In vain would the reader scan the list of names for even a passing mention of SAARC in reports on the recently concluded South East Asian leaders’ summit in Hua Hin, Thailand, which rousingly called on its participants to ‘lead the world’ and form a EU-style Economic Community.

The envisaged Community would apparently feature, the ASEAN 10, China, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia and New Zealand. ‘It would be meaningful for us to have the aspiration that East Asia is going to lead the world’, Japanese Premier Yukio Hatoyama told the forum. ‘I would like to firmly promote regional co-operation in East Asia with a long-term vision of forming an East Asian Community’, he added.

Apparently, the SAARC region is not being considered by the rest of Asia as part of its growth plans. South Asia as a region is yet to register any substantial economic dynamism, although India is singled out as a major contributor to future Asian prosperity. This should prove an eye-opener to those Lankan politicians who wax eloquent about her ‘middle income’ status.

While SAARC should alert itself to the need to make the long overdue transition from rhetoric to real socio-economic advancement, India’s neighbours need to see that constructive economic engagement with India is a must for individual as well as collective growth. For, India is part of the epicenter of global economic growth and there is no escaping the need for her neighbours to grasp the opportunities the Indian growth process opens out.

An important development at the East Asian forum was the meeting between Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and his Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh. Reports said that agreement was reached between the leaders to make headway in resolving their countries’ long-festering border dispute. ’The two sides agreed to continue talks, with the aim of incrementally removing the barriers to a solution that was fair and acceptable to both sides’, reports said.

If one needs proof of the thesis that ‘economics drive politics’, here it is. It is as if China’s and India’s decision to enter into a more dynamic economic partnership in the context of the wider East Asia-centred growth process, has compelled them to speed-up the political normalization effort between the countries. Central to the latter process is the resolving of bilateral disputes which have stood in the way of stepped-up co-operation and cordiality between the countries in the past.

It is the decision of the countries to pursue common material aims within a wider co-operative process which has contributed towards this improvement in bilateral relations. This is the lesson which SAARC needs to learn assiduously.

The SAARC process may be ‘on’ but the fact is that it has achieved very little by way of co-operative economic advancement. This accounts for the region being kept out of the growth calculations of the rest of Asia. In other words, SAARC is being seen as relatively inactive and inert.

The fact that a significant number of SAARC countries continue to accuse each other of fomenting and sustaining political subversion and unrest within each others national boundaries is proof that SAARC camaraderie and collaboration is yet to strike deep root. The stark truth is that the SAARC Eight are yet to co-operate substantively and meaningfully, although the ceremonial forms of SAARC ‘collaboration’ are being annually gone through.

The SAARC states as such may not be implicated in the subversive activities which are afoot in some of these countries but there could be a greater incentive for the states concerned to actively involve themselves in curbing these destructive tendencies if they are already co-operating in the material sphere. Meaningful economic co-operation, for example, is one of the keys to better neighbourly ties.

The long distance that needs to be traversed by the SAARC Eight, in terms of forging close, cordial inter-state ties, could be gauged by the following quote from Indian Home Minister P. Chidambaram:

‘In terms of the threat to security from Indian sources or internal sources, Naxalism remains the biggest threat…..There is no evidence of any money flowing in from abroad to the Maoists. But there is certainly evidence of weapons being smuggled from abroad through Myanmar or Bangladesh which reaches the Maoists…’

Although the states concerned do not stand accused here of ‘gun-running’ for the Maoists, the mention of the countries as conduits for the smuggling of arms could have a harmful impact on India’s relations with the named states. For, the countries concerned could be seen as doing little or nothing to stem the trafficking of arms and this usually turns out to be the case.

It need hardly be mentioned that ‘terror’ attacks and armed subversion on each others soil have had the effect of straining Indo-Pakistani ties although the states as such may not be implicated in these incidents of lawlessness.

The East Asian co-operative process, then, should be seen by SAARC as a wake-up call. It badly needs to do something big and tangible in the area of material self-help, which would convince the world that it is not the forum for seemingly interminable ‘talk’. SAARC may be co-operating to a degree alright but this does not amount to making ‘waves’ or catching the public eye.