Vivek Chauhan
Columbia University, USA
In 2024, Bangladesh’s summer turned bloody, not because of the intense heat, from a protest that turned streets into a battleground, leaving 1,400+ dead by the United Nations’ own estimate, a number that still defines how the country sees its politics today. The same ‘heat’ has gripped the region, Sri Lanka’s Aragalaya movement that toppled a decades-old political dynasty, Nepal’s youth-led protests forcing the prime minister’s resignation, and India & Pakistan now simmer with their own unrest. Yet the one institution built to help the region with these crises has stood dormant throughout. In this article, we examine the feasibility for the revival of South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, or SAARC, and whether Bangladesh can lead it.
A Region in Heat
The pattern has been striking over the region with consistent similarities, though its triggers vary. Bangladesh and India saw youth-led protests over education and job prospects, as Bangladesh’s 2024 uprising began as a dispute over civil service quotas, while India’s Jantar Mantar protests erupted over exam leaks. The youth-led protests happened in Nepal too, however the spark was corruption as the anger erupted due to years of scandal by the political party and triggered by a government ban on social media. Meanwhile, Sri Lanka followed a different path entirely where protests emerged due to hyperinflation, fuel & medicine shortage and failing economy that pushed citizens to force out an entire ruling family.
A detailed picture into these protests reveals two main causes of public unrest, first, corruption & distrust of the people in the institutions that are leading them and second, economic distress surrounding them, further amplified by the young population watching their neighbours revolt. While India has successfully contained its protests, it hasn’t fully defused the underlying tension, a strain equally visible in Pakistan which had been experiencing constant strain from economic pressures and repeated waves of youth-led and opposition protests, and as per analysts, “sitting on the same combustible mixture that ignited its neighbours”.
SAARC’s Dormant Decade
Founded in Dhaka in 1985, SAARC was built to promote economic development and drive regional economic integration, through the Preferential Trade Agreement and formalised later through the South Asian Free Trade Area. That momentum collapsed in 2016, when India, joined by other countries, boycotted the planned 19th summit in Islamabad following the Uri attack. Since then, SAARC has become a largely dormant organization that merely exists with nothing more than an inactive secretariat.
If SAARC is revived, it could give the region a shared table where its member states can coordinate crisis responses that historically plague the region, by sharing information, exchanging lessons on governance mechanisms, coordinating financial & medical aid and addressing the economic pressures collectively. Given the regional haywire, a functioning SAARC might have offered emergency support to Sri Lanka during its hyperinflation crisis, or for instance, establish a common labour market that would let a Bangladeshi graduate work in Colombo or a Nepali engineer find work in Dhaka, thereby easing the very problem of unemployment pressure fuelling the region’s unrest.
Bangladesh’s Case and Its Limits
Bangladesh is now in a better position than other members to revive SAARC. It has standing as a founding member and currently holds the organization’s chairship, and it has lived through this very crisis firsthand. Regarding the security dispute, the country maintains warm connections with both India and Pakistan through economic & cultural ties. Furthermore, Bangladesh has already begun this push, calling for revival at the United Nations and separately with Indian and Pakistani officials.
A big issue remains the security dispute and distrust between India and Pakistan. Even if both countries agreed to return to the table, the incentives on offer such as a shared table, open communication and trade agreements (that through SAFTA already exists), remain too thin to outweigh a decade of mistrust. Until a sharper incentive emerges that allows both countries to set their personal animosities aside, this core barrier to SAARC is unlikely to move. (1) (2)
Another issue lies in the organization’s charter itself. There is a fear that a revived SAARC risks becoming another United Nations, where every member participates but few feel bound to obey. SAARC’s charter compounds this risk, as it explicitly excludes security matters from its scope (Article X of the SAARC Charter) and lacks enforcement mechanisms or punishments to hold its members accountable (3). Historical precedent supports this concern. In 2018, the World Bank made a critical observation about the SAARC region – intraregional trade stands at just $19 billion against an estimated $62 billion potential, accounting for barely 5% of the total trade of South Asia. This shortfall reflects not just a lack of opportunity but a failure of policy cooperation. (2) (4)
Conclusion
SAARC’s revival has effectively begun, with leadership resting on Bangladesh’s shoulders as the member state best positioned to drive it. Yet the success ultimately hinges on the very dispute that stalled the organization in the first place, whether India and Pakistan can be incentivised back to the table. Put simply, the table can be set by Bangladesh, but the success depends on who will come. And even a successful revival will remain fragile without deeper reform, such as a fundamental amendment to SAARC’s charter, and a mechanism to hold members accountable for their conduct.
References:
1. Fazil, Muhammad Daim. The Irrelevance of SAARC. South Asian Voices. [Online] 09 2016. https://southasianvoices.org/the-irrelevance-of-saarc/.
2. Haque, Mohd Amdadul. Beyond Terrorism: A Brief History of SAARC’s Failures. The Diplomat. [Online] 03 2025. https://thediplomat.com/2025/03/beyond-terrorism-a-brief-history-of-saarcs-failures/.
3. SAARC. SAARC CHARTER. SAARC. [Online] 1985. https://www.saarc-sec.org/#/pages/saarc-charter.
4. Kathuria, . A Glass Half Full: The Promise of Regional Trade in South Asia. s.l. : OpenKnowedge by World Bank Group, 2018.
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