Dr.
S.S. Chhina
WHEN SAARC Association was established in 1989,
its main objectives were establishment of peace
and making efforts for the economic development
of the region. Although India, Pakistan, Bangladesh,
Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan and Maldives were its
members yet India and Pakistan were two such countries
where 92 percent of the population inhabited.
Afghanistan became its eighth in 2007. It occupies
4 percent of the area of the world but 22 percent
of the population inhabits in this region. This
region is very backward and it produces only 2
percent of the G.D.P. of the world.
 Moreover,
per capita income of the region is 10 percent
of the average per capita income of the world.
All the member countries of the SAARC Association
are prominently agricultural based countries where
70 percent of the population is dependent on this
occupation. However, all of these countries are
facing acute food problems and atmosphere of uncertainty
also prevails there. India had been a food exporting
country for 20 years but consequently it had to
import wheat in 2006 and 2007.
Similarly, Pakistan is also facing the problem
of food uncertainty. This problem is also the
biggest hurdle in the way of economic development
of the Bangladesh.
In all these countries there is acute shortage
of power. Though there is potentiality of generating
hydro-electric power, these sources are not being
fully exploited. In case of India, only 22 percent
of potential sources are exploited. The percentage
of exploitation of these sources is 13 percent
in Pakistan, 1 percent in Nepal and 1.5 percent
in Bhutan respectively. However Bhutan is exporting
electricity to India and thus earning 60 percent
of its export revenue that becomes 25 percent
of its G.D.P. In a nutshell, shortage of power
is the main problem for the agricultural as well
as industrial development of all the SAARC member
countries. On the other hand, Bhutan where adequate
electricity is generated does not have a suitable
environment for agricultural development and availability
of raw material for its industrial development
is very low. All these facts indicate the need
of coordination amongst the member countries for
the rapid economic development of the region.
At the time of establishment of SAARC Association
a trade agreement of SA/TA was made that prescribed
the preferential treatment of traders amongst
SAARC countries. It turned as SAFTA that got implemented
in January 2006 but within these two and a half
years no significant progress could be made in
the field of trade as it was expected for the
one forth of the population living in this region.
Though it can create an atmosphere of prosperity
for the people residing in these countries. Till
now much amount of trade is directed towards American
and European countries. Recently 5226 commodities
were identified for trade purposes between Bangladesh
and India but trade is going on only for 1306
goods. Though the Indian trade with Bangladesh
has increased from 90 million dollars in 2005
to 260 million dollars in 2007 yet that is very
insignificant with reference to the size of the
population of these countries.
A number of economists have suggested the creation
of SAARC Food Bank in which every country would
maintain a sufficient stock of food articles that
would be supplied to the member countries at the
lowest cost instead of importing the food from
far off countries as six of the SAARC countries
are having common land borders and commodities
can be traded at the lowest cost. In these stocks
the crops like pulses, oilseeds can also be stocked.
Though vegetables are the items of trade in these
countries, but their quantity is much low. While
comparing the other trade associations, this trade
amongst the SAARC countries seems to be much low.
The U.K. countries are sharing 2/3rd of the total
trade amongst themselves. Similarly another organization
of North America Free Trade Association has 50
percent of their trade amongst themselves, even
Asean an association of East African nations are
having 26 percent of their trade. Thus 4.8 trade
amongst SAARC countries becomes meaningless.
In view of the above it becomes essential to
find out the reasons and remedy measures by which
trade amongst SAARC countries can be promoted.
It is evident that such reasons are not economical
but these are political. These countries could
not provide the M.F.N. status to its member countries.
As the six countries are having common land borders,
there can be a number of items the trade can be
conducted. But till date Wagha Border is the only
check post between India and Pakistan that is
also the point for visit and for Immigration check.
So a lot of time is wasted while taking the goods
across the border. Similarly in Bangladesh, six
days are wasted just to cover a small distance.
It adds to the cost of trading and discourages
the traders to carry out trade among them. Though
the import/custom duties have been decreased from
80-90 percent to 20-25 percent but still it do
not attract the traders.
Though a number of goods are traded through
Dubai and Singapore to these counties but these
are not traded directly in short time at the lowest
cost. Such goods imported from other countries
are very costly and those are never desirable
for these countries where maximum number of people
are living below the poverty line.
The provision of SAARC Food Bank can be an effort
that can create lot of goodwill and amity among
the people living in these countries. This can
be a great example to establish peace in this
region. In view of the huge size of population
and prevalence of agricultural dominated economies,
the Planning Commissions of these countries had
given top priority to the agriculture sector.
Most of the cultivated area is covered by the
food crops. The agro-based industries have to
extract the raw material from agriculture sector.
But most of the agro based units are running below
their full capacity only because of the shortage
of raw material. For example, all the sugar mills
in India re running half to their capacity because
of the shortage of sugarcane. Same is the case
with other industrial units in all the SAARC countries.
None of these countries can afford to have adverse
affects on its key sectors of economy i.e. agriculture.
But the fear of food shortage should be removed
with regional cooperation where SAARC Food Bank
can play an important role. Only political reasons
and not the economic reasons can become obstacle
in its success and removal of these obstacles
can be a big achievement of SAARC.[ Dr Chhina
is professor at the GNDU, Amritsar]
BACK
Elections 2009:
Democratisation of politics, Indian style
Manjit Singh
IN the history of parliamentary elections of
India, for the first time it seems that there
is no discernable dominant tendency or wave, thanks
to the systematic erosion of the credibility of
both parties, Congress and BJP. Both these major
players in Indian politics, that were much sought
after by the ‘minor players’ till
recently, are now desperately looking for allies
but all in vain. It only shows that India is at
the threshold of true federal structure whereby
devolution of power to the states cannot be postponed
to the distant future. It is a unique experiment
in democracy amidst the stranglehold of medieval
social structure at the grass root level.
 Though
the roots of democracy in the West can be traced
back to ancient times, its expansion in the modern
sense is coterminous with the European Industrial
Revolution founded on the ideas of Enlightenment.
The use of universal franchise under a democratic
set up is still a more recent phenomenon as women
were barred from voting in some countries as late
as till early 20th century. It only shows that
the rise of capitalism in different parts of the
world ensured the corresponding consolidation
of political power, but the extent of democratisation
of political institutions, with progressive devolution
of power to the people, was constrained by many
other factors, such as, the nature of social structure
and its relation with religion, culture, degree
of uneven development, size of the country and
its geographical location. In other words, the
democratic form of political institutions always
lagged behind the democratic content as envisioned
by the classical political thinkers. It is all
the more true of the erstwhile colonies where
the democratic political structures have been
grafted onto the medieval social structure and
backward agrarian economy. India too has inherited
a similar checkered political legacy.
Historically, the political process in India
after Independence was preceded by the political
upheavals at the global level on the one hand,
and the challenge of meeting peoples’ aspirations
for development at home on the other. Indian masses
threw their weight behind the Indian National
Congress that emerged as champion of India’s
Independence. The Indian political elites chose
to follow the so-called ‘mixed economy model’
with half-hearted agrarian land reforms. The ideology
of compromise and accommodation resulted into
the strengthening of corporate sector, leaving
agriculture, the mainstay of Indian masses, disproportionately
lagging far behind. When during the 1970s the
economic failure started brewing political dissatisfaction
among the people, the Indian State reacted by
imposing severe curb on political freedom. Emergency
turned out to be harbinger of a new era of political
process. People were not ready to allow politicians
to bask in the glory of national liberation any
more. It was a time to take radical political
decisions to repair the rupture between the state
and the people but the political elites of the
time failed to awake to the occasion. In their
greed for power Indian politicians instead put
stakes in ‘money and muscle power’
besides resorting to aggressive identity politics,
often taking communal turn. Instead of restoring
faith of masses in the state, the Indian ruling
political parties resorted to horse-trading and
criminalisation of politics. In a vast country
like India, where there are a large number of
communities, castes, tribes, sects, languages
and religious beliefs, fanning identity politics
turned out to be handy as it was easy to ‘bribe’
or ‘buy’ a handful of community leaders
that follow the tedious path of development. In
the process two things happened: one, the erosion
of unchallenged political supremacy of the ‘nationalist’
parties, and two, the ushering in the era of coalition
government. Over time the demand for ‘money
and muscle power’ to sway votes reached
a point where politicians started wondering whether
it would be ‘economical’ to be in
politics any more or invest the same money and
social capital directly in business. More the
followers of each community are becoming aware
of the reality of the Indian political process,
larger are their expectations for the compensation
of their marginality, plunging the political alignments
into disarray.
By the time the country found itself at the
threshold of ‘new economic policy’
of liberalisation, globalisation and privatisation
rampant poverty and under-development had already
become the major challenge for the Indian State.
Pushed to the wall by the public pressure the
Indian State begged its survival from the global
players who in turn suggested hitching our bogey
with the IMF and World Bank. Soon the miracles
happened and the Indian economy zoomed to ‘shining’
heights but not without adding to the new sufferings
of the people. Consequently Naxalism spread to
more than 170 districts of India, mainly in the
tribal dominated parts of the country. While the
economy has become ‘globalised’ the
politics on the other hand is becoming localised
resulting into the devolution of political power.
Till yesterday, nobody could imagine that the
glow of ‘Shining India’ would eclipse
with the burst of very first bubble of finance
capital in America. What was being paraded as
development in reality turned out to be a biggest
scandal unparallel in the economic history of
the world, of which India too happened to be a
juniour partner. And here comes the Parliament
elections amidst the global economic chaos.
Elections 2009 are the most interesting for
various reasons: a) the number of aspirants for
the post of Prime Minister are equal to, if not
more than, the number of political parties in
the fray; b) since it is almost certain that no
single party would be even closer to the majority,
every political party, small or big, thinks that
it would be a real ‘king maker’ and
thus staking claim for the better share of the
political cake; c) the voters while deem personal
favours from their political bosses as matter
of right, they are also questioning the collective
social and economic under-development; d) the
charisma of identity politics does not seem to
be as strong as in the past three decades; and
e) the crucial role of media, both print and electronic.
The media has gone a long way to raise political
consciousness of the voters who are other wise
crushed under poverty and rampant illiteracy.
Consequently, democracy has started making inroads
into the deeply divided Indian society on identity
lines. The elections 2009 are a turning point
in the history of democratic politics in India,
not simply because there is continuous devolution
of political power, paving way for federal polity,
but also because it is going to be a litmus test
for the neo-liberal model of economic development.
[Manjit Singh, Professor of Sociology
, Panjab University, Chandigarh]
manjits@pu.ac.in
BACK
Econom ning crisis
Gobind Thukral
SINGAPORE: The entire world is passing through
a huge economic crisis that was triggered in America
six months back when banks, financial corporations
and markets started tumbling down. Billions of
dollars were lertainty.
Very soon as more turn jobless and poor, the
world, particularly the rich countries would witness
social tensions, increased crime and lawlessness.
The political turmoil would upset many calculations.
The gov
BACK
Eco ng crs
Gobind Thukral
SINGAPORE: The entire world is passing through
a huge economic crisis that was triggered in America
six months back when banks, financial corporations
and markets started tumbling down. Billions of
dollars were lertainty.
Very soon as more turn jobless and poor, the
world, particularly the rich countries would witness
social tensions, increased crime and lawlessness.
The political turmoil would upset many calculations.
The gov
BACK
Ecod fdgis gfhis
Gobind Thukral
SINGAPORE: The entire world is passing through
a huge economic crisis that was triggered in America
six months back when banks, financial corporations
and markets started tumbling down. Billions of
dollars were lertainty.
Very soon as more turn jobless and poor, the
world, particularly the rich countries would witness
social tensions, increased crime and lawlessness.
The political turmoil would upset many calculations.
The gov
BACK
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