SAARC and region-building: is South Asia a region?

ABSTRACT

‘Region’ is a contested concept. Although scholars have extensively debated the issue, there is no consensus on the definition of region. While some scholars emphasize geographic proximity as a key factor, others put importance to cognitive and ideational factors, yet some others seek to combine the two perspectives to define region. Against such a background, this paper explains the complexities of defining South Asia as a region. It explores the historical evolution of the identification of the region and analyses how region building in recent decades, instead of consolidating its regionness, has produced a multiplicity of discourses, narratives and meanings about South Asia as a region. This is particularly evident if South Asia is examined in terms of ‘economic,’ ‘security’ and ‘cultural’ region. Importantly, these discourses, narratives and meanings are not necessarily symmetrical and compatible with each other although they co-exist in an uneasy manner at both regional and national levels. And, they are contingent and subject to change over time.

KEYWORDS:

• Region
• regionalism
• South Asia
• SAARC
• BIMSTEC
• security complex

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Dr Bhumitra Chakma is a Senior Lecturer and Director of South Asia Project in the School of Law and Politics at the University of Hull, UK. He previously taught at the University of Adelaide, Australia and the University of Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Notes

1. Bangladesh took the initiative to establish ‘institutional arrangement’ for regional cooperation. In the late 1970s, it began discussions with the South Asian states for a regional grouping and the president of Bangladesh formally wrote to his South Asian counterparts in May 1980 for a ‘ASEAN-like’ regional organisation (Mishra, 1982, p. 213) which culminated into the formal launching of SAARC in December 1985 (on the origins of SAARC, see Ahmed, 1985; Gupta, 1986; Muni & Muni, 1984).

2. Although the 1991 economic reforms are conceived to be the consequence of the balance of payment crisis, the change was gradually taking shape in the 1980s (Kohli, 2006a, 2006b).

3. During the time of previous UPA government, the policy was dubbed as ‘Look East’ which was rephrased as ‘Act East’ when the NDA government took over power in 2014. It was done to prioritise the country’s engagement with East and Southeast Asian countries (Rajendram, 2014; Kaul & Chakraborty, 2016).

4. Reports and op ed pieces in the Pakistani newspapers manifest such an expectation (Awan, 2017). Of course, there are opposing views as well regarding the extent of benefit from the CPEC (Kardar, 2017; ‘One-way street,’ 2017).

5. Not only Pakistan, India also aligned with the Soviet Union during the Cold War era to augment its diplomatic and military power. South Asia thus turned into an intrusive system in which foreign powers intruded into the region’s international relations (Brecher, 1963). It is noteworthy that it went against India’s regional security doctrine, thus contradicting and complicating India’s discourse on South Asia as a security region.

6. Although India-Pakistan strategic rivalry has primarily shaped the structure of the South Asian security complex, the intrusion of extra-regional powers has greatly influenced the security relationship of the two states and the structure of the region’s security complex (Rynning, 2017). While China historically has been a significant factor, in recent years, China’s footprint has increased in South Asia as a security actor, thus affecting the regional security complex.