It is an evil wind that blows through the whole neighborhood. A recent World Bank study on air pollution concluded that Nearly two million people die prematurely every year in South Asia, as nine South Asian cities are among the world’s top 10 worst affected by air pollution due to particulate matter. The ill effects of this pollution, regardless of where it originates, are also clouding the region’s pristine tourist spots.
A surprising study in Bhutan found that the average PM 2.5 The concentration from 2018-2020 was three times the limit set by the World Health Organisation. Last week, the Maldivian Meteorological Service warned that visibility was reduced by 60% due to smog, which was blamed on “a wind blowing from the foothills of the Himalayas”. What’s more, success stories in other parts of the world, including the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, European Alpine countries and China, make it clear that solutions to air pollution problems lie “across the region”. approach, and is not one that any one country in the “airshed” can solve on its own. The report ends by asking India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and all other South Asian countries to initiate dialogue between scientists, officials and eventually ministers and leaders to create a mechanism for cooperative management of the region’s six air sheds. That such dialogue does not exist or is even being contemplated is another example of the rejection of the idea of South Asia as a region refusing to see itself as a geographical entity. This is especially illogical when you consider that all South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) nations are members of the Group of 77 developing countries that succeeded the COP27 climate change summit in Sharm El last year under the chairmanship of Pakistan. . -Sheikh, but is unable to organize a climate change conference for himself.
Climate crisis, Ukraine issue
Climate crisis is one of the urgent challenges of the times where South Asia has failed to create a platform. In fact, while India and Pakistan, the main adversaries of a unified South Asia, continue to point to past disputes as reasons for holding South Asian summits like SAARC, blocks trade, connectivity and other avenues for cooperation, the undeniable The truth is that every immediate geopolitical challenge is prompting the region to work more closely: from the climate change crisis, which saw Pakistan engulfed in floods, to the Ukraine war, which has disrupted the procurement of energy, grain, fertilizers. increased costs, resulting from the continuing global economic downturn, more variants of the COVID-19 virus, and terrorism, particularly from the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the failure to create a regional defense to issues arising from North Atlantic Treaty Organization sanctions, trade embargoes and arms stockpiles have meant that South Asia has established itself as an energy “cartel”. Lost opportunity of value to the field. In addition to dependence on crude oil, Bangladesh, Pakistan and India buy more than 50% of their liquefied natural gas through the spot market – an indicator of how sensitive they are to global energy trends.
regional cracks
Pakistan has refused to negotiate with India for its losses, and has now missed out on being part of the South Asia energy grid which is already between Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Nepal (BBIN Grouping) and possibly Sri Lanka. Powering the dream of regional connectivity. Lanka. Phrases like “Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam” and “diplomacy and dialogue” ring hollow compared to India and Pakistan’s act of preventing the SAARC summit from meeting for nearly a decade as the only way to resolve the conflict. Furthermore, if New Delhi can virtually organize a special meeting for the “Global South” with the implications of the Ukraine war on the agenda, there is no reason why it should not organize or participate in regional talks to discuss the issue. or even to incorporate a regional agenda into its G-20 narrative. Similar opportunities for regional cooperation in health security are being missed, although India has worked with most of its neighbors to provide vaccines and COVID-19 medicines bilaterally. Another step could be the unilateral extension of exemptions on medical products within South Asia, as India has so far unsuccessfully proposed at the World Trade Organization (WTO).
When it comes to terrorism, it can be discussed in comprehensive multilateral meetings, but not in the region, the contradictions between it are manifold: India and Pakistan talk about terrorism at the United Nations and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) , But will not discuss. Issue bilaterally or within South Asia. In 2022, New Delhi and Islamabad exchanged teams as part of the SCO Regional Anti-Terrorism Structure (RATS), and India was part of the Financial Action Task Force grouping that excluded Pakistan from its terror financing “greylist”. Granted, but both sides are still not able to find a way to negotiate on this topic between them. In New York, External Affairs Minister S. The recent sparring match between Jaishankar and Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari is a sample of the only “engagement” that exists. There are other nonsense. Pakistan has made Kashmir its “parting point” for any engagement with India, including opening trade with India, but allows transit of Indian wheat bound for Afghanistan. India won’t hold talks with Pakistan because of its support for terrorists, but dialogue is now open with UN-designated terrorists – Taliban leaders including Sirajuddin Haqqani held responsible for attacks on Indian missions where an Indian diplomat and several security personnel were killed . In the process of such a rank lack of rational behaviour, any chance to coordinate or cooperate against the developing chaos in Afghanistan is also lost for South Asia, a region most affected.
relaxation in regionalization
Given the world’s deepening polarization, climate chaos, and growing resource scarcity, it is clear that the foundations of globalization over the past century are about to end, and nearly every other country is finding its roots in regionalization and a platform closer to home. Regional trade now makes up for more than half of global trade, and agreements such as the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA), the Southern Common Market (Spanish for Mercosur), the European Union, the Eurasian Economic Union, the Cooperation of the Gulf The Council for Arab States, the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) are further fueling this trend. However, South Asia, defined by the Himalayas and Hindukush in the north and the Indian Ocean in the south (an area clearly separated from West Asia and Southeast Asia on either side), is the exception, which is at odds with this most logical principle.
There are still some options for South Asian cooperation. Just as Prime Minister Narendra Modi has distanced himself from the Non-Aligned Meeting (NAM) summits since 2014, but the government seems to be asserting its belief in non-alignment, so should Mr. Modi’s presence at the SAARC summit. It should be possible to do. The next is to be held in Pakistan, and has a President or Vice-President to represent India instead. Pakistan may also see a replacement for its prime minister at the SCO Heads of State Summit to be held in India in June. In any case, it is necessary for the future to remove South Asian cooperation from the summit itself, and allow other parts of the agenda (health, energy, women’s rights, security and terrorism), even if Don’t have a leadership program. To reject this idea would be to miss an opportunity whose impact would be far more dire than the toxic air the region is breathing today.
suhasini.h@thehindu.co.in