Entitled 'South Asian Parliament: Evolving South Asian Unity', the meeting organised by the South Asian Free Media Association (SAFMA) will feature political personalities from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

Somnath Chatterjee, the speaker of Lok Sabha, India’s lower house of the parliament, will open the two-day conference on June 2nd. India’s External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee will deliver the keynote address and the former External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha will give the closing speech.

"Shimla may begin the formulation of policies, with experts taking an active role," explains the veteran journalist K.K. Katyal. "The description in technical jargon of the subjects and areas to be covered may make prosaic reading but the crucial importance of the issues is not to be minimised -- energy co-operation, water management, increased investment for economic growth, poverty eradication, unhindered connectivity".

"Compared to other regions, South Asia lags behind in many ways. True, it is mired in serious problems but has less baggage to shed than the European Union or ASEAN," he adds.

South Asian parliament

The idea of a South Asian parliament was first mooted by academics during the early 1990s, and elaborated upon in 1995 in the form of a research paper. One of the authors of the paper, Professor M.L. Sondhi organised the India-Pakistan Social Scientists Forum and issued a call to establish a South Asian Regional parliament.

Gradually, more and more journalists and academics have endorsed and propagated the initiative. While some of these academics and analysts project the idea of SAARC parliament as a mechanism for 'crisis management and resolution', others see it more as a legislative body to monitor the 'economic and security interests of the region'.

"South Asia has the experience, expertise and ingenuity to develop a regional parliament, at least its design and structures, if there is political will in the region to have such an institution," says S. D. Muni Professor of South Asian Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi.

"The dynamics of regional economic and political integration is best illustrated by the European experience where credible initiatives for regional economic integration started only during the Fifties after long Westphalian stability."

1857

The conference will also commemorate the 150th anniversary of India's first war of independence. Shimla was chosen as the venue because of its association with the parleys on the transfer of power with the British rulers in the 1940s, before Independence in 1947.

"The time has for the first time come to support the formerly-colonised people, says Imtiaz Alam, the Secretary General of SAFMA. "Given our common history of national resistance to colonialism that most of us lost in 1857, history will, however, not repeat itself in colonialism-by-reverse."

"Being the most contiguous region of the world, with a common history to share and similarities of cultures, South Asia has less baggage to shed than Europe or the Far East. South Asia is now booming with the ideas of regional co-operation".

Ecological harmony

"The road to evolving South Asian unity is quite easy, if viewed purely from our people’s viewpoint and ecological harmony, it's far more complicated if taken from the perspective of bureaucratic establishments or merchants of hate".

In all 87, parliamentarians have accepted SAFMA’s invitation. A joint declaration will be issued at the end of the conference.