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Forty years ago, the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) Charter was signed. Despite its initial successes, South Asia today is politically and strategically fractured, economically least integrated and stuck when it comes to connectivity and diplomacy. With widening internal divisions and growing external demands, how should we look back to the four decades of SAARC and its future? 

Paradigm in peril: “After experiencing twice in their own lifetimes” the tragedies of the two World Wars, that generation of thinkers and leaders came together to create the United Nations to lead the world in transforming human behavior for “saving succeeding generations from the scourge of war” and other threats. After the deaths, devastation, and despair, the UN, standing on its three pillars, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), and the Human Rights Council (initially named Commission), was to be the global repository of a new hope of collective human security, prosperity and dignity.

With the UN at the core, the International Financial Institutions (IFIs) and the ill-fated International Trade Organization (ITO), GATT—now the World Trade Organization (WTO)—were to assist in managing global financial, monetary and trading systems. Aimed at intellectually guiding this global transformation, a new academic discipline, International Affairs, Studies or Relations (IR), bringing together knowledge of history, geography, politics, economics, law, diplomacy and national security etc, also started in Western universities, which has now spread to all parts of the world. 

In both these new developments, there was an assumption that the inadequacies in understanding, codifying and guiding human relations individually, but more importantly relations among the highest and most powerful of the human institutions, the nation-states, were primarily responsible for the death and devastation. Now, of course, technology has fundamentally altered the understanding and application of sovereignty, power and interest, further amplifying the need for some form of convergence between national sovereignty and global governance with transformative IR and effective UN. Sadly, the Global Paradigm was in Peril for a long time. With the crisis in IR and post-Cold-War unilateralism the UN is totally marginalized in global affairs.

Regionalism, the next best hope: With the UN unable to come out of the Cold-War chasm, but regional cooperation in post-War Europe doing much better, some scholars and policy makers thought, perhaps, that cooperation for peace-security, prosperity and human dignity among countries within the same geographic region, with similar culture, stages of development, threat perceptions and security needs would have better prospects. Regionalism thus emerged as the next best hope in IR, a better approach to resolve disputes, avoid wars and promote peace and security, development, and human rights.

With European integration, it was assumed that regional organizations, their leaders and officials could better catalyze national interest harmonization, protecting and promoting individual national interests within the collective regional good. This in turn could act as the building block for future global transformation.

Establishment of SAARC: Aware of the power of the idea of regionalism and their region’s common problems of poverty and political violence, like in other parts of the world, seven heads of state and government of South Asia signed the Charter of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) in Dhaka, Bangladesh on 8th December 1985. “Promoting peace, stability, amity and progress in South Asia” for the welfare of the peoples of the region was the main goal. 

Right at the start, South Asian leaders identified two main areas for regional cooperation: Collective prosperity and regional security. With Afghanistan as the eighth member in 2007, the relevance of SAARC  in addressing the twin tragedies increased significantly. 

Early successes: From a modest start areas of cooperation multiplied, encompassing poverty alleviation to trade and finance, culture to environment, social development to security, science and technology to tourism. Eight agreements, including the South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA), six conventions including on Suppression of Terrorism and its additional protocol were signed. The Food Bank and Development Fund was meant to promote greater regional integration. SAARC Seed Bank, Multilateral Arrangement on Recognition of Conformity Assessment, Rapid Response to Natural Disaster and Implementation of Regional Standards were also signed.

The Social Charter and Charter of Democracy were steps toward common political and social order. The South Asian University could still spur greater intellectual interaction and innovation for greater regional consciousness, identity and cooperation. Sadly, performance hugely lags compared to potential. 

Intellectual traffic jam: Three decades after its establishment, Nepal was hosting the 18th SAARC Summit from 23-27 Nov 2014. As the host, the political leadership of the organization came to Nepal. For the second time, the secretariat was also headed by a Nepali and the third time the summit was being held in Kathmandu, where the secretariat is located.

All major global and regional actors (the US, China, Russia, Japan, Myanmar, Iran and South Korea) as observers of SAARC, reflected the pivotal position of South Asia in the post-Cold War world. With national leadership of vision and strong SG, this summit could have been a transformative moment for SAARC. 

As a member of the Summit Preparatory Committee, at the first meeting, I began my remarks by quoting a former SG—“SAARC has hardly progressed beyond signs and symbols”—and reminding the participants of the widespread criticism of SAARC for being ineffective. With Nepal assuming multiple leadership roles, I asked, “what kind of agenda should we propose, business as usual, incremental reforms or transformative?” 

Initially there was an all-round support for a transformative agenda. But from the second meeting the “intellectual traffic jam, political timidity and bureaucratic rigidity” started clogging the highway responsible for making SAARC unable to move forward.

After prolonged discussion, ‘Deeper Integration (Better Connectivity) for Peace and Prosperity’ was agreed as the summit theme. But support for deeper integration for peace and prosperity started diminishing and eventually the summit ended up being what SAARC summits have always been, rich in fanfare and declaratory rhetoric but little progress in addressing the real problems of the people of the region or a more unified position on external demands. “Neighborhood first or last?” dilemma and “beggar thy neighbor” policies keep South Asia divided and SAARC in “coma” today. 

Essentials remedies: This takes me back to the third SAARC Summit in 1987, the first in Nepal. In preparation for it, the Centre for Nepal and Asian Studies (CNAS) of the Tribhuvan University (TU), with which I was then associated, organized a seminar titled ‘SAARC: Retrospect and Prospect’. I started my paper “Nepal in SAARC, a Long-Term Perspective” with a question: What kind of regional cooperation are we talking about without Trade? Trade became one of the areas of cooperation later. 

The next issue I raised was the provision of the charter excluding bilateral and contentious (political and security) issues. The role of the secretariat only as an administrative unit and the level of the secretary-general (SG), a mid-level career official, was the third issue I identified for discussion. Finally, the overly state-centric nature of the organization was, in my view, problematic. With this diagnosis, I proposed three remedies:

1. Strengthening the Secretariat and upgrading the level of the SG, enabling and empowering him/her to more effectively implement the decisions of the inter-governmental bodies and promote regionalism by harmonizing national interests of individual member-states within the larger regional good

2. Greater role for civil society to take up issues that may seem politically contentious for the inter-governmental process to take up immediately but too important to be left out completely

3. A confidence building process by establishing a Council for Dispute Settlement composed of elder statesmen and intellectuals to discuss issues excluded from the inter-governmental process until the charter can be reviewed and amended to strengthen SAARC as a mature institution able to discuss more substantive bilateral political and security issues, which are the main impediments to real regional cooperation

My conclusions then were, without addressing these issues, SAARC will be busy only in marginal issues and diplomatic fanfare but unable to really move regional cooperation forward in any significant way. Since then, I have moved from academia to public service, diplomacy to conflict resolution and peacemaking. In my academic-professional-diplomatic roles, I have spoken and written on the need to ‘Transform SAARC to Prepare South Asia for a New Age’, with emphasis on the issues identified in that short paper.

Almost three decades later, the 18th summit came and went. Not just the 19th summit remains in limbo, but SAARC and South Asia continue at the same crossroads of time and space, history and geography, only in many ways moving backward in regional cooperation. The only difference is, with the new Asian Century, China in the north and India at its center, the Indo-Pacific, South Asia  and the Central Himalayas have emerged as one of the global political, economic and strategic epicenters, significantly increasing opportunities and risks for the region. 

As a student, teacher and practitioner, I have advocated rethinking IR and regional cooperation for long. Today, I am both happy and sad that the discourse on SAARC, its marginalization or BIMSTEC and its revitalization, revolve around the same issues I have raised for four decades. 

The author deals extensively with these issues in his new book “SAARC to BIMSTEC:Breakdown or Breakthrough in Regional Cooperation in South Asia”, being published by a leading Indian publisher in early 2026

In a major anti-corruption drive, the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA), a constitutional body mandated to investigate corruption cases, has filed cases against 55 individuals—including five former ministers and ten former government secretaries—for their alleged involvement in corruption during the construction of Pokhara International Airport in western Nepal.

Similarly, cases have been filed against China CAMC Engineering Co. Ltd Chairman Wang Bao and Regional General Manager Shen Cheng for creating the environment of corruption. The company was selected for the airport’s construction. The Chinese side, however, has denied any corruption in the project. This is likely the highest-profile corruption case since the formation of the Sushila Karki-led government, established on the foundation of the GenZ movement, whose principal demand was combating corruption and ensuring good governance.

The airport was inaugurated in January 2023 by then Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal of the Maoist party. Since then, China has listed the airport under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a claim the Nepal government denies. Since its operation began, the airport has not conducted international, except few charter flights from China, resulting in a huge financial loss. According to Yagya Raj Regmi, Information Officer at the Special Court where the case has been filed, a liability of USD 7,434,345 has been determined against the 55 individuals.

In May this year, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the House of Representatives instructed the CIAA to investigate the case. At that time, lawmakers were divided over the report, as some from communist parties defended the Chinese company and questioned the report’s integrity. China CAMC Engineering, the airport’s contractor, publicly criticized the PAC report as being riddled with factual inaccuracies and lacking professional, objective analysis of the project’s implementation. This indicates that the Chinese side is unwilling to accept any allegations of corruption in the airport’s construction.

The initial project cost, estimated at Rs 14 billion, was suspiciously inflated to Rs 22 billion. According to Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN) officials, the airport must conduct at least 100 daily domestic flights and 50 weekly international flights to sustain operations. The airport also has to pay USD 3.2 million annually in interest.

On 21 March 2016, China Exim Bank and the Government of Nepal signed a government concessional loan agreement worth RMB 1.37 billion for the Pokhara International Regional Airport Construction Project. According to AidData, a research lab based in Washington, D.C., 25 percent of the loan amount (RMB 355.9 million) was provided interest-free with a 20-year maturity period and a 7-year grace period. The remaining 75 percent of the loan (RMB 1.02 billion) carried a 2 percent interest rate, with the same maturity and grace periods. AidData further reports that Nepal used this loan to on-lend to CAAN at a 5 percent interest rate through a Subsidiary Loan Agreement finalized on 5 June 2016.

The airport’s construction was delayed after China Exim Bank required the creation of a joint escrow account into which CAAN—the project’s executing agency—would deposit income generated from all its airports. CAAN refused, delaying the release of project funds and stalling construction. In 2017, CAAN and China Exim Bank reached a compromise to deposit only the revenues generated by Pokhara International Airport into the escrow account.

It is now certain that Pokhara International Airport cannot repay the loan to the Chinese bank. As a result, some Nepali politicians have begun requesting that China convert 75 percent of the loan into a grant. However, no negotiations have taken place, and China has already rejected the possibility. Former Prime Ministers Pushpa Kamal Dahal and KP Sharma Oli separately urged the Chinese side to convert the loan into a grant, but the request was denied. China side has not reacted yet. 

According to CIAA, although the cost estimate of 145 million US dollars for the construction was approved, contractor company, China CAMC Engineering Co. Ltd., with malicious intent and without reasonable grounds, unnaturally increased the cost estimate in order to obtain unlawful benefits for itself and the other involved defendants. 

The company engaged in collusion and manipulated the competitive process, and before entering further procurement procedures, set an abnormal price and raised the estimate to 286.526 million US dollars. It has been found that China CAMC Engineering Co. Ltd. corresponded with public officials of the public institution with malicious intent to facilitate this increase, said CIAA. 

Nepal and India are holding a meeting of the Joint Working Group (JWG) on Petroleum and Gas Cooperation in New Delhi on Monday. 

Joint Secretary Shiva Ram Pokharel of the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Supplies will lead the Nepali delegation in the meeting, while a Joint Secretary from the Indian Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas will lead the Indian delegation.

The JWG was set up in 2017 to strengthen cooperation between the Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC) and the Indian Oil Corporation Ltd (IOCL) and to widen collaboration in the petroleum and gas sector. 

The meeting comes at a time when Nepal is seeking progress on multiple cross-border energy projects, including the handover of the second phase of the Motihari–Amlekhgunj petroleum pipeline and new initiatives to expand bilateral petroleum infrastructure.

Ministry officials say Nepal will push for the formal handover of the second phase of Motihari–Amlekhgunj petroleum pipeline, which was completed in October last year but has yet to be transferred to Nepal. 

The first phase of the pipeline, handed over in 2018, currently supplies diesel, petrol and kerosene to Amlekhgunj, from where fuel is distributed to major hubs including Kathmandu, Pokhara, Biratnagar and Bhairahawa. The pipeline now accounts for nearly 70% of Nepal’s nationwide fuel imports.

The meeting is also expected to review the status of several projects, including the proposed Siliguri–Charali pipeline, the Charali storage facility and the planned Amlekhgunj–Chitwan pipeline. The storage facility in Chitwan will be built with Nepali investment and Indian technical cooperation.

Officials say Nepal will also push for the Motihari-Sarlahi gas pipeline. It will also brief India on new domestic storage projects under development, including depots being built on NOC land in Rupandehi.

Nepal is additionally exploring the possibility of receiving aviation turbine fuel (ATF) through the cross-border pipeline, according to Indian media reports.

India is the sole supplier of petroleum products for Nepal. NOC currently imports diesel, petrol, kerosene, ATF and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) from the India Oil Corporation (IOC).

Nepal’s political landscape has been shaped repeatedly by acts of betrayal, and today’s GenZ movement finds itself encircled by similar breaches of trust—both from state institutions and non-state forces. This pattern is not new. Twenty years after the 2006 Second People’s Movement, that abolished the monarchy and established a federal republic, Nepal witnessed another youth-led uprising in Sept 2025, commonly referred to as the “GenZ” movement. The protesters’ core demands centered on ending systemic corruption, addressing mass unemployment, lifting restrictions on social media, holding the state accountable and dismantling entrenched old power structures. While some voices within the movement called for constitutional amendments or a directly-elected prime minister, the demand for immediate elections was not the primary focus.

Nevertheless, in response President Ramchandra Paudel dissolved the House of Representatives, appointed former Chief Justice Sushila Karki as interim prime minister and announced fresh elections within six months. Many observers see this rapid dissolution and election announcement as the latest instance of the state deflecting, rather than addressing, popular demands for systemic change.

Whether this abrupt move constitutes a deliberate strategy to defuse and ultimately neutralize the GenZ youth rebellion remains a critical question that warrants serious national debate.

Whither constitutional legitimacy?

After the government collapsed and Parliament was dissolved, the nation was left without leadership. Holding fresh elections and seeking a new public mandate appeared to be the most legitimate and constitutional way forward. It would have ensured that the interim government remained only a temporary arrangement, functioning strictly within constitutional limits. However, this path was never pursued.

The President should have first explored the possibility of forming a new government from within the existing Parliament, safeguarding constitutional integrity and institutional dignity. The more democratic alternative would have been to respond to the aspirations of the youth, bring their concerns to the floor of Parliament, and open meaningful avenues for their representation and participation in state governance. Nepal has taken such steps before—it is not a distant chapter of history.

Yet, the interpretation of the symbolic burning of ‘parliament’ during the movement as an attack on the institution itself has now become a contentious matter, one that may shape political debates and institutional behaviour far into the future.

Some argue that calling for fresh elections in the midst of a power vacuum is merely an effort to preserve the existing power structure. Others claim that this step does not resolve constitutional deadlocks but stands in direct violation of the constitution. Meanwhile, even as the demand for parliamentary restoration remains under judicial review, the very parties advocating for it are preparing to contest elections scheduled for March 5 next year. This, in effect, suggests that they have dismissed the spirit of the GenZ movement.

For some, elections were presented as a way to absorb the movement’s energy—redirecting youthful activism from the streets into parliamentary politics. Yet this logic contradicts the core of the youth uprising, which never demanded immediate elections. The protests exerted intense pressure on those in power, but following the election declaration, criticism has grown that the President’s decision—taken in the belief that street anger could be channeled into ballot papers—constitutes a profound betrayal of the movement’s purpose. In response, a segment of the youth now questions whether another uprising is needed to secure the goals for which they first took to the streets.

A bid to signal stability

By announcing the election date, the President appears to be projecting a message—both domestically and internationally—that Nepal is moving from instability toward procedural normalcy. Despite the scheduled elections creating an impression of institutional restoration, the conditions for a fair and credible vote are still far from secure. If the elections were to be cancelled under such circumstances, the country could face another crisis, reminiscent of events like prison breakouts and the burning of government buildings during previous unrest.

A limited mandate

The interim administration has been granted only one primary task: to conduct elections. This narrow mandate risks entrenching the same old power structures riddled with corruption. In such an environment, the possibility of the GenZ movement returning to the streets remains high. The interim government itself has repeatedly clarified that its role is not to engineer systemic change, but merely to steer the country back to the constitutional path through elections.

Yet, elections within six months are no cure-all. The challenges ahead are immense. The youth-led uprising has demanded deeper structural reforms—reforms that are currently not being addressed. The President’s decision to withhold authority from the interim government to amend the constitution or initiate institutional restructuring stands in stark contradiction to the spirit of transition. This raises a real risk that elections may simply reopen the door for the old parties to regain power.

There is also constitutional ambiguity regarding the appointment of a prime minister from outside Parliament following its dissolution. Fears persist that those powers granted in the present could be misused in the future.

Trust, reform and inclusion

Nepal is navigating a turbulent period. Institutions are weakened, and public trust in the state is steadily eroding. In such a context, six months is a short window. Rushed elections may favor established political forces rather than fairness or reform. If grievances over unemployment, corruption, exclusion and limited opportunity remain unaddressed, dissatisfaction could resurface even more strongly.

Simply announcing elections and releasing attractive party manifestos cannot restore people’s faith in the existing order. Trust must be rebuilt through visible action. The interim government must prioritise transparency and accountability from day one. Public disclosure of assets—from ministers and top officials to senior policymakers—is essential to reinforce integrity in state leadership.

Sensitive corruption cases must be pursued without delay, and the law must be allowed to act decisively. Only then will citizens feel the beginning of change. Equally crucial is the meaningful inclusion of youth, experts, women, indigenous communities and civil society in candidate selection and electoral rule-making—because inclusive participation is the foundation of genuine democracy.

Before the election day arrives, Nepal needs a broad national dialogue on long-overdue reforms and on the review of vague or disputed constitutional provisions. Such deliberation can set the groundwork for stability, improve governance and gradually rebuild public confidence in the system.