Page 6 - Lesson 8.xps

Geo-Politics Module - III

Security and Geo-Strategy
of SE Asia. Let us study some important details of these two organisations.

8.3.2 SAARC

The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation is an economic and geo-political
organization formed on 8 December 1985 in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. It
presently comprises 8 countries as members. They are: Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives,
Note
Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and India. Afghanistan became the eighth member of
SAARC in 2007.

The basic objective of SAARC is to develop the welfare of the people of South Asian
region through cooperation in economic, cultural, technical, scientific and all other
common aspects including security. The region is caught in poverty and security
problems. Hence the idea of a multilateral cooperation at the regional level was initiated
in order to solve such problems. Regular summit level meetings are held in various
capital cities of member countries on rotation basis.
India has played a central role in SAARC. As you will learn in the next lesson, all
countries of South Asia have been under the religious, cultural, economic, political
influence of India. Hence India's role in this organization is important. However, even
if these are welcome steps to cooperate to solve problems at the multilateral level you
should understand that not all times they are successful. Sometimes political and security
issues hinder the cooperation. For example, since partition, the hostility that Pakistan
has shown towards India continues to be a hurdle in fully realizing the potential for
better economic cooperation and development among member countries.

8.3.3 ASEAN

Southeast Asia is another close neighbourhood of India, which has also seen the religious,
cultural and political influence of India for several centuries. Realizing the importance
of this region and the need to strengthen economic power, India has now evolved a
strategy to build close ties with countries of this region.
The policy originally was called 'look east policy' which, under the present government,
has become "Act East Policy". The regional organization called the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) was formed on 8 August 1967 in Bangkok,
Thailand. The founding members are Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand and
Philippines. Today it includes all 10 countries of the region: Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar,
Vietnam and Brunei.

The aim of this regional organization is to promote economic growth and provide
regional peace and stability through cooperation. Although India is not a member of
ASEAN, it has been a summit level partner since 2002 and now a strategic partner of
ASEAN since 2012. India has also been building political, economic, and security

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MILITARY STUDIES 73