SAARC was established in 1985 at the initiative of Bangladesh to create a regional forum aimed at promoting welfare, social progress, and economic growth in South Asian nations. India holds a pivotal role as one of the founding members of the organization. The other member states include Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Afghanistan, Bhutan, Maldives, and Sri Lanka. Of these, India is the only country with contiguous land boundaries with all the other member countries except Afghanistan. SAARC was envisioned with the foundational values of improving quality of life and accelerating economic growth in the region. After a series of meetings at the official and political levels, the first South Asian Foreign Ministers’ Conference was held in New Delhi in 1983, where the Integrated Programme of Action (IPA) (Lama 1998) was adopted. IPA laid the groundwork for cooperation between member states in areas like agriculture, rural development, and health. Broadly, the objectives aimed to foster active collaboration, mutual trust and assistance, and strengthen cooperation. Despite the South Asian nations’ mixed records on collaboration, informal meetings alongside SAARC meetings have nudged the member states to resolve their differences. A notable example (Iqbal 2005) is India and Pakistan diffusing tensions arising from India’s military exercise “Operation Brasstacks” along the Indo-Pak border. Heads of both member states met and engaged in informal talks during the 2nd SAARC Summit held in Bengaluru in 1986.