By Sanjoy Hazarika, IANS
The recent summit of the heads of state and government of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) appears to have gone well although the large television screen above the heads of the heads of government in Vigyan Bhavan caught a few Indian cabinet ministers dozing while the leaders droned on.
India’s now the chairman. What else is new? Perhaps for the first time, government leaders spoke of the need to have time frames for their suggestions for cooperation and collaboration. One of the observers at the meeting, the American State Department official Richard Boucher, remarked after listening to the high-sounding opening declarations that the nations of SAARC hardly conducted any trade worth the name among themselves! That is one place to start and the prime minister’s announcement on a trade policy favourable to goods from neighbours, which are Least Developed Countries (LDCs) – read Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal – will help kick-start the process.
Impromptu remarks by a few leaders provided a window to their real thinking.
Thus, when President Abdul Gayoom of the Maldives declared to a sprinkling of applause that he was the only leader of a SAARC country to have attended all 14 summits, he illuminated a major problem: all other countries of South Asia have democracy in some form or the other, the Maldives does not.
Gayoom is not just president; he is also the head of the army and the courts there. Not a frond of a coconut tree moves in his beautiful land of many islands and coral reefs without his nod. His land of 19 atolls and 340,000 population has a fine HDI (human development index), good literacy and health figures, and an average life expectancy of 64 years. He is both president and head of government – and has been in office since 1978! That is quite a record for energetic South Asia, which believes in political change – mostly peaceful, at times violent (Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh are examples).
The official website for the Maldives says that “while political parties are not banned, none exist”. That should tell us something about the political situation there. There is no free media; human rights activists and peaceful protesters, as we heard at a separate forum a few days earlier, are brutally targeted and held without trial.
But I recall from a visit, some years back, a different nation.
This was in 1988, when a group of mercenaries from Sri Lanka tried to overthrow President Gayoom and the Indian Air Force and crack commandos were airlifted and rushed to his help (this was during Rajiv Gandhi’s time). Some of us flew in with the troops; the co-called coup was quashed. At the time, we noted, that that the Maldives government had a very gentle way of dealing with crime – they had no jails since violence was virtually unknown.
In one well-known case, a German national was shipped off to a deserted island for killing his woman companion. He was provided food, water and other provisions to live in isolation until the next shipload came, at regular intervals. This man got so used to living alone in solitary splendour that when the German ambassador flew down from New Delhi to ask him if he wanted to “return to civilisation”, his answer was an emphatic “No!”
Politics has developed differently in the region, and the Maldives would do well to take note of the case of Bhutan, once a kingdom where the king’s word was absolute. The former king of Bhutan, Jigme Singye Wangchuk, initiated his kingdom’s steady move toward multi-party democracy and then handed over his throne to his son, when he was at the peak of his popularity. His view was simple: democracy, however flawed, is the best form of government. And that it was better to move towards a democracy then live in isolated majesty, despite an individual’s personal popularity.
There is another matter that begs for attention – visas. Despite the apparent bonhomie at SAARC and the resolve to have simplified travelling for certain category of people, including journalists, I was not issued a visa to visit Bangladesh to participate in a Track II dialogue between India, Bangladesh, China and Myanmar, called BICIM, to encourage better relations but also develop a policy framework for cooperation, which could be given to all governments.
One possible reason for the non-acceptance of papers (let me clarify that I was not officially denied a visa, my application was not accepted) was the hanging of the Islamic extremist Bangla bhai and several others on the day I was supposed to land in Dhaka. I guess the interim caretaker government must have anticipated wide scale protests or violence, but neither happened. And even this explanation does not make sense because four other Indian participants to the meeting were issued visas! Perhaps, because I am a writer and columnist.
I have pointed out to friends in Bangladesh and here that the non-issuance of a visa was an act of foolishness because I am among the few voices in the northeast who advocate a balanced approach and better relations with our neighbour. I think that this is the only way to engage with them and get them to understand our views on illegal migration, the armed gangs that are based there and other concerns. In fact, I have even invited and organised visits by leading Bangladeshi scholars and others, such as the former foreign secretary Farooq Sobhan, to the northeast, which proved an eye opener for them and for those who listened to them.
I’m not the only one singled out for such treatment: three journalists were refused visas in February. But we can’t give up – I’ll try for a visa later this summer and continue to bring scholars and professionals from there to the northeast (officially, of course!) to crack mindsets and change policies.
Not to continue this process would mean admitting failure and giving in to the hardliners. That we cannot countenance.
(Sanjoy Hazarika is a commentator on South Asian affairs and can be reached at [email protected])