India looking beyond SAARC

Abstract

Multilateralism is currently seen as one of the most effective strategies for a country to deal with the New World Order. Examples of multilateralism abound, such as the EU, Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), Organization of American States (OAS), South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), African Union (AU), and so on. In addition, the quadrilateral and trilateral groupings have also emerged as a necessity for countries to achieve their strategic interest. The main reason for the emergence of multilateral forums and regional organisations is that countries have begun to realise that regional organisations/forums are away of transforming a complex regional security into a security community, and the goal is to mitigate the security problems collectively on the basis of shared values and objectives. Furthermore, the regional organisations/forums are a way to achieve their strategic interests in the region and also work towards addressing the global commons. In this regard, from time to time, the South Asian region has witnessed the emergence of many regional and sub-regional forums such as SAARC, the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC),the South Asia Subregional Economic Cooperation(SASEC) programme, the Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal (BBIN) initiative and so on but its progress has been slow and uneven, unlike the other regional and sub-regional organisations in the European and Southeast Asian region.