Atomic 038; aesthetic

Iran has requested observer status in Saarc South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, and India and Pakistan have already indicated that they8217;re willing to go along with the suggestion. The issue is likely to be formally discussed by Saarc foreign secretaries and ministers this week. Given the complexities drawing especially from Iran8217;s nuclear programme, this may not be the right diplomatic moment for India and Pakistan to champion Tehran8217;s case. Nonetheless, Iran8217;s eastward glance is breathtaking. Has South Asia suddenly expanded its limits?

The Iranian request is, of course, based on pragmatic considerations. There is the gas pipeline, for which Iran would prefer a more committed timetable from India and Pakistan. It would also be desirous of harnessing pro-Iran sentiment in the two countries to offset support for a more stringent sanctions regime on account of the nuclear programme. This is why Saarc must be cautious and prevent the grouping from becoming a staging ground for the kind of rhetoric anti-West Iranian leaders are so practiced at. So far Saarc has scrupulously restrained its own members from pursuing individual agendas. Iranians have a much stronger flair for symbolism and metaphor. So Saarc would struggle to resist the rhetoric, let alone silence it.

But Iran, legatee of the great Persian civilisation, becoming a part in some way of a South Asian grouping is interesting. Iran8217;s impatience in dealing with counterparts it doesn8217;t consider civilisational equals has tended to render it somewhat disgruntled with its own neighbourhood. But here, to its east, lies a region it has conversed with for so many centuries. Ancient Persia, some reckon, gave the subcontinent so much by way of aesthetics. Pakistani writer Aitzaz Ahsan has in fact made a spirited case for his country to reconsider its traditional cultural association with the Arab world and acknowledge that Persia contributed in greater measure. And now, with just the idea of Iran affixing itself to South Asia, this would bring a new dynamic into a millennia-old mingling.