South Asian Association for Regional

Cooperation (SAARC)
● The idea of SAARC was given by Bangladesh.

● SAARC was established in 1985.

● SAARC HQ: Kathmandu, Nepal.

● SAARC has 8 members: Afghanistan(joined in 2007), Bhutan, Bangladesh, India, Maldieves, Nepal, Srilanka,
Pakistank

● the last SAARC summit was held in 2014 in Nepal.

● Initially when the SAARC was established, Pakistan and India were reluctant to join it because of the
following reasons:
1. India did not join SAARC initially because it feared that Pakistan will use this forum to highlight Kashmir
issue.
2. Pakistan did not join SAARC initially because it thought that SAARC was not the idea of Bangladesh
rather it was an initiative by India with an aim to institutionalize Indian hegemony in south Asian region.

Structure:
● The highest forum in SAARC is Summit, in which rulers of all member states meet.

● The second tier is Ministerial Council, in which foreign ministers of members state meet.

● Then there are different diverse forums.

Objectives:
● It is a comprehensive organization which aims to develop coordination for social, economic , political and
security affairs etc.
● SAARC also has some principles which are taken from the Panchsheel Principles

● SAARC will never take issues of Bilateral Concerns, rather issues of mutual concerns shall be taken.

Failures of SAARC:
Security failure: Except for a signing “Convention on Countering Terrorism”, SAARC failed to make any security
collaboration to counter terrorism.

Political failure: There does not exist any political coordination among SAARC states. The biggest proof of this failure
can be seen in a way that there had been no SAARC summit since 2016.

SAARC failed to have a political consensus on Global issues, let alone regional issues eg SAARC failed to have
consensus for reforming UN Security Council, SAARC failed to have a common stand on the “War on Terrorism” etc

Economic failure: SAARC states signed “South Asian Free Trade Agreement (SAFTA)”. It was signed by SAARC states
but was never ratified, which implies that SAFTA is practically dead. This is an economic failure of SAARC. Infact the
failure of free trade among SAARC states can be seen in a way that in 2019, Indian government revoked Pakistan’s
status of “Most Favoured Nation”, cancelling free trade between the two.

Socio-Cultural failure: SAARC established “South Asia Free Media Association (SAFMA)” which aimed to provide
preferred access to media persons across south Asian states. The implementation of SAFMA faces problems
especially due to the tensions between India and Pakistan.

SAARC was able to make a university named South Asian University, in which there is a fixed quota for all SAARC
states. Apart from that SAARC does not have any other socio-cultural achievement.

Why SAARC failed?

India-Pakistan Conflict: Pakistan and India are the two strongest states in SAARC and their conflict creates a Bi-polar
order in SAARC. It has affected the functioning of SAARC.

Indian Foreign policy:

● India’s “Act East Policy” ,which also include the BIMSTEC initiative, is greatly affecting SAARC.

● India’s decision to be a part of Indo-Pacific policy is dividing the SAARC states.

Role of global powers:

US’ Indo-Pacific Policy which aims to contain China has created division among SAARC states because only the
selective states of SAARC are included in this policy.

Similarly China’s ‘BRI” and ‘String of Pearl” strategies have further divided SAARC states,because some are prt of
these initiatives but others are not. The South Asian states included in String of pearl are Bangladesh, Srilanka and
Pakistan.

Identity crisis: To have a sustainable organization, there should be a sense of identity among its members, so that
they remain integrated. OIC is has a sense of identity in form of same religion, EU has a sense of identity in terms of
its western democratic values but there is no such sense of identity among SAARC members, which has affected the
integration of SAARC states.

Future of SAARC:
● Future of SAARC depends on the intensity of conflict between Pakistan and India.

● In case if a natural disaster strikes south asia they are likely to collaborate eg during covid-19 Indian
government called a Virtual SAARC summit in May 2020 to discuss the one point agenda. In that forum,
SAARC states agreed to establish Covid 19 fund. Similarly during the Locust attack, India provided free
pesticides to Pakistan to fight locusts.