Features
Efforts to improve things in university sector: More money poured down the drain?
Lee Kwan Yew thought downgrading English main reason for our downfall
In congratulating you on this latest initiative ( launch of Logos, the journal of the Department of Languages), I should add that I am deeply honoured by this gesture on the part of the University and the Faculty, to make this first issue a felicitation volume for me. It was also thoughtful of you to have invited Dr Chitra Jayatilleka to deliver the keynote address today, since she represents what is best about what I consider my other university, that of Sri Jayewardenepura.
I cannot take credit for her achievements, though she would be the first to recognize that, had it not been for the system I put in place at that University, she would not be here today. Her achievements are ample testimonial, as are those of your staff here, to the validity of our decision then to open up English degrees to those who had not done English for their Advanced Levels. And though I did not stay long at that University, I was lucky in that, just as in this University, I was able to recruit excellent staff who took forward my ideas and, as with Chitra and her promotion of Sri Lankan drama in English, developed new ideas on similar lines.
I am immensely proud then of what I managed to do at that university and this one, and of the students who have taken things forward. But with regard to the University of Peradeniya, where I began my teaching career, way back in 1980, since I made no mark at all, I cannot take pride in my brief stint there. But even had I stayed on, perhaps I would not have achieved much, since one of the brightest stars in the English academic firmament, Prof Arjuna Parakrama, who is very different from me in his approach but who shares a similar commitment to students and to productive change, has confessed himself beaten by the place. Having long aspired to the Chair there, he remarked after he had got it that it was even worse than Colombo.
Be that as it may, the point is that, though there are exceptions at both places, those institutions are hidebound in moribund traditions, and like Pope’s Addison simply sit attentive to their own applause. This is very different from the University of Sri Jayewardenepura, which Prof Arjuna Aluvihare, the best UGC Chairman to date, described soon after I joined it as the cutting edge of the university system.
Much has been achieved there, and much at this University. However I come here now at a time when there is a requirement of much more, if this country is ever to return to the leading position it had when the Prime Minister of Singapore hoped that he could bring that country to our level. And I fear that the current project to improve things in the University sector, more money poured down the drain to repeat what has been done again and again, from the year 2000 onward when the irksome IRQUE project first reared its head, money that future bankrupted generations will have to repay, will achieve very little. And that will then allow the World Bank and its cookie-cutting educationists to embark on yet another expensive project, with much more money having to be paid back by those who lack the skills to develop the country productively, and as a consequence try to get away as soon as possible.
Perhaps because of the comfort zone these World Bank projects have engendered, there is nothing of the imaginative radicalism that characterized the period when Arjuna Aluvihare was in charge. And so I feel that, while what I think of as both my institutions try to move forward, they work now in grooves, and do not promote the seminal change which we need.
This is particularly important with regard to English, the downgrading of which as you know Lee Kuan Yew thought the principal reason for our downfall. And that we get worse and worse was brought home to me forcefully when a former senior public servant, now engaged in teaching at higher levels, called to tell me he was in despair about the incapacity of students at one of the premier institutes of management to write correctly. Subject-verb agreement, he said mournfully, was unknown to them. I too, having marked papers recently for your potentially useful MA course in English and Education, which takes up what I tried to do a quarter of a century ago, I am horrified by the English usage of some of those supposed to have degrees in English.
That set me thinking about what might have been, and I make no apologies that what I have to say relates to my own initiatives. For though I can be happy about what I began in the university sector, for that has continued, with many more students able to obtain degrees in English as compared to when it was confined to a charmed circle coming from elite urban schools, I have to confess that my efforts in other areas, secondary education and vocational training, have failed.
The step by step teaching of English envisioned in the curriculum I introduced when I chaired the Academic Affairs Board of the National Institute of Education was promptly abolished when a new Chairman was appointed following a change of government in 2006. He cannot be blamed for the mess except for his failure to impose coherence. But when the dead souls of the NIE took charge, and appointed to advisory positions their incompetent friends, we had a spate of silly books which have completely failed to ensure understanding of basic structures in English.
It is true English medium still continues in government schools but, ever since the current President refused soon after we had commenced it to allow Karunasena Kodituwakku to extend my appointment to run the programme, standards declined, and in place of the systematic training and the excellent textbooks I had initiated, the incompetence of the Ministry and the National Institute of Education hold sway. And as for Vocational Training, the system I put in place to offer English courses at all levels was abandoned, and while Ministers bleat about the need for more English, they do nothing constructive about it.
I have no doubt that nothing will now be done to make things better, but it might help if the universities at least took these problems seriously, and addressed themselves to identifying issues and suggesting remedies.
This was something I proposed when I was briefly State Minister of Higher Education, namely that there should be coherent research done by each university, instead of what we now have, projects chosen at random which cannot then be connected together to improve current practice in different fields.
I wonder now how many Vice-Chancellors, then or now, have any memory of what I proposed, that there should be concerted study of problems in the Divisional Secretariats that formed the catchment areas of each university, so these could contribute to a development plan which the universities could propose to authorities. Heaven knows that this is needed, when currently development funds are devoted to enhancing political popularity, not to development.
I also tried, when I was Minister, to address coherently another problem, though to my horror no one else seems to consider it a problem. I refer to the massive waste of time imposed by our education system. At its most obvious, whereas in other countries there is seamless movement from one level to another, we call a halt after the Ordinary Level examination, which means that our youngsters lose a minimum of four months of their lives, though more often it is six. Worse, the practice of learning in school is totally decimated, a process that had begun earlier with tuition classes from childhood, but now parents have no choice except tuition to keep children gainfully – or not gainfully – employed. Then there is massive waste after the Advanced Level Examination and, though some universities have tried to start soon after results are released, this is exceptional and in any case the release of the results only occurs months after the examination.
This needs to be addressed by reducing the delay, but until that happens there should be measures to use the time productively, with for instance remedial courses in English and Mathematics in Divisional Centres in the three months after the Ordinary Level, with basic core courses such as any modern university system offers in the period after the Advanced Level – Critical Thinking, Bilingualism, Communication Skills, International Awareness.
Interestingly, I was told by one of the MA students, who works for the American Centre, that she plans a Critical Thinking Conference early next week, which suggests that there is wider awareness of the problem. Coincidentally too, in the articles I am now writing about those I have worked with in the university sector, I have explored recently the range of core courses we introduced when this university first took in students for degrees, way back in 1997.
But sadly I believe that particular component was dropped from your curriculum when Sabaragamuwa too forgot the innovations its first Vice-Chancellor Prof Somasundara initiated. All of you will remember how the University Grants Commission tried over many years to destroy the three year Honours Degree Somasundara had started, and how finally they succeeded when conservatism briefly held sway here. So we too waste the resources of the nation, and make no effort to provide essentials for life to our students, working instead to a notion of academia that the world has long abandoned.
But let me move to some practical ideas, for I should not go on for too long, based on something I noticed in the latest Grade 11 English textbook. That at least is not full of misprints, as had been the case earlier, but it continues the practice of being one of a set of three books, all expensively produced, a Pupil’s Book, a Workbook, and a Teacher’s Guide. In other countries there is just the one book, but those other countries have not developed to a fine are the rent-seeking our system has engendered.
The last chapter is about ‘Choices in Life’ and tells you what five students want to do. All of them talk about what they wish to do at university and therefore what they will study for their advanced levels. There are three Sinhalese and one Muslim and one Tamil, and they come from Batticaloa, Kurunegala, Galle, Anuradhapura and Nuwara Eliya.
Admirable diversity, except that rural students do not figure. Even worse is the fact that there is no conception of the real choices students in this country have to make, and no effort to introduce them to vocational training.
Perhaps these and other such books would be suitable subjects for research for student projects at universities. A class of English students could divide the work up and, having gone to several schools in a designated area, find out how much students have learnt, both of English and what appear to be the life skills drilled into them in almost all lessons, what they think of the reading texts and the poetry, and above all what they actually need for their futures.
Surely they do not need flatulent knowledge, already done to death in history textbooks from Grade 1 onward, about kings who built tanks, including Agbo 1 and Agbo 2, particular favourites of the National Institute of Education? There is hardly anything about the former in Wikipedia, except that he reigned for 34 years in the sixth century and was succeeded by his nephew. But the Wikipedia entry for Agbo 2 had different dates for his reign, though doubtless it is considered essential to know in the 21st century that he built the Kantale and Giritale tanks. Perhaps you too will remember that, even if you forget everything else I said, since that it seems is what our current administrators want our students to know.
Finally, may I suggest that those who have studied English here or at Sri Jayewardenepura set up a ginger group to urge reforms in the field? There are several products of the initiatives of the nineties who have done great jobs wherever they are, Dean Abeyweera at Uva Wellassa, Nandana Balasooriya who did so much for English at the Department of Technical Education and Training, Shashikala Assella who heads the Department of English at Kelaniya, to name just a few. You can make suggestions as to curriculum reform, the production of common materials, the introduction of community service centres to provide services to students in deprived areas.
You can produce a newsletter about best practices in the field, to disseminate for instance amongst the teachers who are on your training programmes. And most important, you can initiate through the universities Certificate courses, of three months duration, for English and perhaps Computer competence too, based on the three month courses developed a few years back with the support of the Skills Councils of the Tertiary and Vocational Commission.
I am grateful for this Festschrift, an honour I associate with venerable old age and, though I am not quite seventy, this is a sort of seal on my academic career. But having in a sense abandoned academic approaches half a life ago, I would also suggest that an even more fitting tribute would be aids to action which I believe several of you can help to get going. That, I hope, is what most of you would like to be remembered for, and what your teachers, including the indefatigable Paru Nagasunderam would expect, a continuation of student centred initiatives.
Sri Lanka becoming a Macbethian sick state?
The traditional ritual of anointing medicinal oil (or ‘hisa thel gaema’ in Sinhalese, literally, applying oil to the head) is unique to the Sinhala Aluth Avurudda observances. This year, the ritual was performed at the auspicious moment of 9:04 a.m. (Sri Lanka time) on Wednesday April 16. It was observed at appointed venues across the country at the same time. The anointing was done, as usual, mostly by Buddhist monks in their monasteries.
Where they were not available for the purpose, a senior citizen would do the needful. The oil anointing ceremony was held to invoke blessings of good health on all the individuals who subjected themselves to the ritual. Prime Minister Harini Amarasuriya was shown participating in the oil anointing ceremony at the historic Kolonnawa Raja Maha Viharaya. There were many social media videos showing similar oil anointing scenes that included even elephants and hippos in a zoo receiving the compassionate treatment; this is not seen as going too far with traditions, for extending loving-kindness even to animals is taken for granted in the majority Buddhist Sri Lanka. Watching this ritual (that used to be so familiar for me in my childhood and youth) from abroad I couldn’t help my eyes filling with tears, feeling kind of homesick, in spite of me having spent more than forty-three years of my adult life living and working away from my Mother Country Sri Lanka.
Though usually Buddhist monks do the anointing, it is not considered a religious practice by the ordinary Buddhists. It is only a part of the completely secular Sinhala Aluth Avurudda festival. The most important annual religious festival for the Sinhalese (especially Sinhala Buddhists) is Vesak, which will be held next month. However, the oil anointing ceremony impresses on the Avurudu celebrants the great importance of maintaining their physical and mental health throughout the coming year, reflecting the high level of attention that our traditional culture pays to that objective.
Prof. Snyder
However, the actual discrepancy that is noticed between the ideal and the reality in the mundane world, as in other countries, is a different matter. Shining beacons like ideals of a long-evolved culture are important for what they are; their importance doesn’t go away because those ideals are only imperfectly realised by the people of that culture. But the values endure.
The news of this happy occasion and my awareness of a deepening political and cultural malaise in my beloved Motherland back home reminded me of a book I read during the Covid-19 lockdown period of 2020-2022: OUR MALADY by American historian and public intellectual, the Yale University professor Timothy D. Snyder published in 2020. The book, whose subtitle is ‘Liberty and Solidarity’, is about the weakness of the American healthcare system that he himself got a taste of, privately.
Professor Snyder came to know first-hand how America failed its citizens in the public healthcare sphere as an inmate of a hospital ward, where he was admitted to the emergency room at midnight on December 29, 2019. He was complaining of a condition of severe bodily ‘malaise’. Doctors later told him that he had an abscess the size of a baseball in his liver. The emergency operation to remove the abscess was done after seventeen hours of his having had to wait confined to a hospital bed!
‘Rage’ is the word he repeatedly uses to describe how he felt during his hospitalisation. He was not raging against God or any particular person or a group or the bacteria that caused his illness. ‘I raged against a world where I was not’, Snyder writes in the Prologue to the book (implying how much he was angry about there not being a healthy enough healthcare system to look after Americans who fell ill like himself. The book grew out of entries he made in a diary that he maintained while recuperating in hospital. Proficient in a number of European languages including English, French and Polish, he adopts a sort of poetic idiom to deal with his naturally dull subject.
He imagined he was not suffering in solitude, though. He thought about other Americans in his situation, and empathised with them. The absence of a sound healthcare system is America’s malady according to Snyder. Probably, the current situation in America is different, having changed for the better. We must remember that the time he is talking about was the last year of the first term (January 20, 2017-January 20, 2021) of the 45th US president Donald Trump of the Republican Party.
Currently, Trump is serving as the 47th US president. The ideas that professor Snyder develops in the book have global topical relevance, I think. They are organised into four Chapters or ‘Lessons’ as he dubs them, which in my opinion, have implications that could be utilised even by the citizens of the Macbethian ‘sick state’ that Sri Lanka has become today, complete with a Macbeth (though a muppet) and a shadowy but more determined Lady Macbeth.
Timothy Snyder offers the four Lessons for his fellow Americans, and by extension, to fellow humans around the world including us, Sri Lankans. Perhaps these are uniquely American issues, with little direct relevance to a small country like Sri Lanka with no stake in the international pharmaceutical industry. But then no country can escape from the implications of the following facts (taken from Wikipedia): In 2023, the global pharmaceutical industry earned revenues of US $ 1.48 trillion, whereas the top 10 arms manufacturing companies earned only US $ 632 billion. In the same year, the global life and health insurance carriers industry, which is the biggest industry in the world in terms of revenue, earned US $ 4.3 trillion.
Our own late medical professor Senake Bibile (1920-1977), a pharmacology expert and a rare philanthropist and compassionate social activist of the Trotskyite Sama Samaja party persuasion who always had the welfare of the suffering poor at heart, met his death allegedly in mysterious circumstances in Guyana where he was attending a UN conference, promoting the domestic drug policy that he had developed for Sri Lanka, as a model for use in other countries and by the World Health Organization (WHO), United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), and the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) for developing policies for ‘rational pharmaceutical use’.
It goes without saying that Sri Lankans are also highly vulnerable to the deleterious effects of the inhuman excesses of the purely profit oriented international Big Pharma; these harmful consequences get transferred to the innocent citizens magnified several times through the unholy alliance between the local corporate drugs mafiosi and corrupt politicians. Be that as it may, Snyder adds another three equally important related points, covering all four, each in a Lesson that must receive the utmost attention of all adult Sri Lankans: health care for children and children’s education, truth in politics, and the supremacy of the doctors’ role in a malady situation. We will look at these briefly, intermittently taking our eyes off America to reflect on our own country Sri Lanka.
Lesson 1 is ‘Health care is a human right’.
Despite its wealth, professor Snyder complains, America is a sick nation; life expectancy is falling for Americans. Moody’s Analytics suggests that US millennials will die younger than their parents or grandparents, though there is no lack of money spent. What is causing this decline in life expectancy? Snyder’s unsettling answer is that the American healthcare system prioritises profit over people’s lives. America still lacks a universal healthcare system, in spite of being a supporter of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and this leads to unequal access to health care, as Snyder asserts.
Exorbitantly priced commercial medicine has a devastating effect on the protection of the health-care rights of the people. It has robbed the American citizens of their health, in Snyder’s view. The American health-care system’s profit-focussed approach and lack of investment in protective equipment for medical professionals jeopardised their safety during the Covid-19 pandemic. In America, 20 million people lost their jobs and over 150,000 died from pandemic. Health insurance became too expensive, and health care unaffordable. Without a diagnosis, many became dangerously ill or unknowingly infected others with the virus.
Though poor, Sri Lanka beats America in respect of looking after public health. It has a better record in providing satisfactory health care for the citizens. The state runs an almost 100% free medicare service for all the citizens. There is a (kind of) parallel paid private hospital system as well, that caters to the better off segment of the population that can resort to it if they prefer to do so. This potentially eases the burden on the free state medical services, which can then focus more on attending to the needs of the economically weaker section of the population.
The maintenance by the state of such a public welfare-based healthcare system is desired and supported by our dominant socio-cultural background that strongly resonates with the humanistic spirit of the Aluth Avurudda that prioritises health over all forms of wealth. This is embodied in the principle Arogya parama labha ‘Good health is the greatest wealth’, the antithesis of the American attitude towards citizens’ health.
Sri Lanka was among the handful of countries that contained the Covid-19 pandemic most efficiently, minimizing deaths, whereas in America, according to Snyder, flaws in the healthcare system were aggravated by the contagion. This led to more deaths in America than in other wealthy nations like Japan and Germany. But the not so well-to-do Sri Lanka escaped with a minimum number of Covid-caused fatalities amidst obstacles mounted by antinationalist ill-wishers as I saw it at the time. That is Professor Snyder’s Lesson 1, which is about the human right of easily accessible health care. Sri Lanka is actually ahead of America in this respect in spite of relative poverty.
by Rohana R. Wasala
(To be concluded.)
I received a video that announced Japan was considering changing to a four-day work week. Suspicious of such news in my cell phone, I googled and found that certain countries had already opted for work weeks of four days and thus three-day weekends. This change too is a consequence of closedowns of work due to the Covid pandemic.
“Several countries are experimenting with or have implemented four-day work weeks, including Belgium, Iceland, Spain, the United Kingdom and Portugal. Other countries like Germany, Australia, Canada, the Netherlands and the US have also shown interest in, or have tested the four-day work week model.”
The video I got was about Japan changing its government work week to four days from mid-April with many projected objectives. One is to improve government employees’ work-life balance and to address the country’s declining birth rate. Also, the hours of the work day are to be reduced so parents can spend more time caring for their kids termed: ‘Childcare partial leave’. Flexible work hours for women to be implemented so choosing between careers and family will not be necessary.
In Germany experimental trials were carried out in 2023-24 involving 43 companies; 73% plan to continue with the new work structure. Noted for productivity and efficiency, Germany has in addition to one day less working, on average only 34 hours per week. A five-day week of 9 to 5 has 40 work hours per week. Fewer hours at work has been found to promote smarter and more focussed effort with employees happier and more engaged.
Long ago in the 1970s Cassandra shifted from employment in the private sector to a semi government job. She was shocked at the laissez faire attitude of her co-workers in an information centre. Most came to work at around 9.00 am: discussed the bus journey and home; had breakfast; read the morning newspapers; did a bit of work and were ready to have lunch by 12.00 noon. Two hours for this and half for a small snooze. Work till 3.30 pm or so when books/files were closed and grooming selves commenced, to depart at 4.30 pm sharp.
The work ethic in a remote government school and a private school in a city were as opposed to each other as the proverbial chalk to cheese. Do minimum against teaching; don’t care attitude to dedication and commitment; take leave to maximum vs hardly taking leave in consideration of the fact parents of students pay fees; non disciplining principals to dedicated pedagogues who set an example.
Cassandra supposes, and correctly, that with the change of government and a system change, even though many offices are overstaffed, employees put in a solid day’s work. The public is better served, most definitely.
Hence how would it be for Sri Lanka to lop off one work day a week? There will certainly be benefits, but aren’t many of us complaining about the presence of too many public holidays; we enjoy 24 to 30 a year including every full moon Poya Day. A travesty!
Pope Francis
The utter mayhem of Poya weekends
Those who lived through the period when the calendar in this overzealous Buddhist country went lunar (sic) and made the four Poya Days of a month and half the pre-Poya Day as the country’s weekend. It was a total mess since many a week had more than five week days in it till the moon changed from one phase to another. Ceylon was completely out of sync with the rest of the world. That was in 1966 with Dudley Senanayake as Prime Minister. Mercifully, in 1970, the Saturday Sunday weekend was reverted to, and sanity regained.
Conclusion is that making our week of four days’ work and weekend three days has to be carefully considered, tested and implemented, or kept as it is. Better it would be if government offices were pruned of excess staff recruited on politicians’ orders and genuinely legitimate officers made to work efficiently.
VVIP Mother in queue
A photograph made the rounds on social media of a frail looking, white haired lady in a queue in Kandy moving slowly to pay homage to the Sacred Tooth Relic. It was said to be President AKD’s mother who was hospitalised just a couple of months ago. Admired is her devotion as well as the fact she came incognito; not informing her son of her intended travel.
But Cass is censorious. Here was a genuine case of needing a bit of stretching of points and helping her to fulfil her desire to pay homage with ease. After all, he is working hard and very probably long hours to get this country on an even keel. He needs appreciation and if he refuses advantages, let a less able person benefit.
A truly honourable Pope
Roman Catholics across the globe mourn the death of the 266th Pope on the Monday after the Easter weekend; and the world respects and reveres him. People comment he must have willed himself to live through Easter, even presenting himself to crowds gathered in the huge grounds of St Peter’s Basilica.
Pope Francis was born Jorge Bergoglio on December 17, 1936, in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He was inspired to join the Society of Jesus or Jesuits in 1958 after a serious illness. Ordained a Catholic priest in 1969, he was the Jesuit provincial superior in Argentina from 1973 to 79. He became the Archbishop of Buenos Aires in 1998 and was created a cardinal in 2001 by Pope John Paul II. He was elected in the papal conclave following the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI as head of the Catholic Church and Sovereign of the Vatican City State in 1913, claiming many firsts: a Jesuit becoming Pope; first from America, from the Southern Hemisphere. He chose his papal name in honour of Saint Francis of Assisi, kind to all living beings. “Throughout his public life, Francis was noted for his humility, emphasis on God’s mercy, international visibility as pope, concern for the poor and commitment to interreligious dialogue. He was known for having a less formal approach to the papacy than his predecessors.”
We remember his visit to Sri Lanka from January 13 to 15, 2015, when he travelled to the Shrine of Our Lady of Madhu and canonized Sri Lanka’s first saint, Joseph Vaz. He conducted a Mass and bestowed blessings to the multitude at Galle Face Green. As he entered and left the Green, he placed his hands on the heads of infants, children, the very poor, the old and infirm; never mind oil and dirt on heads. A truly great and good person.
The most urgent need for the South Asian region right now, in the wake of the cold-blooded killing by gunmen of nearly 30 local tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir two days back, is the initiation of measures that could ensure regional stability and peace. The state actors that matter most in this situation are India and Pakistan and it would be in the best interests of the region for both countries to stringently refrain from succumbing to knee-jerk reactions in the face of any perceived provocations arising from the bloodshed.
The consequences for the countries concerned and the region could be grave if the terror incident leads to stepped-up friction and hostility between India and Pakistan. Some hardline elements in India, for instance, are on record in the international media as calling on the Indian state to initiate tough military action against Pakistan for the Kashmiri terror in question and a positive response to such urgings could even lead to a new India-Pakistan war.
Those wishing South Asia well are likely to advocate maximum restraint by both states and call for negotiations by them to avert any military stand-offs and conflicts that could prove counter-productive for all quarters concerned. This columnist lends his pen to such advocacy.
Right now in Sri Lanka, nationalistic elements in the country’s South in particular are splitting hairs over an MoU relating to security cooperation Sri Lanka has signed with India. Essentially, the main line of speculation among these sections is that Sri Lanka is coming under the suzerainty of India, so to speak, in the security sphere and would be under its dictates in the handling of its security interests. In the process, these nationalistic sections are giving fresh life to the deep-seated anti-India phobia among sections of the Sri Lankan public. The eventual result will be heightened, irrational hostility towards India among vulnerable, unenlightened Sri Lankans.
Nothing new will be said if the point is made that such irrational fears with respect to India are particularly marked among India’s smaller neighbouring states and their publics. Needless to say, collective fears of this kind only lead to perpetually strained relations between India and her neighbours, resulting in regional disunity, which, of course would not be in South Asia’s best interests.
SAARC is seen as ‘dead’ by some sections in South Asia and its present dysfunctional nature seems to give credence to this belief. Continued friction between India and Pakistan is seen as playing a major role in such inner paralysis and this is, no doubt, the main causative factor in SARRC’s current seeming ineffectiveness.
However, the widespread anti-India phobia referred to needs to be factored in as playing a role in SAARC’s lack of dynamism and ‘life’ as well. If democratic governments go some distance in exorcising such anti-Indianism from their people’s psyches, some progress could be made in restoring SAARC to ‘life’ and the latter could then play a constructive role in defusing India-Pakistan tensions.
It does not follow that if SAARC was ‘alive and well’, security related incidents of the kind that were witnessed in India-administered Kashmir recently would not occur. This is far from being the case, but if SAARC was fully operational, the states concerned would be in possession of the means and channels of resolving the issues that flow from such crises with greater amicability and mutual accommodation.
Accordingly, the South Asian Eight would be acting in their interests by seeking to restore SAARC back to ‘life’. An essential task in this process is the elimination of mutual fear and suspicion among the Eight and the states concerned need to do all that they could to eliminate any fixations and phobias that the countries have in relation to each other.
It does not follow from the foregoing that the SAARC Eight should not broad base their relations and pull back from fostering beneficial ties with extra-regional countries and groupings that have a bearing on their best interests. On the contrary, each SAARC country’s ties need to be wide-ranging and based on the principle that each such state would be a friend to all countries and an enemy of none as long as the latter are well-meaning.
The foregoing sharp focus on SAARC and its fortunes is necessitated by the consideration that the developmental issues in particular facing the region are best resolved by the region itself on the basis of its multiple material and intellectual resources. The grouping should not only be revived but a revisit should also be made to its past programs; particularly those which related to intra-regional conflict resolution. Thus, talking to each other under a new visionary commitment to SAARC collective wellbeing is crucially needed.
On the question of ties with India, it should be perceived by the latter’s smaller neighbours that there is no getting away from the need to foster increasingly closer relations with India, today a number one global power.
This should not amount to these smaller neighbours surrendering their rights and sovereignty to India. Far from it. On the contrary these smaller states should seek to craft mutually beneficial ties with India. It is a question of these small states following a truly Non-aligned foreign policy and using their best diplomatic and political skills to structure their ties with India in a way that would be mutually beneficial. It is up to these neighbours to cultivate the skills needed to meet these major challenges.
Going ahead, it will be in South Asia’s best interests to get SAARC back on its feet once again. If this aim is pursued with visionary zeal and if SAARC amity is sealed once and for all intra-regional friction and enmities could be put to rest. What smaller states should avoid scrupulously is the pitting of extra-regional powers against India and Pakistan in their squabbles with either of the latter. This practice has been pivotal in bringing strife and contention into South Asia and in dividing the region against itself.
Accordingly, the principal challenge facing South Asia is to be imbued once again with the SAARC spirit. The latter spirit’s healing powers need to be made real and enduring. Thus will we have a region truly united in brotherhood and peace.
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