In the past six months, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has won praise for several foreign policy initiatives. But across the world, it was Mr. Modi’s decision to invite the SAARC leaders to his swearing-in ceremony that has stood out as a ‘game changer’. While other international forays, to Japan, the U.S. and Australia, and multilaterals such as BRICS, essentially built on the previous government’s efforts, the SAARC invitation was completely Mr. Modi’s own idea, and came when India was at a low ebb with all its neighbours. It is then disappointing to see that just half a year later, the SAARC moment has faded, and the meeting between the South Asian leaders did not produce much more than a few face-saving agreements forged at the last moment. While Nepal was the host of the event, it had been hoped that India’s leadership would squire the event to a more glorious outcome and into a show of real solidarity. One factor adding to the optimism ahead of the event was that along with Mr. Modi, most of the leaders have been elected or re-elected to office in the last two years, and carried their country’s mandate if they agreed to bold measures to achieve the 18th SAARC summit’s theme of “regional integration”. India cannot possibly be blamed for the fact that they did not do so, but it did not expend the required extra effort for that either.
To begin with, >Mr. Modi ignoring Nawaz Sharif as the latter walked up to the podium during the inaugural session, set an uncomfortable tone to the entire summit. India and Pakistan have many differences, and Pakistan has much to answer for when it comes to tackling terror, but the lack of basic pleasantries at the inaugural session, when the two Prime Ministers came face to face for the first time since May, effected a chill that was not dispelled even after their very warm handshake at the closing session. Next, China’s attempt to enter the SAARC grouping was opposed successfully by India, but not before differences between member-states over the issue were exposed. India would do well to counterpoise China’s economic weight by engaging its neighbours more deeply to formulate a consensus, instead of being seen as obstructing a closer SAARC-China engagement. This is not unthinkable, as geographically and culturally India has more in common with its SAARC neighbours than China can ever hope to have. The truth is, India comes into its own on the world stage when it carries the neighbourhood with it. That is why Mr. Modi’s out-of-the box ideas of inviting SAARC leaders or of a SAARC satellite are applauded everywhere. Similarly, it will take creative thinking to realise the dream projected by his own words when he spoke at the summit, saying it is not enough to be close , but SAARC countries need to be together too.
