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SAARC Parliament: An Exploration into Approaches for
Conflict Management in South Asia
By
M.L. Sondhi and Shrikant Paranjpe
South Asia
appears to be confronted with several issues that dominate
the debate on the emergent order in the region. In a sense
these issues run as parallel arguments, yet there is an
urgent need to accommodate these issues in the understanding
of South Asia.
a) The
question of hegemony and the legitimacy of the use of
force: South Asia has traditionally been analyzed within
the framework of the regional state system. This approach considered India as a regional hegemon,
Pakistan as bargainer or a partner state, small powers of
the region a peripheral dependents and extra regional
interests as a fourth constituent. There was an implicit
recognition hegemony and also the use of force to preserve
national interest. The Indian actions in Sri Lanka in 1987
and Maldives in 1989
symbolized this legitimacy. The question that is raised
today is whether this old model of hegemony is outdated.
Or, what is the degree to which hegemony would be acceptable
and what form if any would it take?
b)
The
issue of bilateralism: The key to the problem of order in
South Asia lies in the nature of the relationship that India
and Pakistan develop. As two critical powers of the region,
they can create or destroy the order and stability in the
region. The relationship between these two powers had been
dominated by two differing worldviews: India had opposed
extra-regional intervention and has advocated bilateralism
as an approach. Pakistan has, on the other hand, used
extra-regional interests to exert pressure on India as a
counter to Indian hegemony and thus has promoted
extra-regional participation in the debate on South Asian
issues.
The third dimension is the question of order from the
perspective of civil society. This debate revolves around
three considerations: One, is the breakdown of state-
centricity though economic considerations; two, is the
a)
issue of the evolution of a ‘participatory state’ and three,
the question of a common civilizational tie. Civil society
is based on the recognition of difference and diversity.
Civil Society is not the same thing as liberalism or
democracy; modern capitalist economy is also not a guarantee
for civil society. But Civil Society makes liberalism and
democracy desirable.
The argument is in favour of developing a ‘Participatory
State’,
where segments of society excluded under more hierarchical
systems are permitted greater involvement. Public policy is
thus to be a product of a dialogue, consultation and
negotiation. One consideration also centers around the role
of religion, culture, history, etc., on the perceptions of
the South Asian elite. Does South Asia have a common
civilizational tie? Can we talk of a common social morality
of South Asia if ideological / political impediments are
lowered and there is free flow of people, information and
ideas?
Traditionally, two competing frameworks have dominated
Indian security thinking. Each of these frameworks revolves
around a set of a governing image – both having diverse
perspectives, based on independent ideological
presumptions. The development of such an image is part of
the desire to establish an ‘order’ in international
relations. The first framework is based on the question
‘how is peace maintained in a society of states?’ The
answer revolves around two fundamental principles /
dimensions:
one, the recognition that in any conflictual situation the
roots of conflict need to be tackled (conflict resolution,
not conflict management); and two, the need to resolve
conflict without recourse to violence. The first is a
long-term perspective and includes the consideration of the
social, political, economic, and other aspects of conflict.
It presumes that conflicts are a product of tensions
emanating in social, political and economic areas that
ultimately escalate into military conflict. The latter is a
more short-term view that looks at the means of pacific
settlement of disputes. The second set is rooted in a
realist / neorealist framework of analysis that is focused
on the role of power. It holds that in order to maintain
security and thereby order, primary attention is to be given
to the establishment and preservation of power in
international relations.
The post cold war era has witnessed the emergence of a third
framework that is based on a new governing image. This
governing image is based on the perceptions about the role
of technology. It argues that the source of power today is
technology and not traditional military strength. The new
governing image also acknowledges the limitations placed on
the system by the inherent contradictions in the society
that make it necessary for the system to absorb the burden
of a large social sector. The concept of a ‘safety
a) net’ to accommodate the ill effects of the onslaught of
globalisation are a part of this governing image. In a
sense this image is a continuation of the realist /
neorealist tradition but is tempered with the weight of the
social sector. All these three governing images continue to
simultaneously influence policy making, sometimes as
competing frameworks, sometimes as complimentary ones.
An agenda for
South Asia would have to be set at two levels: A bilateral
level of India and Pakistan and a regional level of SAARC.
The former would be in the realm of a continuous dialogue
based on the mechanisms of confidence building techniques;
the latter would have to follow an institutional line.
Bilateral
Dialogue
Both, India and Pakistan share some common post colonial
legacies. Both have attempted to address the problems of
pluralistic societies and overcome the resistance of feudal
tendencies in their effort at political and economic
modernisation. Both have strained their political
institutions to accommodate socio-political upheavals. One
may argue that the Indian experiment appears to have
survived the test of time and that its political
institutions have been able to cope with the demands placed
on them. On the other hand Pakistan still continues to
experiment with its institutions in search of stability.
The Indian
system that bases itself on the ‘unity in diversity’ formula
may be extended to its neighbouring states. in the long run
a stable political order would be the essential ingredient
to a less confrontationist foreign policy posture. The
developing world need not seek western models of
globalisation for its stability; they can evolve their own
indigenous ones. They would certainly include such
ingredients as culture and civilization, religion,
ethnicity, etc. as their ingredients. Religion, or faith,
is an inseparable part of these cultures. To develop a
civil society based exclusively upon the post industrial
revolution notions of scientism, rationalism and secularism
without reference to faith may fit into the universal (read
western) concepts of modernisation and development; but they
may not work against the ground realities of the
civilizations of the Third World.
While there is
a persuasive case for familiarity with modern procedures of
conflict management, traditional cultural approaches to
conflict management cannot be ignored. The discourse on
civilization and culture would be relevant to both, the
identification of conflict and for discovering mechanisms
for managing them. The Vajpayee terminology of ‘insaniyat’
as a basis of an approach to Kashmir coupled with a ‘cease
fire’ symbolises the efforts at combining traditional
peacemaking with modern scholarship in peace research. The
pluralism accepted through such an acceptance of diversity
can lead to a stability that would transcend the opposition
on such contentious issues like Kashmir and end its
centrality in an Indo-Pakistan debate. Thus at one level
the dialogue can remain contained within a statecentric mode
of Indian and Pakistani national interests. At another, the
pan-Islamic forces that would threaten the national
integration of both the states need not influence it. It is
to that end that an Indo-Pakistani dialogue needs to address
itself.
Institutionalization
The
period from 1985 until the beginning of the nineties marks
the first phase of the development of SAARC. This period
laid the foundation for the eventual direction of regional
cooperation in South Asia. Some salient trends of this
phase may be identified as follows:
The efforts at
developing a framework for regional cooperation in South
Asia started on a cautious note. The policy of
incrementalism and use of the Nordic approach was necessary
due to the predominance of political determinants of
interstate relations in South Asia. The countries of this
region required taking a political decision to establish a
dialogue before initiating any discussion on technical,
social, cultural, etc. matters. The predominance of the
‘political’ in interstate matters necessitated a slow start
to cooperation. The debates on SARC, especially in the
early nineties appeared to grapple with these changes of the
post Soviet era. The political realism of the regional
state system was revised to accept the realities of the era
that sought a return to interdependence. However, South
Asian approaches to regional order did not abandon the
traditional approaches altogether. The early nineties saw a
slow adjustment to the new realities. In retrospect, one
finds these perceptions to be the springboard to a more
active integrationist line. The rapid changes in the
international order in the early nineties and the spread of
the ideology of market economy eventually pushed South Asia
towards closer economic integration. The impetus to
integration thus shifted away from the one articulated by
the Bangladesh proposal of 1980. The Nordic model of SAARC
had not sought an integrationist approach to the region. It
had accepted the principles of sovereignty as the basis of
future cooperation. The critical debates in the context of
SAARC in the nineties would focus on this issue of
sovereignty. The logic of integration would lead SAARC in
the direction of dilution of political sovereignty. The
launching of (South Asian Preferential Trading Agreement)
SAPTA presumes the acceptance of this direction. The
fundamental question is, at what point of time would the
SAARC leadership be willing to confront itself with this
reality.
The fundamental paradigm appears to have shifted
to multi-centricism, otherwise described as transnationalist
or complex interdependency. The basic approach to the
understanding of the regional state system of South Asia had
used the realist framework. The shift in global concerns in
the early 1990s forced the SAARC leadership to incorporate
‘cooperative, non-military, economic’ dimensions in SAARC.
The subsequent phase was characterized by the onslaught of a
new form of capitalism of the expanding global market
economic system and the emergence of trade blocs. The
rapidity with which the global economic agenda came to be
structured around issues relating to trade and technology
and the emergence of trade blocs had its impact o the
direction of SAARC. The creation of SAPTA in 1993
represents a culmination of
this thought
process in South Asia that sought to relate to the global
changes of the nineties.
The proposed
new institutional arrangement is that of a South Asian
Regional Parliament.
The new governing image would have to overcome the earlier
reluctance towards a political dialogue at a multilateral
level within South Asia. A broad based popular
parliamentary forum for South Asia can perform the task of
conflict management in the region and enable the process of
political and economic integration so as to achieve a better
social order. While conflicts are inherently subjective,
this does not mean that they do not have an objective
reality. The conflicts that this legislature would seek to address
would be manifest conflicts that are based on articulation
of self interest and not latent conflicts based on
perceptions. In terms of ‘management’ the understanding is that the
issues would be handled by agreed upon procedures so that
the conflict does not escalate beyond a certain point.
While this may only facilitate and not ensure a resolution,
it would certainly arrest the further expansion and
escalation of conflict by keeping it within the system.
At
the conceptual level this approach seeks to incorporate the
fundamental principle of ‘unity in diversity’
that has remained the key to national integration and
harmony in India. It recognizes the unique social cultural
and ethnic diversity of the people of the region and seeks
to identify a thread of unity within that diversity.
Extended at the regional level this approach uses the idiom
of civilizational perspectives. The SAARC Parliament model
envisages a two-stage development. The first stage is a
transition stage where governmental influence over the
organization is high. The second stage is when popular
participation would increase. The transition would have to
overcome the apathy and the reluctance on part of the
governments to part with power and authority to what may
appear a supra-national authority.
The Parliament would be essentially a deliberative body.
For Parliaments not only represent the ‘will’ of the people,
they also deliberate.
They perform the task of policymaking, representation and
system maintenance. As representatives, they integrate the
community, as a deliberative body they endeavour to solve
problems. Parliaments open issues for discussion. They are
an excellent forum for regional / ethnic voices. Legitimate
aspirations that tend to get crushed under centralization
tendencies
would not carry the label of ‘anti-national’ if they were
voiced in a regional parliament. It is from this primary
function that the other functions take shape. These
include: (i) Informational: Free flow of people and
information; (ii) Representational, grievance ventilation,
educational and advisory: A forum where grievances can be
ventilated and debated without prejudice to the existing
territorial sovereignties and; (iii) Developmental: An
agency for political, economic, industrial, cultural,
development. Since these functions would be accompanied by
conflicts among those involved, one can include conflict
management as a catalyst, which facilitates these
functions. The system maintenance activity of the
Parliament would be effective to the extent to which
conflict management is functioning.
The essential
premises of arguments in favour of conflict management
relate to the prevention of escalation of conflicts,
eschewing coercive settlements, and initiating processes,
which achieve mutual benefits. Conflict management theories
can help foreign policy makers to develop systematic
processes for both preventive diplomacy and dispute
resolution. It would require a movement away from
traditional strategic concepts to developing conceptual and
political foundations for negotiations and joint problem
solving to meet the challenges of ethnic-nationalist
frictions. A regional parliament is a mechanism that can
domesticise and internalize some of the activities, which
have hitherto been strictly in the realm of foreign policy.
A rethinking of metaphors, concepts and tools would be
essential to this process of change.
A regional parliament offers new types of political
interaction that would be an important condition for
increasing transactions, linkages and coalitions. It can go
beyond the bureaucratic-technical parameters of the SAARC
system and introduce political, moral, cultural and
civilisational dimensions of regionalism in South Asia.
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