SAARC — the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation — is South Asia’s regional bloc of eight member states: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. It was founded at the first summit in Dhaka on 8 December 1985, is headquartered in Kathmandu, and has held no summit since the 18th in 2014 — a paralysis that has pushed India’s neighbourhood diplomacy towards BIMSTEC.
SAARC and India share a complicated three-decade story of optimism, institution-building and eventual paralysis. The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation was established at the first summit in Dhaka on 8 December 1985, when the heads of state of Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka signed the SAARC Charter. Afghanistan joined as the eighth member at the 14th Summit in New Delhi in 2007. The organisation was conceived as a vehicle for accelerating economic and social progress, promoting active collaboration in agriculture, rural development, telecommunications, health and education, and contributing to mutual trust among the peoples of South Asia.
For India, SAARC has always been the indispensable but uncomfortable forum — indispensable because it is the only multilateral roof that covers all of South Asia, uncomfortable because India is geographically, demographically and economically larger than the other seven members combined, and because the India-Pakistan rivalry has shaped, and ultimately frozen, the organisation. The last SAARC summit was the 18th, held in Kathmandu in November 2014. The 19th, scheduled for Islamabad in November 2016, was cancelled after the Uri terrorist attack of 18 September 2016, when India and three other members withdrew. No summit has been held since, and the relationship between SAARC and India today is best described as institutional life-support.
Origins and the Idea of South Asia
The idea of a South Asian grouping was first floated by Bangladesh’s President Ziaur Rahman in 1980, in letters to the heads of government of the region. After three years of foreign secretary-level meetings, the foreign ministers of seven countries met in New Delhi in August 1983 and adopted the Declaration on South Asian Regional Cooperation, launching an Integrated Programme of Action in five agreed areas. Two years later the heads of state met in Dhaka and the charter was signed.
The 1985 Dhaka Charter
The SAARC Charter has ten articles. Article I lists the objectives — welfare of the peoples of South Asia, accelerated economic growth, active collaboration in economic, social, cultural, technical and scientific fields. Article II sets out the principles — sovereign equality, territorial integrity, political independence, non-interference and mutual benefit. Article X, the most consequential clause, requires that decisions at all levels be taken on the basis of unanimity, and that bilateral and contentious issues be excluded from the deliberations. This single rule is the lock that has both protected and paralysed SAARC.
Member States
SAARC today has eight member states: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. It also has nine observers, including China, the European Union, Iran, Japan, the United States and Australia. The organisation covers roughly 3 per cent of the world’s land area, about 21 per cent of its population and a little under 5 per cent of global GDP — the least economically integrated region in the world by trade volume.
Institutions and Mechanisms
SAARC’s institutional architecture is layered. The summit of heads of state or government is the highest authority. The Council of Ministers comprises foreign ministers and meets twice a year. The Standing Committee of foreign secretaries oversees programmes. Technical committees, working groups, regional centres and the Secretariat handle the day-to-day work.
SAARC Secretariat, Kathmandu
The SAARC Secretariat was established in Kathmandu on 17 January 1987 and is headed by a Secretary-General appointed by the Council of Ministers for a non-renewable three-year term, on the principle of rotation among member states. The Secretariat coordinates summits and ministerial meetings, services programmes and serves as the institutional memory of the organisation. Although it has remained operational through the present freeze, its budget and visibility have shrunk.
SAFTA and Trade
The South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA) agreement was signed at the 12th Summit in Islamabad in January 2004 and came into force on 1 January 2006. SAFTA was designed to bring tariffs on intra-regional trade down to zero in phases. In practice, intra-SAARC trade has remained stuck at around 5 to 7 per cent of the region’s total trade — among the lowest for any regional grouping. India and Pakistan have not extended SAFTA-style concessions to each other in any meaningful way; the negative list, sensitive lists and non-tariff barriers have hollowed out the agreement.
Regional Centres and Specialised Bodies
SAARC has set up specialised regional centres — the SAARC Agricultural Centre in Dhaka, the SAARC Energy Centre in Islamabad, the SAARC Cultural Centre in Colombo, the SAARC Disaster Management Centre in New Delhi, and the South Asian University, established by an inter-governmental agreement in 2007 and operational in New Delhi since 2010. These bodies have continued to function in varying degrees, though several have lost momentum.
Achievements
For all the criticism, SAARC has built a thin but real architecture of South Asian cooperation. The SAARC Food Bank and SAARC Seed Bank address food security. The SAARC Development Fund finances social-sector projects. Visa exemption schemes for designated categories — judges, parliamentarians, academics — have eased people-to-people movement. SAARC Conventions on Suppression of Terrorism (1987), Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters and Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances have created legal templates. The South Asian University now hosts students from all eight members.
The 18th Summit in Kathmandu, the last to be held, produced a SAARC Framework Agreement for Energy Cooperation (Electricity) and made progress on a SAARC Motor Vehicles Agreement and a SAARC Regional Railways Agreement. India launched the South Asia Satellite (GSAT-9) in May 2017 as a gift to SAARC neighbours minus Pakistan, providing communication, broadcasting and disaster-support services across the region.
The Paralysis Since 2016
The 19th SAARC Summit was scheduled to be held in Islamabad in November 2016. On 18 September 2016, four heavily armed militants attacked an Indian Army brigade headquarters in Uri, Jammu and Kashmir, killing 19 soldiers. India publicly attributed the attack to Pakistan-based militant groups and announced that it would not participate in the Islamabad summit. Bangladesh, Bhutan and Afghanistan followed, citing a similar deterioration of the regional environment. With four of the eight members withdrawing, the summit was cancelled. Sri Lanka and the Maldives later expressed support for the postponement.
The Pakistan Factor
The structural problem is that Article X of the charter excludes bilateral and contentious issues from SAARC deliberations, while in practice the India-Pakistan relationship has dominated every summit cycle. India’s position is that meaningful regional cooperation cannot proceed in an environment of cross-border terrorism. Pakistan’s position is that connectivity, trade and Kashmir cannot be separated. The deadlock has now lasted almost a decade. The annual Council of Ministers meetings on the margins of the UN General Assembly have continued in attenuated form, but no full ministerial meeting has taken place since 2016.
Institutional Drift
The Secretariat has continued to operate, the South Asian University has continued to admit students, and a handful of technical meetings have taken place virtually — notably the SAARC health ministers’ video conference convened by India in March 2020 to coordinate the response to COVID-19, which led to the creation of a SAARC COVID-19 Emergency Fund seeded by India with USD 10 million. But the political organs of SAARC have been frozen, summit-level diplomacy has lapsed, and ambitious projects on motor vehicles, energy and railways have stalled.
The BIMSTEC Pivot
With SAARC frozen, India has increasingly invested in BIMSTEC, the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation, which excludes Pakistan and the Maldives and includes Myanmar and Thailand. In October 2016, days after the Uri attack and the cancellation of the SAARC summit, India hosted a BIMSTEC outreach summit on the margins of the BRICS summit in Goa — a visible signal of the pivot. The 6th BIMSTEC Summit in Bangkok in April 2024 adopted the BIMSTEC Charter, finally giving the grouping legal personality nearly three decades after its launch. India’s eastern and southern neighbourhood diplomacy is now organised around BIMSTEC, the Indian Ocean Rim Association and bilateral tracks rather than SAARC.
This pivot is reinforced by India’s broader Indo-Pacific orientation, expressed through the Quad and through its independent Indo-Pacific strategy. Even the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, where India and Pakistan are both members, has provided a more functional setting for regional dialogue than SAARC in the past few years, as reflected in the SCO Summit 2025 deliberations.
SAARC and India: The Future
Three broad scenarios are possible. The first is a slow institutional withering — the Secretariat continues, technical bodies survive, but no summit is held. The second is a revival under conditions, with India insisting on a meaningful and verifiable shift on cross-border terrorism before resuming summit-level engagement. The third is a reconfiguration — either a SAARC-minus-one format that proceeds with the seven willing members, or a quiet absorption of SAARC’s agenda by BIMSTEC and bilateral mechanisms.
For UPSC General Studies Paper II, the relationship between SAARC and India is an entry point to questions on India’s neighbourhood policy, regionalism, the constraints of consensus-based organisations and the strategic logic of the ASEAN-India relationship as a contrasting model of successful regionalism in Asia. SAARC remains, for now, the organisation that taught South Asia both the promise and the limits of regional cooperation.
Frequently Asked Questions
When and where was SAARC established?
SAARC was established at its first summit in Dhaka on 8 December 1985 with the signing of the SAARC Charter by Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
How many members does SAARC have?
SAARC has eight member states — Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Afghanistan joined at the 14th Summit in New Delhi in 2007.
Where is the SAARC Secretariat located?
The SAARC Secretariat is in Kathmandu, Nepal, and was inaugurated on 17 January 1987. It is headed by a Secretary-General who serves a non-renewable three-year term on a rotational basis.
When was the last SAARC summit held?
The 18th and last SAARC Summit was held in Kathmandu, Nepal, in November 2014. The 19th summit, scheduled for Islamabad in November 2016, was cancelled after the Uri attack and has not been rescheduled.
What is SAFTA?
The South Asian Free Trade Area agreement was signed at the 12th Summit in Islamabad in January 2004 and entered into force on 1 January 2006. It aimed to reduce tariffs on intra-regional trade to zero in phases, but intra-SAARC trade still hovers around 5–7 per cent of total trade.
Why is SAARC considered paralysed?
SAARC has been paralysed since 2016 because of the cancellation of the Islamabad summit after the Uri attack and the broader India-Pakistan deadlock. Under Article X of the charter, all decisions require unanimity, so the freeze of any one bilateral relationship can stall the organisation.
What are SAARC’s main alternatives?
BIMSTEC is the principal alternative for India and includes Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Thailand. India has also relied on bilateral mechanisms and broader Indo-Pacific forums to advance its neighbourhood agenda.
Does SAARC have a university?
Yes. The South Asian University was set up by an inter-governmental agreement signed at the 14th SAARC Summit in 2007 and has operated from New Delhi since 2010, admitting students from all SAARC member states.
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