Comment: SAARC: Problems and Prospects (1998, 2001, 20 Marks)
SAARC grew out of Bangladeshi President Ziaur Rahman’s proposal of 1980, moved through the foreign ministers’ New Delhi Declaration of 1983 and took form in the Dhaka Charter of 8 December 1985. It has eight members (Afghanistan joined in 2007), nine observers and a secretariat in Kathmandu. Built on the functionalist premise of David Mitrany, that cooperation on technical tasks builds trust, it has become the standard case of regionalism stalled by politics.
What SAARC achieved
- Trade instruments: SAPTA (1993), SAFTA (signed 2004, in force 2006) and a services agreement (2010).
- Functional bodies: the SAARC Food Bank (2007), the South Asian University (opened 2010, largely Indian-funded), the SAARC Development Fund and a currency-swap framework.
- Norms: the Regional Convention on Suppression of Terrorism (1987) and its Additional Protocol (2004).
- Crisis response: the COVID-19 Emergency Fund of March 2020, seeded by India with US$10 million.
Problems
| Problem | How it operates | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Charter design | Unanimity and exclusion of contentious issues let one member veto all | Motor vehicles and railways pacts blocked, Kathmandu 2014 |
| India–Pakistan rivalry | Turns a bilateral quarrel into regional paralysis | Islamabad summit cancelled after Uri, 2016; trade suspended after Pahalgam, 2025 |
| Asymmetry | Smaller states fear absorption and hedge with outside powers | Nepal 2015; “India Out” in the Maldives, 2023 |
| Weak economics | Sensitive lists, non-tariff barriers, no transit regime | Intra-regional trade under 6% |
| External powers | Offer alternative patrons | Chinese finance from Gwadar to Hambantota |
| Domestic instability | Each change of government resets positions | Sri Lanka 2022, Bangladesh 2024, Nepal 2025 |
Barry Buzan and Ole Wæver explain the deeper problem: South Asia is a conflict formation whose members locate their main threats in one another, so the shared external threat that united ASEAN is missing. Indian conduct matters too: S. D. Muni describes India as long a reluctant participant and hesitant leader in SAARC, Happymon Jacob urges India to shed its zero-sum approach to the neighbourhood, and Santosh Sharma Poudel (2022) argues that isolating Pakistan helped kill the forum.
Prospects
- Revival pressure. Bangladesh under Tarique Rahman wants summits back, and on 26 July 2026 Maldivian President Mohamed Muizzu offered to mediate between India and Pakistan. India holds that one member is responsible for the stagnation; S. Jaishankar called SAARC “on pause” in March 2025, not ended.
- Dormant but alive. The 62nd Programming Committee met in Kathmandu in February 2026, and in August 2026 Bhutan nominated Sonam Topgay to succeed Secretary-General Golam Sarwar.
- Variable geometry. BBIN, BIMSTEC (Charter in force 2024) and the Colombo Security Conclave do parts of SAARC’s agenda without the veto. The Charter’s own Article VII allows Action Committees of interested members, largely unused.
- Functional cooperation: disaster warning, disease surveillance, flood data and energy trading, where economics are clear and politics light.
- Reform: qualified majority on non-political matters, a secretariat with power of initiative and a trade dispute mechanism, though any amendment needs the unanimity it would dilute.
Conclusion
SAARC’s problems lie less in machinery than in a charter that could work only if the India–Pakistan conflict were settled elsewhere. Its prospects are modest but real: not revival as a summit-driven body, but survival as the only forum holding all eight states. A security community in Karl W. Deutsch’s sense is distant; a region cooperating functionally in pieces is within reach, and India, the indispensable member, sets the pace.