Commentary/Mani Shankar Aiyar

The co-opting of Tamil Nadu in a delicate foreign-cum-domestic policy operation in Sri Lanka was wisdom itself

Gujral's third major achievement has been at the SAARC foreign ministers meeting in New Delhi last December, at which SAARC was persuaded to agree that co-operation need not only be pursued at the pan-regional level but might also be pursued at the sub-regional level. This is a considerable achievement because while India shares land or sea borders with each of her South Asian neighbours, virtually none of the other SAARC countries has a common border with any other SAARC country (the exception being the sea boundary between Sri Lanka and the Maldives).

While, therefore, there are some things that the region as a whole ought to be doing all together, there are many other things which it makes more sense to do on a sub-regional or bilateral basis.

The greatest potential for economic co-operation in our region lies not, in fact, in pan-SAARC co-operation but sub-regional co-operation extending to neighbouring countries outside the region. Thus, the development of India's North-East can best be undertaken in conjuction with Bangladesh, Myanmar and possibly China. Chittagong, nor Calcutta, provides the obvious sea-route to and from our North-East.

Equally, the Bay of Bengal, which now divides South Asia from South-East Asia, could become, by way of a Bay of Bengal community, the bridge between the littoral states of the bay, including Bangladesh, the western sea-board of India, Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia, and the least the island of Sumatra in Indonesia, plus, of course Sri Lanka and, possibly, the Maldives.

In the north-west, the energy problems of India and Pakistan can only be resolved by sub-regional co-operation that includes the two countries, Afghanistan and the ring of natural-gas-rich countries surrounding the sub-region: Iran, Turkmenistan, possibly Kazakhstan, and extending westwards to Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia and, Inshallah (InshClinton?), Iraq one day. By making sub-regional co-operation an integral part of pan regional co-operation under SAARC, Gujral has opened vast vistas -- of which he himself is possibly unaware.

And the fourth feather in Gujral's cap is Sri Lanka. The advent of Chandrika Kumaratunga and her very suave foreign minister, Lakshman Kadirgamar (president, Oxford Union -- and, therefore, to be trusted!), had of course, set the stage some time ago. Gujral was wise in stopping off in Madras to chat up Karunanidhi before going on to Colombo. As there was no particular agreement to sign in Colombo, it was not necessary to send Karunanidhi on a prior mine-sweeping operation, as with Basu in Bangladesh, but the co-opting of Tamil Nadu in a delicate foreign-cum-domestic policy operation in Sri Lanka was wisdom itself.

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