he 15th SAARC Summit has just concluded with the regional leaders reaffirming their commitment to address the identified and prioritized regional challenges in a spirit of cooperation. While, on the one hand, important issues bedeviling the region were identified, the issue of implementation of the past understandings, on the other hand, found its due place in their joint and several commitments. The notable issues raised in the summit were those of terrorism, poverty, SAARC food bank, energy security inter alia. While one does not cast aspersions as to the veracity of these issues, the SAARC leaders blundered once again by conspicuously overlooking the issue of refugees in the region.

 While the refugee movements in the region are generally characterized by mass influx situations, most of the causative factors are state-manufactured, like human rights violations including all round discrimination and de-citizening, forced land colonization, population transfer, inter alia.

 he refugee generation in the region is basically an expression of the post-colonial sectarian nation-building agenda of South Asia. Starting with the mammoth population movement from and to India and Pakistan in the aftermath of partition which has its roots in the nation-building agenda of the two states, the subsequent refugee influxes in the region are triggered by similar causes.

 uring the 1971 Bangladesh war, over 10 million Bangladeshis fled to India's northeast. The influx of Chakma refugees follows firstly assimilationist and later exclusionist policy of Bangladesh in its effort to build an Islamic state based on the culture of the mainstream Muslim Bengalis. The Kaptai Dam oustees are a victim of the economic face of the nation-building process of Bangladesh.

 he revivalist cultural nationalism based on the culture of the Drukpa manifest in its “One Nation One People” policy has rendered over a hundred thousand southern Bhutanese refugees. The nation-building process in Sri Lanka based on the culture of majority Sinhalese is the central reason behind the political bedlam in that state and the subsequent refugee influx to India. The Rohingyas became refugees as they were deemed unfit for the nationalistic scheme of Myanmar.

Refugee situations in the region have at least two primary dimensions. The first is the human rights and humanitarian dimension of the problem. With thousands of people coerced to leave their home, their fundamental human rights get flouted with impunity. Their life, livelihood, and liberty are threatened concurrently. Once refugees, there arises serious humanitarian concerns of the people. While refugee situations are theoretically considered an international concern thus justifying international solidarity in the phase of maintenance and quest of solutions, they are simultaneously considered a burden, and hence burden sharing, a term emerging out of the hatred towards refugees.

 he second dimension of refugee situation in the region is its impact upon the bilateral and multilateral relationship between the states in the region. With the legalistic facet of the institution of asylum not at all institutionalized in the region, despite the regional claim of being refugee-friendly, refugee movements are indeed a defining factor of relationship between stake-holder states, especially between the state of origin and the refugee hosting states. Thus one does not fathom, Sino-Indian relationship without the issue of Tibetan refugees in India, neither does one comprehend the Indo-Sri Lankan relationship sans the issue of Tamil refugees stranded in India.

 imilarly, Indo- Bangladesh relationship is marred by the movement of Chakmas to India and the alleged infiltration of a huge Muslim population to the Indian states of West Bengal, Assam and Tripura. The current Nepal-Bhutan relationship began in a state of animosity with the Bhutanese refugee issue coming to directly engage the two countries for the first time.

 he hostility between India and Pakistan has its root in the bloody history of partition and the subsequent movement of refugees from India to Pakistan and vice versa. What, therefore, remains well-founded is that refugee situations in South Asia are indeed a concern and do deserve a considered attention of the states in the region.

 here does SAARC stand in comparison to such an important concern? The SAARC charter excludes bilateral and contentious issues from deliberation. The charter also envisages the regional cooperation to complement all bilateral and multilateral cooperation between the states. While the rationale behind exclusion of bilateral issues might be pious, it is indeed bilateral animosity that is primarily responsible for the failure of SAARC, which is of course characterized by repeated commitments and simultaneous lack of implementation.

Living in limbo many refugee groups do not justify the desire of SAARC for peace, stability, amity and progress and the objective to promoting the welfare of the peoples of South Asia. They belong to South Asia, and their exclusion from the scheme of things does not justify the principles and the purposes of the SAARC charter. With repeated promises of peoples' welfare and justice in successive summits while leaving a huge South Asian family under stringency of refugee-hood, our leaders only reveal our vileness and our ready-made double standards.

 AARC leaders should realize that friends can cooperate and collaborate, not enemies. Relationships between states in the region are often marred by bilateral problems, the issue of refugees being one of them. The refugee issue at the same time is a doable one if the SAARC leaders begin in right earnest. They should forge an alliance to end human misery, especially those arising out of the omission or commission of the state or its instrumentalities. Apart from taking regional initiative to address these urgent human concerns, SAARC should work to institute a SAARC Human Right Court to remedy the wrongs perpetrated against human life, human dignity and values.