(The views expressed in this issue are
solely those
of the authors)
Professor Rehman Sobhan, leading economist
and
Director
Centre
for
Policy
Dialogue,
Dhaka,
with
a
wholist
approach,
formulates
a
very
cohesive
and
integrated
roadmap
to
promote
regional
cooperation
in
South
Asia.
Inspired
by
the
agreements
reached
at
the
Islamabad
SAARC
Summit
on
creating
a
South
Asian
Free
Trade
Area,
SAARC
Social
Charter
and
approval
of
the
ISACP
Report
on
Poverty
Alleviation,
he
identifies
both
bottlenecks
and
linkages
in
evolving
a
well-integrated
South
Asian
Union.
Mindful
of
the
lethargy
and
domestic
political
compulsions
of
the
political
leadership,
he
underlines
the
need
to
have
visionary
leaders,
who
could
look
beyond
conflicts
and
take
the
path
of
peace,
while
calling
upon
the
civil
society
to
play
the
role
of
a
vanguard
in
becoming
a
South
Asian
community.
Dr A. R. Kemal, Director Pakistan Institute
of
Development
Economics
(PIDE),
Islamabad,
thoroughly
reviews
the
structures
of
exports
and
imports
of
countries
of
South
Asia
and
concludes
that
there
are
little
complementarities
since
the
comparative
advantages
are
similar
in
a
whole
range
of
products.
He,
however,
solidly
pleads
for
greater
economic
cooperation,
lowering
of
tariffs
and
benefiting
from
efficient
allocation
of
resources
and
economy
of
scales,
besides
emphasising
vertical
integration
of
industries
and
trade
which
can
benefit
even
low
developed
countries.
Joint
projects
and
investment
in
high
value-added
areas,
he
suggests,
can
be
more
useful
than
trade,
which
can
flourish
only
if
the
signatories
to
SAFTA
keep
the
negative-list
to
the
minimum
and
agree
to
remove
imbalances
in
import-export
ratios
while
lifting
barriers
to
free
trade.
C. Raja Mohan, Professor of South Asian
Studies
at
Jawaharlal
Nehru
University,
New
Delhi,
underlines
the
imperatives
of
cooperative
security
in
the
subcontinent
that
may
take
into
account
the
enlightened
self-interest
of
nation-states
in
security
and
economic
spheres
at
the
same
time
while
preventing
conflicts
and
promoting
regional
cooperation.
Providing
some
substance
to
an
otherwise
never
defined
'Gujral
Doctrine'
that
has,
more
or
less,
been
followed
by
the
successive
governments,
Mohan
recommends
to
the
neighbours
of
India
to
integrate
with
the
larger
Indian
economy,
while
criticising
the
economic
bureaucracy
in
New
Delhi
for
not
doing
enough
to
open
India
to
its
smaller
neighbours
through
'positive
unilateralism'.
Focusing
on
Indo-Pak
efforts
at
normalisation
of
relations,
both
failed
and
current,
Mohan
stresses
a
simultaneous
approach
to
address
the
Kashmir
dispute
and
improve
economic
ties
in
a
cooperative
security
framework
that,
however,
remains
India-centric.
Iqbal Haider, an eminent lawyer and human
rights
activist
from
Pakistan,
surveys
the
emergence
of
human
rights
organisations
at
the
regional
level
and
passage
of
conventions
and
covenants
by
the
UN
and
other
bodies
to
promote
and
protect
human
rights.
Lamenting
a
lack
of
movement
in
South
East
Asia
and
at
the
SAARC
level,
he
argues
for
the
establishment
of
autonomous
official
institutions/courts
to
protect
human
rights
in
those
countries
of
the
SAARC
region
where
they
do
not
exist
and
emphasises
the
need
to
take
guidance
from
the
Paris
Principles
while
evolving
a
South
Asian
Human
Rights
Code.
S. D. Muni, Professor of South Asian Studies
at
Jawaharlal
Nehru
University,
writes
about
the
possibilities
of
creating
a
South
Asian
Parliament
while
evaluating
the
development
and
nature
of
political
and
representative
institutions
in
the
countries
of
the
region.
Drawing
lessons
from
the
experience
of
the
European
Parliament,
he
carefully
sets
the
process
of
creating
such
a
parliament
in
South
Asia
in
the
context
of
economic
and
social
integration
of
the
region.
Cautioning
against
skipping
certain
stages,
given
the
inter-state
constraints
and
limitation
of
the
SAARC
mandate,
he
optimistically
proposes
the
structure
of
a
South
Asian
Parliament
and
its
possible
initial
stages.
Dr Ishrat Husain, Governor State Bank of
Pakistan,
takes
a
close
look
at
liberalisation
of
economies
in
South
Asia
and
presents
a
well-argued
case
for
regional
economic
integration
and
opening
of
the
economies
to
the
world.
Dr
Husain,
a
radical
reformer,
emphatically
proposes
a
blueprint
of
integrated
measures
to
face
up
to
the
challenges
of
globalisation,
information
revolution
and
good
governance.
For
that
to
happen,
he
calls
upon
the
political
leadership
to
evolve
a
consensus
on
an
economic
vision
and
strategy
in
each
country
not
to
miss
the
train
again
in
a
more
competitive
and
interdependent
world
while
forging
closer
economic
ties
among
the
countries
of
South
Asia.
Abul Ahsan, Vice-president of Independent
University
of
Bangladesh
and
former
Secretary
General
SAARC,
compares
the
mandate
of
the
SAARC
Secretariat
with
the
structures
of
more
vibrant
regional
groupings,
such
as
the
European
Union
and
ASEAN.
He
argues
a
strong
case
to
strengthen
SAARC
Secretariat
and
empower
its
Secretary
General
in
order
to
make
it
more
dynamic
and
efficient.
Questioning
the
mode
of
appointments
of
directors
and
the
Secretary
General,
he
emphasises
the
selection
of
SAARC
officials
on
merit,
while
pleading
to
expand
the
role
of
secretariat,
which
is
presently
even
worse
than
a
post-office.
Dr Azzam Tamimi, an Arab scholar at Kyoto
University,
traces
contemporary
Islamic
activism
in
the
Middle
East
in
the
18th
Century
revivalism
initiated
by
Abd
Al-Wahhab,
founder
of
puritanic
Wahhabism.
Admitting
that
the
Wahhabis
were
oblivious
to
the
threat
of
colonial
intrusion,
he
narrates
how,
after
the
defeat
of
Wahhabis
and
Napolean
by
Mohammad
Ali
at
the
behest
of
the
Ottoman
Empire,
Islamic
reformists,
such
as
Rifa'ah
al-Tahtawi
and
others,
located
Muslim
'sickness'
in
despotism
and
sought
democracy
and
pluralism
while
learning
from
the
western
experience.
Reversal
of
this
reform
movement
in
Islam,
he
argues,
although
quite
apologetically
by
referring
to
Al-Ikhwan
al-Muslimun,
has
been
caused
due
to
the
repression
by
nationalist
leadership
and
promotion
of
despotic
regimes
by
western
imperialism.
Forcefully
arguing
a
case
for
democracy
and
pluralism
in
the
Muslim
world,
Tamimi
is
worried
that
what
the
West,
especially
the
U.S.,
under
neo-cons,
is
doing
has
weakened
the
peoples'
faith
in
democracy.
Rashid Amjad, an eminent economist working
with
ILO
as
Director,
analyses
the
impact
of
remittances
and
outflow
of
workers
on
the
economies
and
poverty
in
four
countries
of
South
Asia.
Although
Pakistan,
Bangladesh
and
India
have,
with
varying
degrees,
benefited
most
from
the
upsurge
in
remittances,
he
argues,
their
impact
on
reduction
in
poverty
may
not
be
as
visible
as
in
1980s,
even
if
they
have
stabilised
foreign
exchange
reserves
and
the
current
account
and
created
greater
liquidity
that
helped
lowering
of
interest
rates
for
investment.
Post-9/11
surge
in
remittances,
he
underlines,
may
be
due
to
the
closing
down
of
informal
transfers
through
'havala'.
Neil DeVotta, Assistant Professor of Political
Science
at
Hartwick
College,
New
York,
with
a
rational
Sinhala
viewpoint,
essentially
blames
Sinhala
chauvinism
for
the
emergence
of
Tamil
separatism
in
an
almost
exclusionary,
majoritarian,
unitary
state
that
has
failed
to
undertake
devolution
and
include
Tamils
in
the
nation-building
process.
He
argues
that,
thanks
to
competing
Sinhala
elites
and
the
expeditious
politics
of
their
rival
parties,
the
Tamil
question
has
not
been
solved.
This
helped
the
emergence
of
reactive
nationalism
of
the
Tamils,
which
assumed
quite
a
radical
form,
with
the
emergence
of
LTTE,
after
the
Tamils'
peaceful
struggle
was
crushed
with
force.
He
pins
his
hopes
on
the
Indian
factor,
due
to
New
Delhi's
aversion
to
Tamil
separatism,
in
maintaining
the
territorial
integrity
of
a
state
that
is
yet
to
agree
even
on
an
interim
arrangement,
minus
separate
Tamil
homeland,
with
the
LTTE,
as
demanded
by
the
latter.
Dr Rubina Saigol, leading sociologist and
educationist,
analyses
the
role
of
ideology
and
nation-building
under
