Introduction

The making or unmaking of a regional organization is a function of politics and the dynamics of that particular region's international relations. Mohammed Ayoob, at the outset of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), argued that ‘the primacy of the political’ would determine the outcome of regionalism in South Asia and the following factors would play a crucial role in this context: (1) a common threat perception; (2) a common foreign policy orientation; (3) similar political ideologies; and (4) a consensus about the role of the pivotal regional power. He held a pessimistic outlook about the future of regional cooperation in South Asia based on his analysis of the four political variables and a comparative study of regionalism contextualizing the European Union (EU), the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). He concluded:

After three and a half decades, it appears that Ayoob could not have been more accurate. As posited in the Introduction and the analysis in the following chapters will make it clear that while SAARC started with much hope and the organization has achieved some tangible and intangible successes, it has largely failed to deliver the expected substantive material benefit.

Therefore, it is arguable that the state of political relations of the regional states and their security perceptions, foreign policy behaviour, political ideologies and the ‘India factor’ have shaped the evolution of SAARC in the past three and a half decades. Given such a context, the key aim of this chapter is to provide an overview of South Asia's international relations since 1947 and illustrates its key patterns and the determining factors. Such an analysis will pave the way for explaining the rise of the regionalist project in South Asia, its evolution, outcomes and effects.