BIMSTEC: the Bay of Bengal pivot

The Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation, mercifully shortened to BIMSTEC, is where India’s regional strategy went after South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) stopped working. Founded in 1997 through the Bangkok Declaration, it links five South Asian states with two Southeast Asian ones, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Thailand, around the Bay of Bengal. It is smaller than SAARC, excludes Pakistan, and has quietly become Delhi’s preferred vehicle for neighbourhood cooperation.

For UPSC, BIMSTEC is the "SAARC alternative" question made concrete: same region, different design, and a test of whether excluding the spoiler changes the outcome. This article covers the origins, the connectivity core, the security and functional layers, the reported 2025 summit outcomes, and the limits that persist even without Pakistan in the room.

The Bangkok Declaration and the SAARC shadow

BIMSTEC began in 1997 as BIST-EC, an economic grouping of Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka and Thailand; Myanmar joined later that year, and Nepal and Bhutan completed the seven in 2004. For its first decade and a half it was a forum in search of momentum, meeting rarely and delivering little. What revived it was failure elsewhere: as SAARC summits stalled after 2014, India began investing political capital in the Bay of Bengal instead. A permanent secretariat in Dhaka from 2014 gave the grouping an institutional address, and each member now leads one of seven cooperation pillars.

The design contrast with SAARC is deliberate. Seven members instead of eight, no Pakistan, a geographic logic built around the Bay rather than the subcontinent, and a bridge to Southeast Asia that makes it an Act East instrument as well as a neighbourhood one. The grouping is reported to represent about 22 per cent of the world’s population with a combined GDP of around US$4.5 trillion, figures that give it economic weight even if internal trade remains modest.

Connectivity: the core promise

Everything in BIMSTEC begins with connectivity, because the Bay of Bengal is where India’s Northeast meets Southeast Asia. The flagship projects are the India-Myanmar-Thailand Trilateral Highway and the Kaladan Multi-Modal Transit Transport Project linking Kolkata to Myanmar’s Sittwe port and onward to Mizoram. The Master Plan for Transport Connectivity, adopted in 2022, is the blueprint; a Maritime Cooperation Agreement was reported in 2024; and the 6th BIMSTEC summit, reported in 2025, is said to have progressed these files along with a Sustainable Maritime Transport Centre in India.

The strategic subtext is China. Beijing’s growing presence in the Bay, from port projects to naval forays, gives India a defensive motive for stitching the littoral together, and maritime security cooperation with Sri Lanka, Thailand and Myanmar is part of the answer. BIMSTEC thus serves the SAGAR and MAHASAGAR maritime visions in institutional form.

The security layer

BIMSTEC’s security cooperation targets transnational threats rather than conventional defence: terrorism, piracy, organised crime and drug trafficking across the Bay. Mechanisms include national security chief meetings, intelligence sharing, and a reported first Home Ministers’ mechanism meeting in India. For mains answers, the contrast with SAARC is the point: a forum without the India-Pakistan veto can actually convene its security principals and produce working outcomes.

Functional cooperation: the newer agenda

The recent summits have layered functional cooperation over the connectivity core. Energy cooperation runs through a BIMSTEC Energy Centre in Bengaluru and grid-interconnection efforts. Digital cooperation includes studies on digital public infrastructure and on linking UPI with regional payment systems. Disaster management gets a Centre of Excellence in India and joint exercises. Human capital gets the BODHI initiative for youth skilling, reported at 300 trainees a year, plus scholarships, diplomat training and even a planned BIMSTEC Games in 2027. None of this is headline-grabbing; that is the point. BIMSTEC is designed as a delivery forum, not a summit spectacle.

What still limits BIMSTEC

Excluding Pakistan removed one veto but not the other problems. Myanmar’s post-2021 instability directly hits the Trilateral Highway and Kaladan corridors that run through its territory, and engaging the country without legitimising its regime is a permanent dilemma. Project delivery remains slow, with declarations outpacing construction across the region. Thailand’s own political cycles and the sheer coordination cost of seven bureaucracies add friction. The honest assessment: BIMSTEC works better than SAARC, which is a low bar, and its success will be measured in kilometres of road and port throughput, not communiques.

What examiners keep asking

• The classic comparison question: BIMSTEC versus SAARC on membership, the Pakistan factor, focus (connectivity versus broad cooperation), and delivery record.
• Anchor BIMSTEC to Act East and Neighbourhood First: it is the institutional overlap of the two doctrines.
• The 1997-2004-2014 timeline (founding, full membership, secretariat) is the standard evolution answer.

The Bangkok summit (April 2025): a turning point

The 6th BIMSTEC Summit, held in Bangkok on 4 April 2025, was the most consequential in the grouping's history. Prime Minister Narendra Modi attended, and the summit adopted the Bangkok Vision 2030, the first-ever vision document of BIMSTEC. Framed around the idea of a PRO BIMSTEC (a Prosperous, Resilient and Open BIMSTEC), it set six pillars for the next phase: an effective and efficient organisation, a prosperous region, a resilient region, an open region, a connected region, and enabling human security.

Three other outcomes mattered. The Agreement on Maritime Transport Cooperation was adopted, the first maritime connectivity pact of the bloc, giving legal shape to the connectivity agenda the 2022 Master Plan had outlined. BIMSTEC signed MoUs with the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA) and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), linking the Bay to the wider Indian Ocean and to anti-drug and organised-crime cooperation. And the summit adopted Rules of Procedure for BIMSTEC mechanisms, a long-pending governance reform, while accepting the report of the Eminent Persons Group on the grouping's future direction. Leaders also issued a statement on the March 2025 Myanmar earthquake, pledging coordinated disaster response.

India used the summit to put its own stamp on the Bay. Modi announced Centres of Excellence in disaster management, sustainable maritime transport, traditional medicine and research and training in agriculture. He proposed BODHI, short for BIMSTEC for Organized Development of Human Resource Infrastructure, to train 300 BIMSTEC youth every year, alongside 150 annual scholarships for students from member countries. India also offered a pilot study on Digital Public Infrastructure, pushed for a BIMSTEC Chamber of Commerce, and proposed the BIMSTEC Games in 2027 plus a BIMSTEC Traditional Music Festival, signalling that the grouping's soft-power layer would now be built alongside its hard connectivity.

Bangkok Vision 2030 is the answer to the question of whether BIMSTEC has a direction beyond summits. For the first time, the seven members agreed in writing on where the grouping should be by 2030, across trade, connectivity, security and human development. For India's UPSC-oriented reader, the contrast with SAARC is the point: one grouping produces vision documents and maritime agreements, the other has not held a summit since 2014.

Key Terms

• Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation: The Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation is a seven-member regional grouping (Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand) founded by the 1997 Bangkok Declaration and headquartered in Dhaka. It bridges South and Southeast Asia across sectors like connectivity, energy, and security. For UPSC, it is India's preferred Bay of Bengal platform, often contrasted with a stalled SAARC. the BIMSTEC Charter adopted at the 5th Summit in Colombo (March 2022), which gave the grouping a formal institutional framework
• Agreement on Maritime Transport Cooperation: BIMSTEC's first maritime connectivity pact, adopted at the 2025 Bangkok summit.
• Digital Public Infrastructure: Digital Public Infrastructure is the shared, open and interoperable digital backbone on which governments and private innovators build services, such as digital identity, payments and data-exchange systems. It is typically built as public goods with open standards and APIs rather than as closed proprietary platforms. For UPSC, it is central to governance, digital economy and India Stack based questions. India's India Stack (Aadhaar for identity, UPI for payments, DigiLocker, ONDC) is the canonical example, showcased during India's G20 presidency.
• Eminent Persons Group: A BIMSTEC panel whose report on the grouping's future direction was accepted at the 2025 Bangkok summit.
• Bangkok Vision 2030: BIMSTEC's first vision document, adopted at the 6th Summit in Bangkok (April 2025), framing a PRO BIMSTEC (Prosperous, Resilient and Open) across six pillars.
• Act East Policy: The Act East Policy is India's 2014 upgrade of the Look East Policy into proactive engagement with Southeast and East Asia, announced by the Modi government at the 2014 East Asia Summit. It emphasises economic integration, connectivity through the Northeast, and strategic partnerships with ASEAN, Japan, and Australia. For UPSC, it anchors GS-2 answers on India's Indo-Pacific strategy and countering China's regional influence. the India-Myanmar-Thailand Trilateral Highway, a flagship connectivity project under the policy
• Neighbourhood First: Neighbourhood First is India's foreign-policy doctrine prioritising stable, cooperative ties with its immediate neighbours in South Asia. Articulated after 2014, it emphasises connectivity projects, development assistance, disaster relief and people-to-people links, complemented at sea by the SAGAR vision. For UPSC, it is the GS-2 framework for questions on India-Nepal, India-Bangladesh or India-Sri Lanka ties, where geography makes engagement unavoidable. Operation Maitri, India's earthquake relief mission to Nepal in April 2015.
• Indo-Pacific: Indo-Pacific is the geopolitical construct spanning the Indian and Pacific Oceans, from East Africa to the western Pacific. It frames the region as one interconnected strategic space centred on open sea lanes, freedom of navigation and a rules-based maritime order, with ASEAN centrality as its diplomatic anchor. For UPSC, it is the core vocabulary of GS-2 foreign policy, underpinning India's Act East policy, Quad engagement and maritime security doctrine. India's Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative, launched at the 2019 East Asia Summit to promote maritime cooperation.
• BIMSTEC: BIMSTEC is the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation, a regional grouping founded in 1997 with seven members: India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Nepal, and Bhutan. Its secretariat is in Dhaka. For UPSC, BIMSTEC matters because India promotes it as a practical alternative to a stalled SAARC, anchoring its Act East policy and Bay of Bengal connectivity. The BIMSTEC Charter, adopted at the 2022 Colombo summit, gave the grouping a formal institutional foundation for the first time.
• Kaladan: The Kaladan Multi-Modal Transit Transport Project is an India-funded connectivity corridor linking Kolkata to Myanmar's Sittwe port by sea, then by river to Paletwa and by road to Mizoram. It gives landlocked Northeast India an alternative route bypassing the Siliguri Corridor and operationalises the Act East policy. For UPSC, Kaladan is a staple example of connectivity diplomacy and neighbourhood infrastructure. The Sittwe port terminal built under the project began handling cargo in 2023.
• BODHI: BIMSTEC for Organized Development of Human Resource Infrastructure, India's initiative announced at the 2025 summit to train 300 BIMSTEC youth annually.
• SAARC: SAARC is the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, founded in Dhaka in 1985 with eight members: India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, Maldives and Afghanistan. It promotes regional cooperation through instruments like SAFTA, the South Asian free-trade area. Consensus-based decision-making has stalled it, with no summit since 2014. For UPSC, SAARC illustrates GS-2 themes of regionalism frustrated by India-Pakistan tensions. SAFTA, operational since 2006, cutting tariffs among member states.

Practice questions