Opinion | Pakistan's Push For An India-Less 'SAARC' Is Pure Delusion

Many of Pakistan's well-meaning, liberal-minded and smart analysts act like the helpless husband of an intolerable shrew. They must manage the difficult situation at home and keep the pretences in the world by staying in denial. Pakistan's Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, Ishaq Dar, recently expressed his frustration with institutions like SAARC. His vision for "open and inclusive regionalism" where "our own national development needs and regional priorities cannot - and should not - be held hostage to anyone's rigidity" could be deemed perfectly reasonable. So would his insistence that South Asia "could no longer afford to remain trapped in zero-sum mindsets, political fragmentation and dysfunctional regional architecture".

Except they are not. Except nobody is getting fooled anymore. 

Pakistan is performing to the gallery, as usual, by building a misleading narrative. Almost every charge Islamabad levels at New Delhi for obstructing South Asian regionalism traces back to Pakistan's own delinquent strategic behaviour. Pakistan's provocation for a bloc excluding India is less about solving regional problems and more about avoiding accountability for its own role in systematic dysfunction across South Asia. This pot-calling-kettle-black attitude has been Pakistan's policy for both domestic and international audiences for decades. 

Look Inward, Perhaps

In official statements and diplomatic commentary, Islamabad routinely blames India for the stagnation of SAARC, which has not held a summit since 2014. But this overlooks Pakistan's own patterns of diplomatic churlishness. Decisions in SAARC require unanimity, and Pakistan has repeatedly refrained from ratifying key protocols that would significantly deepen regional cooperation, like the Motor Vehicles Agreement and the Regional Railways Agreement. When these agreements were poised to be finalised in 2014, Pakistan withdrew its consent for political reasons. Pakistan's refusal to ratify these initiatives has greatly impeded SAARC's functional utility, but it continues to act like a sullen teenager, unable to accept responsibility for anything. When Pakistan blocks such agreements, it blames India for their collapse, turning accountability on its head. 

South Asia's intra-regional trade languishes at around 5% of total trade, well below ASEAN's 25%. Pakistan accuses India of stalling regional trade, yet Pakistan repeatedly refuses reciprocity. India extended Most Favoured Nation (MFN) status to Pakistan in 1996, a key enabling condition under the World Trade Organization (WTO) framework for equitable tariffs, which should have set the stage for reciprocal market access. Pakistan has never reciprocated that status. India's offer continues to stand, but Islamabad has refused to extend MFN, citing unresolved political disputes instead. So, Islamabad's holding India responsible as a barrier to deeper economic integration is nothing but a charade. 

Can Pak Match The Numbers?

Pakistan routinely argues that India's dominance has stifled regional cooperation. And yet, India's financial commitment to one of SAARC's most important institutions - the South Asian University (SAU) - dwarfs Pakistan's contribution. India has funded nearly 90% of SAU's total budget, while Pakistan's share since 2010 amounts to just about 2.7%, despite being assigned a 13% funding quota. If Pakistan truly believed in SAARC's potential, it could at least contribute proportionately to shared institutions. Instead, Islamabad's underfunding of SAU indicates a consistent pattern of performative engagement rather than substantive investment.

Blaming India for bilateral tensions ignores Pakistan's own role in perpetuating mistrust. Pakistan's charges against India often frame New Delhi as unwilling to disengage political disputes from regional cooperation. But Islamabad itself has repeatedly linked broader engagement to unresolved territorial conflicts, particularly over Kashmir. It's comical to see Pakistan reiterating its commitment to the "freedom of Kashmir" while PoK remains tethered to political and economic instability. Islamabad has been crushing the demands for parity from the people of PoK with an iron fist. Yet, historically, Pakistan has been holding most diplomatic engagement with India on progress hostage to what it sees as the "Kashmir problem". This has created a stalemate that feeds institutional paralysis in larger forums. 

In contrast, India has been consistently approaching Pakistan, despite the latter's endless attempts at creating regional instability, to find a common minimum ground for cooperation. This pragmatic approach highlights a key divergence: India attempts functional cooperation while Pakistan prioritises grievance narratives. Despite multiple efforts of three Prime Ministers - Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Manmohan Singh, Narendra Modi - who decided to make personal overtures to normalise relations with Pakistan, India has not received reciprocal goodwill. 

Nobody Is Onboard

Pakistan's alternative bloc proposal will likely deepen fragmentation, not foster cooperation.

Even if Pakistan's rhetorical targeting of India resonates domestically, the proposal for a South Asian bloc excluding India is unlikely to succeed. Yes, Pakistan enjoys China's patronage, but even the latter does not believe in excluding India from regional equations. Building regional cooperation without South Asia's largest economy and the world's fifth largest - India accounts for roughly 70% of SAARC's GDP - is strategically impractical. Smaller South Asian states, whose trade and infrastructure linkages pivot around India, have little incentive to join a grouping that alienates New Delhi.

Pakistan's unabashed criticism of India's role in regional cooperation serves domestic political narratives but obscures a much harsher reality: Pakistan's own record on regional cooperation is rather poor. If Pakistan truly wants regional cooperation to flourish, it must first acknowledge and address its own contributions to the problem rather than cast blame outward. 

While multilateral groupings, without earmarked hardcore security and defence investments, achieve precious little in real terms, they signal bonhomie. India should not worry too much about any grouping that ostensibly excludes it. It's merely like being disinvited from a wedding without an open bar. However, Pakistan may want to shed its "Naach na Jaane, Aangan Tedha" (or, a "poor worker blames his tools") mentality for its own good. And the "hapless husband", the Pakistani intellectual, must stop being the willing instrument of deception.

 PS: The gender reversal in this equation wouldn't have worked because most hapless wives are indeed hapless. Hapless husbands, however, are merely performing that role despite patriarchy giving them all the agency.  

(Nishtha Gautam is a Delhi-based author and academic)

Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author