[Reader-list] SAARC has exhausted its potential: Mani Shankar Aiyar

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    Today's Paper » NATIONAL » KERALA
 Thiruvananthapuram, November 9, 2011
  Special Correspondent
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Wants to build South Asia on the strength of diversity
[image: Major concern: Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar (third from left0
after inaugurating the People's SAARC India Assembly 2011 in
Tiruvananthapuram on Tuesday. Pakistani rights activists B.M. Kuty,
historian K.N. Panikkar, and organising committee member Ashim Roy are
seen. — Photo: S. Mahinsha]
Major concern: Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar (third from left0 after
inaugurating the People's SAARC India Assembly 2011 in Tiruvananthapuram on
Tuesday. Pakistani rights activists B.M. Kuty, historian K.N. Panikkar, and
organising committee member Ashim Roy are seen. — Photo: S. Mahinsha

Senior Congress leader and former Union Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar has
said that the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) has
exhausted its potential as an inter-governmental movement.

Delivering the inaugural address at the People's SAARC India Assembly 2001,
a two-day national convention of people's movements in South Asia, here on
Tuesday, he said nothing imaginative had come out of SAARC for decades.

“The only thing reported about SAARC meetings is what happens on the
sidelines. The same is true of the Non Aligned Movement also. Leaders of
SAARC nations meet only to decide when and where to meet next. The circus
moves on from one capital to another,” he said.

Citing the case of the G20 and WTO summits, Mr. Aiyar said
inter-governmental meetings were today marked by parallel people's
conventions all over the world. “We need such a movement in South Asia.
Governments have to be taught what the people want,” he said.

Highlighting the need to take SAARC back to its vision, Mr. Aiyar said the
principle of unity in diversity had to become the principle of nationhood
in South Asia. “If it does, it could show the way to a united Asia,” he
said.

Such an Asia, he said, could easily be leaders of the world. “But we will
never become leaders of the world if we are fractured. We can never have
South Asian unity as long as there is Indo-Pak disunity.”

Mr. Aiyar said it was ironic that Asia remained the most divided continent
while countries in Europe, America, and Africa were coming together.

Citing the case of the aborted project to build a gas pipeline from Iran to
India through Pakistan, he said every step taken to bring the countries of
Asia together was thwarted by vested interests. Secularism, he said, was in
the constitution of all countries in South Asia but not in the minds of the
people.

“You cannot Sinhalise Sri Lanka, you cannot make it a Buddhist country; you
cannot make Nepal a Hindu country. You can only build South Asia on the
basis of a celebration of diversity,” he said.

Mr. Aiyar said the hatred spawned by the manner in which Partition was
implemented had poisoned the relationship between India and Pakistan.

“Pakistan today is a country trying to find itself. If Islam is what unites
Pakistan, Islamisation is what divides it. But I am sure Pakistan will
become a strong state the minute internally it gets accepted by the people
that they have to be tolerant, they should celebrate the unity of Islam in
the diversity of Islam. The same is true of India also,” he said.

Historian K.N. Panikkar, who presided over the function, stressed the need
to promote political, cultural, and economic exchanges between South Asian
nations as an antidote to communalism that had emerged as a common threat.

Mr. Panikkar said the capitalist influence had affected social relations
and the ties between countries in the region. He proposed a union of
countries in South Asia.

Organising committee member Ashim Roy, convener T. Peter, State Planning
Board member C.P. John, Sri Lankan film-maker Someetharan, human rights
activist from Pakistan B.M. Kutty, and Manipuri activist Babloo Loitongbam
were among those who spoke.

The parallel meeting has been organised on the theme ‘People's movements
unite South Asia.' Representatives from various social action groups and
human rights organisations will address major concerns in the region,
including livelihood and human rights issues, environmental problems, and
climate change.

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