South Asian people's summit to galvanise SAARC

India
South Asian people's summit to galvanise SAARC
By Manish Chand, IANS, Mar 30, 2007 - 4:03:05 PM

New Delhi, March 30 - Cut visa restrictions, reduce poverty and let ideas and dreams flow freely across the border for a prosperous and vibrant South Asia - this is the wish list of a parallel South Asia People's Summit that opens here Saturday ahead of the official SAARC summit.

Stirred into action by the indifference of governments of SAARC - countries to promote pro-people governance and regional integration, a rainbow coalition of NGOs, human rights and civil rights activists and gender equality crusaders are organising the three-day 'people's summit' at the India Islamic Cultural Centre here.

Nearly 200 people from eight countries - Bangladesh, Pakistan, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, India, Maldives, Nepal and Afghanistan - will be participating in this popular initiative to create a South Asia free from poverty, lopsided development and oppression.

'South Asia is home to the poorest of the poor. We want the SAARC governments to adopt pro-people policies and democratic governance to eliminate poverty and create permanent peace in the region,' Kamla Bhasin, a well-known feminist writer and a prime mover behind the people's summit, told IANS.

'There should be popular participation in the SAARC summit. People should be given consultative status,' said Anil K. Singh, secretary general of the NGO South Asian Network for Social and Agricultural Development - that is organising the summit along with like-minded groups.

Meraz H. Khan, a rights activist from Pakistan, sees the people's summit as an opportunity to push pro-people development across the region to the top of the agenda of the SAARC summit that starts here April 3.

'We are questioning policies by all the governments in South Asia. We are demanding a new social contract in South Asia with development as its top priority,' Khan told IANS.

'We want total freedom, free trade, free information and free flow of people,' she said eloquently about her vision of a united and cohesive South Asia.

'We want to create a South Asia people's forum and conduct policy research and launch popular campaigns to spread this message,' added Shireen Akktar, a trade union leader from Bangladesh.

Underlining the shared history and culture of the region, specially those of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, she spoke about a plan to launch mammoth people's rallies in August across South Asia to sensitise the governments about common problems of the region.

Shazia Tehmas Khan, an elected councillor from Peshawar in Pakistan, stressed on huge popular support for the India-Pakistan peace process and more people-to-people contacts in the region.

'Whether governments want it or not, there is popular massive support for the peace process. People are opposed to all forms of terrorism,' she said.

Nilofer Banno, a gender activist from Bangladesh, felt that more regional cooperation was needed to combat problems of human and drug trafficking and to create a South Asian cultural identity.

'Why should Pakistanis and Bangladeshis be treated as foreigners and be charged extra when they are visiting the Taj Mahal in India?' she asked.

South Asians should be treated as special in each other's country, she said.

Raja Javed Ali Bhatti, who runs an NGO in Pakistan, recited an Urdu couplet to express emotional unity among people of the region. 'I don't feel a stranger in India,' he said.

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