from the foreign policy perspective. So the question is why the government is wasting resources on our southern neigh­bor’s foreign policy issues.

 

There were some positive ini­tiatives that we saw in this latest BIMSETC meeting, like the agree­ment to underscore Buddhism as a transnational connectivity indi­cator. However, our incapacity to turn agreements into action, com­pounded by the already-question­able intent of BIMSTEC, renders such agreements moot.

 

Right now the government looks like a fool for having spent valuable resources —which it could have oth­erwise used to boost its image and credibility—to instead wreak havoc on Kathmandu streets in the name of regional cooperation, and God knows what else!