SAARC is at such a point in its history that it must now be moving, and be seen to be moving, decisively forward. The alternative is regression and obsolescence
The SAARC process survives on the summits, and during the sometimes extended gaps between meetings it wanders like a rudderless ship, without any power or a sense of direction. Since the organisation was established in 1985, at least four scheduled summits have been scuttled for various reasons. The first was in 1989, when President Ranasinghe Premadasa of Sri Lanka expressed his inability to hold the meeting given the presence of the Indian peacekeeping force (IPKF) in his country. The venue was moved to the Maldives the next year, but when Sri Lanka prepared to hold the following Summit in 1991, it had to be postponed at the last minute as King Jigme Singye Wangchuk of Bhutan expressed his inability to attend on "health grounds". The situation proved to be embarrassing for the host country and to SAARC itself, particularly since the leaders of Pakistan and Bangladesh had already arrived in Colombo for the summit. In December 1993, the summit scheduled for Dhaka could not be held due to the communal riots that engulfed India and some of its neighbouring countries in the aftermath of the Babri Masjid demolition. And in November 1999, India called for a postponement of the Summit in Kathmandu just two weeks before the event, "on account of the military coup d'etat in Pakistan".
When SAARC leaders finally get together for the Kathmandu Summit in January 2002 after a gap of nearly three years, they will be trying to make the best of a checkered history. This meeting is happening under the shadow of yet another round of dangerously escalated India-Pakistan tensions, following the failed Agra meeting of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and General Pervez Musharraf, the confusion following the American action in Afghanistan, and, lastly, the terrorist attack of 13 December on the Lok Sabha.
The slow pace of the development of South Asian regionalism has left a mixed impression on the peoples of the region. Cynics often compare the member countries of SAARC to seven porcupines attempting to consummate a relationship, while its staunchest supporters swear by it as the most viable means for growth and development of the region. Even the Group of Eminent Persons (GEP) that was mandated by the 1997 Male Summit to present a plan of action for SAARC "that can and must be achieved by the year 2020" provided varied assessment of the SAARC process. While recognising that the organisation's achievements over the years had been significant, it nevertheless argued that "it has fallen short of the aspirations underlying the formation of the Association" due to the lack of political will, vicissitudes of the regional political climate, and lack of adequate resources for carrying out these commit-ments. It added, "As a consequence, disjunction developed between the decisions taken by the association and their implementation."