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Challenges To SAARC

SAARC was formed in 1985 to promote economic cooperation among South Asian countries, but it has fallen short of other regional organizations in areas like conflict resolution and trade. Several factors have hindered SAARC's success, including fear of Indian dominance, the India-Pakistan rivalry, lack of a shared identity among members, limitations in SAARC's charter, differing security perceptions, an ineffective civil society, and a lack of leadership to advance regional cooperation. For SAARC to become a truly effective organization, members must make sincere efforts to strengthen it and move beyond the state-centric approach.

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37 views

Challenges To SAARC

SAARC was formed in 1985 to promote economic cooperation among South Asian countries, but it has fallen short of other regional organizations in areas like conflict resolution and trade. Several factors have hindered SAARC's success, including fear of Indian dominance, the India-Pakistan rivalry, lack of a shared identity among members, limitations in SAARC's charter, differing security perceptions, an ineffective civil society, and a lack of leadership to advance regional cooperation. For SAARC to become a truly effective organization, members must make sincere efforts to strengthen it and move beyond the state-centric approach.

Uploaded by

siya
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Challenges to SAARC

Regional Organizations have been considered as one of the most apt means to
normalize the relations among the regional partners and to channelize the
cooperative gestures into the right tract besides a sense of security among the
members.
SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) was formed in 1985 to
promote the economic relations and equations among the South Asian countries.
Originally, there were seven founder members of SAARC- India, Pakistan, Bhutan,
Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Maldives. Its strength has risen to 8 after the
inclusion of Afghanistan as its new member.
Its over 26 years now since its formation but when compared with the other
regional organizations like European Union, ASEAN etc on the success meter,
SAARC is far behind in conflict- resolution, intra- regional trade etc as SAARC has
not been able to grow as a successful regional organization. There are many
factors which are retarding its success ratio.
Firstly, there is a fear- psychosis among the members of SAARC viz-a-viz India due
to her extraordinary achievements in all the spheres like- economic growth rate,
military strength, technological advancement, nuclear strength, pluralistic- secular
fabric of the society, democratic traditions so on and so forth. The countries
especially Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bangladesh are not very much
comfortable with the rise of India as one of the fastest growing powers to be
reckoned with. These countries are dwarfed by the ‘Indo-centricity’ of the region.

Secondly, its unfortunate but true that the success of SAARC has remained a
prisoner of the Indo- Pak rivalry. Pakistan is insecure and feares of Indian
dominance not only in this region but also in the whole world. Pakistan feels
suffocated of anything and everything dominated by India. However, some of
these fears are real but most of them are pre- emptive and psychologically
created.
Thirdly, there is a crisis of identity among the member countries. All the members
prefer to be get aligned to one or other regional organizations than identifying
themselves with SAARC. For instance, Pakistan and Bangladesh are more inclined

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the OIC (Organization of Islamic Countries) and feel more secured and
comfortable to be a part of ‘Muslim- solidarity regime’. Likewise, Sri Lanka,
Maldives and India are more concerned to identify themselves as the members of
ASEAN and East Asia.

Fourthly, there are inherent shortcomings in the working of SAARC as it is written


down in its charter that no bi- lateral and conflictual issues would be discussed at
its platform. Besides this, the method of taking decisions is also faulted as it is
based on consensus of all the members hence, many issues remained unresolved
till date.
Fifthly, the security and political deviations among the members always over-
shadowed the prospects of economic and socio- cultural convergences. The
various conflictual issues among the members are operating as a stumbling bloc
in the way of their cooperation and normalization. Each member of SAARC is
having diverse security threat perception as Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri
Lanka consider India as the biggest threat to their security. On the other hand,
India consider the growing influence and interference of outside powers like USA
and China into this region as the biggest threat to her security. But, all the
member states fail to articulate their common threat perceptions like poverty,
unemployment, terrorism, environmental degradation etc.

Sixthly, there is a failure on the part of the civil society of the South Asian region.
Although there are over one lac NGO’s operating in this region but these have
remained non- effective in nature. The civil society and society- central model
needs the will of the state to operate effectively but unfortunately it is still
operating in the state- centric model which has limited its utility and credibility.
Lastly, there is a big failure on the part of the leadership because it has failed to
articulate and operationalize the process of regional cooperation. They only meet
at the SAARC summits, issue formal speeches but failed to articulate and
channelize the peace process into the right track.
It can be stated that SAARC has not been able to achieve the aim of being a
successful regional organization rather it has remained largely dysfunctional. To
conclude, it can be stated that if EU, ASEAN could become successful
organizations then why not SAARC? If SAARC members initiate some sincere

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efforts to make SAARC a strong dispute- redress mechanism, it can become a very
successful regional organization. The need of the time is that SAARC should come
out of the ‘state- centric model’ and to change the negative mindsets of the
SAARC members.

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