The idea of a South Asian Parliament (SAP) is not very old. It was first mooted academically during the early 1990s, and was elaborated upon in 1995 in the form of a research paper. One of the authors of the paper, Professor M.L. Sondhi, taking advantage of his position as the Chairman of the Indian Council of Social Science Research, organised an India-Pakistan Social Scientists Forum and issued a call from this forum to establish a South Asian Regional parliament. Gradually, journalists and academics have endorsed and propagated this initiative. While some of these academics and analysts have projected the idea of SAARC parliament as a mechanism for 'crisis management and resolution', others have seen it as a legislative body to monitor the 'economic and security interests of the region'.

The idea of SAP did not emerge initially from the SAARC process as sensitive political issues were generally kept out of its framework. The idea of a SAARC or South Asian Parliament is a manifestation of an advanced degree of political integration in the region. As the questions of preserving sovereignty and national identity are powerfully defining national agenda in South Asia, compromising sovereignty could not be envisaged under any regional institutional arrangement. Accordingly, even the Group of Eminent Persons (GEP) appointed during the 9th SAARC Summit in Male in 1997, steered clear of the aspects of political integration in the region, though it proposed the setting up of a South Asian Economic Union by the year 2020. The GEP, while commenting on the 'Political Dimension' of the SAARC process only acknowledged that 'often, cooperation has been hindered by a lack of political will and hampered by the vicissitudes of the political climate'.This concern with sovereignty and political identity would still be a major challenge to be overcome as and when concrete moves are made towards establishing a regional parliament.

However, the idea of SAP has started tapping gently on the political sound board in some of the South Asian countries and also in the SAARC forum. It appeared very feebly during the deliberations of SAARC Ministers meeting to celebrate the 10th Anniversary of SAARC and articulate a 'SAARC Vision For The Second Decade', in New Delhi on December 8, 1995. India's then Prime Minister Narasimha Rao mentioned the idea of a South Asian Parliament in his inaugural address at this commemorative meeting and the Bangladesh Foreign Minister, ASM Mostafizm Rahman endorsed it in the form of a 'non-legislative South Asian parliament'. In 1998, at the Male summit, the Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif did propose a forum of South Asian foreign ministers as 'High Council' for 'inquiry, mediation and conciliation' on peace and security in South Asia, but that was not comparable to Parliament. The then opposition leader Benazir Bhutto had taken an initiative to hold a meeting of the parliamentary opposition leaders of SAARC countries. In May 2003, Pakistan's PPP parliamentarians complained that they were not allowed by General Pervez Musharraf's military regime to participate in a meeting in India called to discuss the formation of a SAARC Parliament. They were referring to a South Asia Forum of Parliamentarians established in India by the Members of Indian parliament led by the Congress Party's Edwardo Falerio. Another articulate Indian political leader and a parliamentarian Dr. Subramanian Swami talked about a South Asian Parliament to his audiences in Washington. Political support for the idea of a South Asian parliament received a boost when India's Congress leader Mrs. Sonia Gandhi endorsed it at a 'Conference on Peace Dividend in South Asia', organised by the Hindustan Times group of newspapers in New Delhi in December 2003. Responding, in a way, to the call for greater economic integration, open borders and security cooperation in South Asia by Prime Minister Vajpayee, the leader of opposition in the Indian Parliament Mrs. Sonia Gandhi said at the same forum:

'Over time, why can't we, for instance, conceive a South Asian Parliament as a permanent deliberative body on issues of regional concern and importance? Such a body could expand the perspective on South Asia among all our countries.'

Mrs. Gandhi has repeated the idea of a South Asian Parliament on subsequent occasions. This has led the Congress Party to endorse the idea in its agenda for the April-May, 2004 elections. After its electoral victory, the newly formed United Progressive Alliance (UPA) has also accepted the idea in the Common Minimum Programme (CMP). With what sincerity and commitment this objective will be pursued and how political and structural difficulties coming in its way will be dealt with, remains to be seen.

POLITICAL CONTEXT AND CULTURE
Parliament is a political institution. There are two important aspects of the context and culture required to evolve and strengthen this institution in a given region. One is the nature of the system of parliamentary democracy in each of the regional countries and second, the level of political integration among all the countries of the region where such an institution has to be established. In South Asia, there are two broad categories in which democratic parliamentary institutions can be seen. One: where parliamentary democracy has taken considerable roots and another, where this system is under stress and still evolving.

In the first category, India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh may be included. In India and Sri Lanka parliamentary institutions have been functioning since independence, for nearly fifty years within a democratic framework of polity. However, in Sri Lanka the prestige and powers of parliament have been seriously undermined since the introduction of the system of Executive Presidency in 1978. The parliament and its related institution have also come under additional stress in Sri Lanka due to political divide between the Executive President and the Parliament, between 2001 and April 2004. This divide still persists even after 2004 election in which the President's coalition emerged victorious but without a clear parliamentary majority. Lack of healthy political traditions of 'co-habitation' between a powerful president and a popular parliament that could not be envisaged while drafting the 1978 Constitution, has brought discomfiture and embarrassment to both the President and the Parliament. In Bangladesh, parliament has functioned as a truly democratic institution for about 16 to 17 years, from 1972-75 and from 1991 to the present. The period in between was marked by military rule and politically docile and tailored parliaments. It is only in India that parliamentary democracy has remained a stable structure of governance. Some see this stability as having been eroded during the period of emergency rule, from August 1975-July 1977.

The remaining four countries, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan and Maldives fall into the second category of pseudo- quasi- or un- democratic systems. These countries have witnessed serious distortions in the democratic institutions, except during short intervals. Nepal and Pakistan have had functioning parliamentary democracies during 1959-1960 & 1990-2002; and 1988-1999 respectively. In Pakistan, during the initial decade of 1947-1958, the basic tenants of parliamentary democracy were accepted by the institutional structures but in practice, parliamentary democracy remained fragile and unstable. During the remaining times, there have been autocratic political orders in these two countries under the military generals in Pakistan and feudal monarchs in Nepal. In Bhutan the monarchy is trying to assume democratic institutional framework and in Maldives, the powerful presidency governs under one-party dominance system. Notwithstanding the democratic distortions in these countries, there have been elected (directly or indirectly) legislatures where public and sectional concerns are voiced and executive responses to such concerns invoked.

The South Asian region does not stand for strong parliamentary institutions. Even in stable democracies like India and Sri Lanka, socio-political dynamics has evolved in a manner that healthy political culture has not been reflected in the functioning of parliaments and its associated institutions. Political defections, indiscipline, corruption and power struggles have not allowed healthy norms and traditions of parliamentary functioning to take roots. For months on, oppositions have boycotted parliaments to make trivial political points and in the process, have also not allowed parliaments to transact legislative business. More often than not, the ruling parties have not shown necessary respect and deference to the wishes of the opposition. This is true in almost all the parliaments of the region. This is not the place to go into a detailed analysis of the malady of parliamentary functioning in South Asia but one of the important factors is expansion of politics in South Asian societies and the introduction of hitherto marginalised social groups into national legislatures. These groups are not aware of parliamentary processes nor are they fully acultured in democratic norms and discipline. Social fragmentation of polities in South Asia has led to the intensification of the race of political power along sectarian identities and interest groups, loosening of the control of party organisations and erosion of values and ideals. Above all, the autocratic rulers and undemocratic political orders in some countries of the region have also not allowed democratic institutions to develop in these countries.

Notwithstanding the fragility of parliamentary democracy in South Asia, there is a positive side to this as well. The stable democracies in India and Sri Lanka have accumulated rich experience in evolving parliamentary institutions over the years in the given social and political context of the region. This experience has been shared, consciously or otherwise with other countries in the region. Thus the institution of Parliament has developed its procedures, rules of transacting legislative business, defined the roles of its officers, political groups and individual members, and developed norms of parliament's engagement with other governing institutions like the executive, judiciary, media, civil society etc. There is also the experience of bicameral legislative structures in India and Nepal. India being a dynamically federal system, also has the experience of operating state level legislatures, presenting a wide variety of experiences to its neighbouring countries to learn, by way of both acceptance and rejection of specific aspects of institutional evolution. Therefore, South Asia has the experience, expertise and ingenuity to develop a regional parliament, at least its design and structures, if there is political will in the region to have such an institution.

TOWARDS REGIONAL INTEGRATION
The idea of a regional parliament is closely related to the level of regional political integration. In South Asia, until recently, political integration has been kept out of the SAARC process while emphasising economic integration. There is no dearth of SAARC documents, scholarly analyses and media commentary that lament slow and tardy progress of SAARC in furthering the cause of economic integration in the region. SAARC was initiated on the theoretical premise of 'functionalism' that stresses that economic cooperation and socio-cultural exchanges would help build the required mutual confidence in the region where political understanding would be strengthened, conflicts resolved and integration initiated. But in the past two decades, the slow progress of SAARC has been blamed on lack of political will and reluctance to address political issues. Pakistan, in particular, has raised the question of Kashmir and bilateral political conflicts in the SAARC forum, and other members of the regional organisation have also supported the idea of opening SAARC to regional and bilateral political discussions. India has not accepted this because the SAARC Charter, based on functional theory's approach and original consensus, does not allow bilateral and contentious issues to be raised.

The roots of the conflict between political and cooperative issues in South Asia mainly lie in two areas: the Indo-Pakistan conflict and the inherent regional structural imbalance where India, being overwhelmingly large and better endowed, invokes suspicion and fear among its smaller neighbours, who pursue strategies to counter-balance India. Both these roots of regional conflict are gradually softening under the twin pressures of domestic popular aspirations aroused by fast spreading awareness and the global integrative forces unleashed by globalisation. Almost all the SAARC statements reflect such pressures. On India's part, initiative in the direction of alleviating the concerns of its smaller neighbours to speed up the SAARC process were taken during Rajiv Gandhi's (1984-89) regime in many ways. His foreign minister Dinesh Singh even took these efforts to the popular and civil society levels by establishing the Indian Council for South Asian Cooperation to propagate this line. A decade later the 'Gujral Doctrine', initiated by the then Foreign Minister I.K.Gujral in 1996, was seen as the thoughtful response, which helped India move toward assuaging the fears and apprehensions of its smaller neighbours. The foreign minister of his successor government NDA, Yashwant Sinha while endorsing the essence of 'Gujral Doctrine' committed his government to 'institutionalising positive asymmetry in favour of our neighbours'. Mr. Sinha had in fact gone much beyond that when in addressing a seminar on South Asian Cooperation in Dhaka, in January 2003, he gave a call of a 'Union of South Asian States'. He said:

'If Africa could think in terms of a Union, if the Economic Community in Europe could become a European Union, if ASEAN could make progress, if the countries in Latin America could make progress, there is no reason why we in South Asia cannot become a Union of South Asian states. So I am putting this idea on a table. We will be interested in negotiating a new agreement which will create a South Asian Union and in course of time, the South Asian Union the SAU will not merely be an economic entity. It will acquire a political dimension in the same manner (by) which the European Union has come to acquire a political and strategic dimension. This is the direction in which I suggest we move. I am not suggesting an end to SAARC but an upgradation of SAARC into a South Asian Union.'

The effect of domestic and global pressures was not evident only in the speeches. There were positive developments in South Asian bilateral relations as well, of course, along with persisting tensions and misunderstandings. In 1996, India resolved the Chittagong Hill Track refugee and insurgency issue with Bangladesh and signed Mahakali Treaty with Nepal. In 1998, India resolved the Ganga waters dispute with Bangladesh and also signed Free Trade Agreement with Sri Lanka. Now Sri Lanka and India are pursuing a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement to integrate their economies as closely as possible. Bangladesh is also interested in having a Free Trade Agreement with India. In 2003, Bhutan demonstrated an unprecedent level of cooperation with India when it decided to have mutually coordinated operations to flush out India's Northeast insurgents from their sanctuaries within its territory. These are only some of the landmark signs of a change in the dynamics of India's cooperation with its immediate neighbours both within and outside the SAARC parameters.

It is hoped that there is a similar positive move in Indo-Pakistani relations as well. Surely, the international community, particularly the US has been nudging these two adversarial neighbours to resolve their differences since the 1998 nuclear explosions. The Kargil conflict and the consequences of post September 11 developments have only strengthened the US resolve to 'remain engaged' with the Indo-Pakistan issue. That both India and Pakistan are feeling the pinch of domestic developmental challenge being vitiated by their bilateral conflict became evident when both the Indian and the Pakistani Prime Ministers talked of poverty as the common challenge in 2003. The then Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee in April 2003, called for fresh initiatives to open a dialogue between India and Pakistan, and proposed the prospects of 'security cooperation, open borders and even a single currency'. Inaugurating a symposium on 'The Peace Dividend: Progress For India and South Asia' in New Delhi in December 2003, Vajpayee said:

'I would suggest that the demands of globalisation and the aspirations of our people provide the objective bases of our energetic pursuit of a harmoniously integrated South Asia. Our people, business and organisations are waiting to interact more closely with each other…They have waited for over an half-century for its fulfillment and are now impatient to move ahead. We can sense this impatience in the outpouring of popular sentiments after our initiatives. The increased travel between India and Pakistan of Parliamentarians, businessmen, artists and sportsmen show the intense desire for amity and goodwill. We have to respond to this desire by seeking every possible way to banish hostility and promote peace.'

The Indo-Pakistan decision during the Islamabad SAARC summit to initiate a bilateral dialogue for conflict-resolution between them was the result of the sentiments expressed in the above statement and efforts made to build mutual confidence. This has given the SAARC a new momentum and the positive manner in which this dialogue is being pursued by the new UPA government clearly underlines that India-Pakistan relationship is a part of the whole subcontinent's movement towards greater economic cooperation and political integration. There are optimists in India and Pakistan who even claim that a positive Indo-Pakistani relationship will be put on viable track by the end of this year.

Regional political integration is a difficult and complex process. It often follows regional economic integration, but only when there is a strong political will. In South Asia, some signs of such a political will slowly emerging can be seen but these are still very weak and fragile. The dynamics of regional economic and political integration is best illustrated by the European experience where credible initiatives for regional economic integration started only during the Fifties after long Westphalian stability. The process of European integration has become a strong movement but it is in no sense complete, not even the economic integration process has been fully accomplished and secured. Politically, the European Union is struggling to evolve consensus on Common Foreign and Security Policies of the member countries. The European parliament which was first constituted after direct elections in 1979 is still evolving. However, both the process of European Integration and the evolution of the European Parliament offer useful insights for South Asia to learn from, in terms of following positive lessons and avoiding pitfalls, though social, political and economic conditions in South Asia are vastly different from what they have been in Europe. No other region in the developing world has so far come forward firmly in emulating Europe in working for political integration. ASEAN, considered more successful comparatively and has developed institutions for security issues (such as ARF), has neither thought of an ASEAN Parliament nor a common approach to critical political values like democracy, pluralism, human rights and freedom. Other developing regional groupings like GCC, SCO, OAU, IOC-ARC etc are far behind on the political front. South Asia has at least started talking about the goal of a community and establishing a regional union with talks of a South Asian Parliament.

SOUTH ASIAN PARLIAMENT
Like the European Parliament, the SAP can both induce and reinforce the process of South Asian cooperation and integration, as also get reinforced by such process. Mrs. Sonia Gandhi, the leader of India's Congress party viewed the SAP as an instrument that could be helpful in the growth of a regional perspective. The academics have looked at it as an institution of political mutual understanding, communication and consensus building that may positively impinge on conflict resolution. Perhaps, under the SAARC process, somewhat unwittingly though, this inherent role of SAP was taken note of when introducing provisions for visa-free travel of parliamentarians. The Parliamentarians on their own are also realising the value of getting together at the regional level as evident from the establishment of SAARC forum of parliamentarians. So far SAP is still an idea, even a nebulous idea, but as and when the region starts working for it, its structural aspects will have to be considered carefully. The first pre-condition for establishing SAP will be an Agreement or a Treaty among all the South Asian countries on the structure. The example of Maastricht Treaty (1992) and the Amsterdam Agreement (1997) to support the structure of the European Parliament may be recalled here. Such Agreements and Treaties may be negotiated within the SAARC framework. To facilitate such negotiations, another Eminent Persons Group or a specially constituted task force may be appointed by SAARC to thrash out theoretical details of SAP structure.

South Asian countries have a strong electoral tradition based on adult suffrage, with the exception of Bhutan. Accordingly, an elected SAP can be constituted on the prevailing electoral systems of the member countries. While the preference for a free and fair election based on adult suffrage may be highlighted, accommodation be made for indirect elections to SAP from any specific country until it is ready to hold direct elections. The life of SAP may be five years as is the general practice of parliaments in South Asian countries.

Numerical strength of the Parliament poses a real challenge in South Asia because of its inherent imbalance. Any proportionate representation would invariably put Indian SAP members at absolute majority because of India's demographic enormity. This will not be acceptable to the other countries. Therefore there are two alternatives in deciding the strength of the Parliament and the number of representatives from each country. One is to have equal number from each country and another to have a proportionate number but not (emphasis added) based on population size of the respective countries. Equal numbers will naturally militate against India since its representation in SAP will be reduced to 1/7 of the total size, making the composition look grossly unnatural. It may also create difficulties for very small countries like Bhutan and Maldives, who may not have a large pool of competent people to be spared for South Asian regional deliberations. Thus, for a balanced composition of SAP, while India's overall demographic dominance has to be avoided, the size differential of the countries has also to find some reflection in the regional body. One formula for composition could be that while India contributes 25 per cent of the total strength, the other two demographically sizable countries, Pakistan and Bangladesh, contribute 15 per cent each and the remaining four smaller sized countries contribute 10 per cent each of the total numbers. This is just a suggestion to illustrate a balanced formula, which can surely be improved upon. In SAARC, financial contributions are made on the basis of each member country's capabilities. Perhaps the same formula may be applied for meeting the expanses of SAP, and there again a differentiated-balanced representation will seem rational. The European Parliament also follows a differentiated approach where number of representation from member countries differ from each other and is collectively decided.

There is another sensitive aspect linked to representation. In European Parliament national identities are submerged under political identities because in the Chamber, the seating arrangement does not follow nationality criteria.. This does not seem workable for SAP. Not only because the national identities in South Asia have not been softened at the European level but also because, due to lack of uniform political and democratic norms and practices in South Asia, political groups cutting across national boundaries with similar ideologies and political programmes have emerged. The prospects of such groups emerging in the foreseeable future also seem dim. The SAP members will, therefore, continue to retain their respective national identities along with their political and ideological complexions. On specific issues, national representatives from the same country may take different positions according to their respective political programmes, and so, even cooperate with politically sympathetic groups from across the borders. For instance Communist party members of various South Asian countries may take a mutually coordinated approach in SAP that may be in conflict with other political representatives from their countries. Recurrence of such situations will initiate a process of political harmony across national boundaries in South Asia.

The officers of SAP, particularly the speaker and the deputy speakers may be elected within the Parliament on a rotational basis according to the alphabetical order. Each one may have a term of less than one year because all the seven member countries will have to be accommodated during the five-year term of SAP. Accordingly, while the candidates for each term can only be from among the members from only one country, votes will be cast by all the members of SAP. Other procedures and rules to govern smooth functioning of SAP may be drawn from the best available in South Asian countries. Total strength of the Parliament may be fixed somewhere between 300 t0 500, though in some of the South Asian countries like India, the strength of Parliament stands at more than 570 members. Raising or reducing the numbers of SAP must be collectively decided by the South Asian countries. However, larger the Parliament more would be the expenditure incurred on its functioning and upkeep. The Parliament may have at least two annual sessions with the gap between one and the other session not exceeding six months. SAP procedures may involve discussions in subject committees, question sessions and open House debate. And decisions may be adopted in the form of Resolutions adopted by majority vote. It may be desirable to provide a safeguard that any particular Resolution which does not have support of atleast 1/3 of all the member countries representatives may not be adopted.

Like the European Parliament during its initial stages, SAP can only start as a deliberative body. At this stage we are not even envisaging a regional executive on the lines of the European Council or Commission. It may still take years before the next stage of South Asian regional political integration can be contemplated. The SAP will therefore address its decisions/resolutions to the South Asian governments or even SAARC. As other institutions of political integration evolve in South Asia, SAP may, over the years, begin to assume a legislative character. Until then SAP decisions will be in the form of suggestions and recommendations. Even when these SAP decisions are ignored or rejected by the individual governments, they will generate public pressures in their favour throughout the region. More so when some South Asian governments accept them and others do not. The subjects under the purview of SAP should then be those areas where SAARC has been working and where there already is a regional consensus. This gives a wide variety of issues to SAP for deliberations, ranging from those of economic cooperation to the ones adopted under the Social Charter in the Islamabad SAARC summit. SAP may also deliberate upon security issues affecting the region like terrorism where SAARC Charter is being revamped. As security and nuclear confidence building grows between India and Pakistan, the related issues would also become ripe for SAP deliberations. Holding of the SAP sessions and its various subject committee meetings may be so disbursed throughout the region that no country feels either burdened or neglected. Further, such meetings will expose local people and national media, and sensitise them to regional issues. This is how a harmonised regional perspective indicated by Mrs. Sonia Gandhi will gain momentum. The SAP members, being free from specific national constraints may be able to think beyond their national positions even on complex and sensitive issues of conflicts and tensions in the region. In the process unconventional ideas and constructive possibilities may emerge for resolving such issues.

The vibrations of regional political integration have already started being felt. Both domestic and international forces are working on the vibrations to give them strength and direction. Under such circumstances the idea of SAP may look distant but not unrealistic. This distance between the idea and reality may be bridged if India-Pakistan confidence building gathers momentum and India takes bold initiatives to push regional integration in a positive direction.

S. D. Muni is Professor of South Asian Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi