Discuss the future of SAARC in the light of India’s increased focus on other regional groupings like ASEAN and BIMSTEC. (2024, 20 Marks)
The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), founded by the Dhaka Charter of December 1985, has held no summit since Kathmandu in November 2014; the Islamabad summit collapsed after the Uri attack of September 2016. India has since moved its regional energy into BIMSTEC and the Act East partnership with ASEAN. The likely result is dormancy with retained capacity, not dissolution.
Why India’s focus shifted
- The veto problem. Article X of the Charter requires unanimity and keeps bilateral and contentious issues off the agenda. At Kathmandu Pakistan blocked the motor vehicles and railways agreements, so India took the road pact outside SAARC as BBIN (2015). BIMSTEC offers the agenda without that veto.
- Geography and strategy. BIMSTEC links South and Southeast Asia, turns the North-East into a land bridge and fits the maritime Indo-Pacific frame. The ASEAN Comprehensive Strategic Partnership (2022) gives India a seat in East Asia’s architecture.
- Political signal. S. Jaishankar said in June 2019 that SAARC “has certain problems” while BIMSTEC “has an energy”; BIMSTEC leaders, not SAARC leaders, attended the 2019 swearing-in.
Why SAARC stalled
- Asymmetry. India holds about three-quarters of the region’s people and four-fifths of its output. Smaller states partly saw SAARC as a way to collectively bind India, so Indian leadership read as hegemony.
- No external unifier. Western Europe integrated under an American patron; ASEAN cohered against communist insurgency. Barry Buzan and Ole Wæver classify South Asia as a conflict formation: its members’ main threats are one another.
- Fragile sovereignties. Pakistan and Bangladesh built national identity partly against India, so pooling sovereignty looks like absorption. The deficit is of trust more than of trade.
- Indian conduct. S. D. Muni described India as long a reluctant participant and hesitant leader in SAARC; the Nepali scholar Santosh Sharma Poudel (2022) argues that India’s isolation of Pakistan helped kill the forum.
The limits of the substitutes
- BIMSTEC is thin. Its 2004 free-trade framework is still unconcluded and Myanmar’s civil war stalls the Kaladan project and the Trilateral Highway. Its gains are institutional: a Charter in force since May 2024, the Bangkok Vision 2030 adopted in April 2025 and a maritime transport agreement in force in 2026.
- ASEAN is a partner, not India’s region. The AITIGA review, under way since 2023, was still unfinished in September 2026, while India’s deficit with ASEAN reached US$45.2 billion in 2024–25.
- Neither covers the west: Pakistan, Afghanistan, the Indus basin.
Possible futures
| Scenario | Likelihood | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Summits resume | Low | After Pahalgam and Operation Sindoor (2025), India suspended trade and holds the Indus Treaty in abeyance |
| Technical dormancy | High | 62nd Programming Committee met in Kathmandu (February 2026); Bhutan nominated Sonam Topgay as Secretary-General (August 2026) |
| Variable geometry | Rising | BBIN, BIMSTEC and the Colombo Security Conclave proceed without a veto |
| Dissolution | Very low | No member proposes it |
Revival pressure is real: Bangladesh under Tarique Rahman wants summits back, and on 26 July 2026 Maldivian President Mohamed Muizzu offered to mediate between India and Pakistan. India’s line, in Jaishankar’s words of March 2025, is that SAARC is “on pause” and not ended, because of Pakistan’s conduct.
Conclusion
India’s eastward turn is rational: it moves the agenda to forums that can deliver. But BIMSTEC and ASEAN cannot supply public goods spanning all eight states (disaster response, disease surveillance, river data) or the formal equality small members value. SAARC’s future is a dormant shell kept for a better day. The way forward is narrow functional cooperation on the model of the March 2020 COVID-19 fund, sub-regional delivery and, as C. Raja Mohan urged in April 2025, unilateral Indian openings in trade and connectivity.