The basic premise on which SAARC was founded is clearly showing signs of validation. While shaping the SAARC initiative during the early 1980s, it was assumed that by activating cooperative cultural identities and economic interests, political conflicts and tensions in South Asia could be moderated, if not completely eliminated. Not that SAARC has got firmly entrenched into the economic and sociocultural cooperative ventures in the manner evident in North America (NAFTA), Europe (EU), Southeast Asia (ASEAN) or Asia-Pacific (APEC). And neither have political conflicts in South Asia, such as between India and Pakistan, been resolved or reduced significantly, but there are unmistakable signs of a promise to South Asian regional affairs. SAARC stands at a critical stage of its evolution where, given the right push, it can overcome past constraints and barriers to emerge as a dynamic factor in the peace and prosperity of more than a billion South Asians.
Factors that have contributed towards this positive turn for regional cooperation in South Asia are varied and numerous. Among the important ones, the role of the more-than-a-decade-old "SAARC process" itself should be acknowledged. It has sensitised common people, policy-makers and powerful economic and cultural interests towards the opportunities available in the region for cooperation. South Asian countries now know better than they did during the 1980s about each other´s assets and liabilities, and are exploring areas of mutual interests to be harnessed.
There remain information gaps, ambiguities and lingering apprehensions, but the process of dealing with them is vigorously on. Major shifts in power structures and political dynamics in South Asia since the beginning of this decade in favour of democratic forces, popular accountability and governmental transparency, much against the machinations of the hitherto entrenched interests, have generated aspirations for greater regional identity and interaction across state-erected barriers and territorial boundaries. South Asian civil societies are becoming more articulate and assertive in bringing SAARC out of the corridors of power so that popular forces can play their legitimate role in shaping its future course.
This regional effort of knowing each other and getting together got a strong push from the developments outside the region. The end of the Cold War eliminated the nearly 40-year-old pernicious spillover of the East-West divide in South Asia. More than its political fallout, the post-Cold War international economic imperatives have provided momentum to the pressures of regional cooperation in South Asia. On the one hand, the policies of economic liberalisation and the unleashing of the private sector are nudging the South Asian states to integrate the regional market and coordinate responses to international economic challenges in the area of trade investments and technology transfers. On the other, the global trend of expanding and strengthening regionalism is pressing for greater economic cohesion in South Asia, under the fear that an economically sluggish South Asia may be left marginalised in the post-Cold War world economy.