South Asian collective security -- a complex but noble idea

The conventional military tensions are there, but the introduction of nuclear capability by the two major regional nations has plunged the area into possibilities of alarming proportions. South Asia is already an international flash point because of the arms race in the region and the money that is being spent here for defence is really something horrifying. Two celebrated personalities of the region have made no bones of the fact that South Asia need peace and security should its people improve the quality of life. The region is poverty-ridden with many people remaining mired in abject poverty as hunger, illiteracy and ill health stalk the region. But in stark contrast, the military expenditure here is huge and by any estimate it is simply not only highly disproportional to the economic strength of the countries of the region, but also largely at the cost of the socio-economic development that could have directly benefitted the vast segment of the people.

Late Dr.Mahbubul Haq, the well known economist from Pakistan, who had established a human development institute in Islamabad and made untiring efforts till his death for improving the human resource index of the regional countries, concluded that defence expenditures by India and Pakistan are by far much larger than many oil-rich Gulf nations when viewed in terms of proportional expenses in the sector compared to their income. He made a forceful plea for reduction of the allocations in the military and divert to areas related to socio-economic development. No wonder such pleas will land only in deaf ears since the protagonists of the arms race would place many factors to justify the expenses and their arguments are also not necessarily without basis. Neverthess, when internationally reputed economist like Dr.Haq makes such prognosis about the economic conditions of South Asia, evidently the case of lessening military expenditures gets a boost.

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Nobel laureate in economics, Dr.Amartya Sen, much of whose works and highly acclaimed thesis is based on the poverty of developing and least developed countries like those in South Asia, has also stressed the need for greater expenditures in the welfare oriented sectors for the benefit of the masses. Once again, it will be a height of folly to expect that their logic for bigger expenditures in social sectors by reducing it in the military will be heeded to by those who are at the helm and find enough justification in the high defence expenditures. The poverty-ridden South Asia needs to come out from this situation for the sake of its people, who want to get rid of perennial hunger and other chronic problems and some taste of decent livelihood. True, poverty is not the case for all, but certainly the large segment of the people is unfortunate and mired in serious economic problems.

There is hardly any denying that much of the socio-economic progress in the region which is inextricably linked with the welfare of the people, is contingent upon the overall security system in the area and this is crucially important for the SAARC as a whole. Conventional military development along the nuclearisation has created a sense of insecurity and instability for the region. It is being increasingly felt that there is a need for evolving a cooperative security milieu here in order to give south Asia political security and stability, which in turn, will have tremendous bearing on the socio-economic development. Within this broad framework, a South Asian peace and security system can provide the beginning of a much needed structure that will help substantial multilateral cooperation in the SAARC region.

Many experts opine varying views about the efficacy and effectiveness of a kind of security system in the traditionally trouble-prone region, but agree that a sense of collective security would have done great service to the on-going efforts of collective cooperation. Arguably, security is a big concept and it encompasses many matters that have wide ranging implications and need to be analysed in the context of larger global and regional perspective. Nonetheless, a broad parameter for South Asian security system can be considered for overall improvement of the political climate in the area. The current time is particularly appropriate for such a thinking since the present positive trend of reconciliation among the belligerents and closer ties among others should encourage a better security system in the region.

Some experts feel that five principles -- a commitment to the UN charter and UN resolutions, preservation of the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the states in the region and non-intervention in internal affairs, commitment to SAARC convention for the protection of human rights including the rights of minorities, commitment to specified "cooling off" timeframe and dialogue in the case of a crisis and lastly, a strategic stability regime can form a broad basis of a security system.

A recent important South Asian conference in Pakistan has thrown enough light on this complex but critically important subject with a view to creating a better political environment in the region that would facilitate goodwill and harmony, which in turn, will promote the desired cooperation in various fields among the nations of the area.

"We resolve to get out of the straitjacket of enmity, overcome obsession with over-demanding militaristic security paradigm and look beyond the traditional notions of security and focus on an integrated South Asian cooperative security that recognises interdependence and mutuality of interests" said an agreed resolution adopted at the conference last month participated mainly by the leading parliamentarians of the regional countries and also others including editors and senior journalists, experts and academics. Without prejudice to the current positions of the SAARC governments on amending the SAARC charter, the conference called upon the SAARC to initiate a study of mechanisms for cooperative security in the region. In a remarkable agreed view, the participants cutting across national and domestic political divide said given the increasingly intrusive nature of the international political system, it is imperative that the region developed its own security and conflict resolution mechanisms.

Such resolution, somewhat unprecedented in this tension ridden region, definitely represents something that we all are longing for in line with the larger good of the more than 1.4 billion people in the region. South Asian collective security system is not anything impossible even though this is very complex and may take time for seeing the light of the day.

Zaglul Ahmed Chowdhury is s senior journalist.