Pakistan ,as the host country for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) ‘s Heads of the State Council (HSC) meeting scheduled at Islamabad on October 15 and 16 this year, has invited Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to attend the two day summit. India is a member of the ten nation body which was originally founded by China and Russia in 2001.
The SCO, a Eurasian political, economic and international security and defence organization started with six members. Apart from the founding members China and Russia, the other members were Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. India and Pakistan became members together in 2017. Then Iran got membership in July 2023, followed by Belarus in July 2024.
The importance of SCO lies in the fact that it is the world’s largest regional organization in terms of geographic scope and population covering about 80 per cent of the area of Eurasia and 40 per cent of the world population. As of 2023, its combined GDP based on PPP was around 32 per cent of the world’s total. For the member countries most of which have to deal with the menace of terrorism, an organisational body named Regional Anti Terrorist Structure (RATS) is in place. This forum discusses the strategy for meeting the menace of terrorism jointly. The discussion in this forum is of importance for both India and Pakistan.
As of now, six weeks are left for the holding of the SCO summit, but the indications are that Prime Minister Narendra Modi may not visit Islamabad. Perhaps, a team of Indian officials might go led by the external affairs minister S Jaishankar. Even this official delegation attending is not confirmed, but there is enough time to take a decision. It is hoped that some senior person will be attending if the Prime Minister skips the summit.
As of 2010, the organisation was opposing cyberwarfare, saying that the dissemination of information “harmful to the spiritual, moral and cultural spheres of other states” should be considered a “security threat”. An accord adopted in 2009 defined “information war”, in part, as an effort by a state to undermine another’s “political, economic, and social systems”. It reported in 2017 that SCO has foiled 600 terror plots and extradited 500 terrorists through RATS. The 36th meeting of the Council of the RATS decided to hold a joint anti-terror exercise, Pabbi-Antiterror-2021, in Pakistan in 2021. In the last three years, more actions have been taken by RATS against terrorist activities..
In January 2023, India as SCO chair, invited Pakistan’s Foreign Affairs Minister and Chief justice to attend a meeting in Goa in May 2023. As of May 2023, India and Pakistan continued to spar over terrorism, while Central Asian members Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan erupted in armed conflict over border disputes. The SCO was not a platform for resolving bilateral issues, and its members were also reluctant to mediate disputes multilaterally. Pakistan foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari attended the Goa meeting but there was no cordiality in the relationship with India. In fact the two foreign ministers of India and Pakistan had a public spat in the Goa meeting.
As regards India, the present geopolitical situation in South Asia suggests that Prime Minister Narendra Modi should seize this opportunity of SCO conclave at Islamabad by attending it and apprising the world leaders of the Indian position on terrorism, bilateral relations with Pakistan and also Indian stand on Sheikh Hasina’s staying in India from August 5 after abdicating her position as Prime Minister in Bangladesh. This is a major issue now on which there is major confusion among the world powers. If Narendra Modi skips the meeting, Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaaz Sharief will get an open field in elaborating on his position hitting India. The Indian officials will have no matching status in taking on Pakistan on this issue.. Only Prime Minister Narendra Modi with his political weight and relationship with the heads of states, can really take on Pakistan on SCO turf.
All the heads of states are expected to be present at the summit. Chinese president Xi Jinping will be the main attraction. President Putin may also attend, though there is a problem with the order of International Criminal Court which calls for his arrest in the ICC member countries. President Putin did not attend the G-20 summit in India in 2023. But he attended his meeting with the Mongolian President recently even though Mongolia was a ICC member country.
Right now, SAARC, the organization of the south Asian countries including India and Pakistan is non- functional from 2016 due to tensions between the two major members India and Pakistan. In the last eight years, India had the best relations with one of the SAARC members Bangladesh ruled by Awami League led by Sheikh Hasina. Now with Sheikh Hasina out of power and staying in India from August 5, the relations have nosedived. The interim government of Bangladesh has made it known officially now that they do not like Hasina to stay in India and during this stay, she should not be allowed to issue any political statement. The interim head Dr. Md. Yunus in his interview to PTI on Thursday made it clear that Bangladesh would seek extradition of Hasina and till that time, no political remark should be allowed by Delhi.
India has no cordial relations with other members of SAARC including Sri Lanka, Nepal, Afghanistan and Maldives. Now if India distances itself from SCO also through the absence of Prime Minister from the Islamabad summit, that will lead to a splendid isolation of India in Asian geopolitics. Just membership of QUAD will not be enough as the American foreign ministry officials have already bluntly ruled out any strategic autonomy for India in India- US alliance. It is time for Narendra Modi to give a relook at the ongoing developments in Asia-Pacific region and reassert India’s independent identity by being proactive in SCO and reviving SAARC. (IPA Service)
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