Thailand was hosting the eighth Asian Games in 1978 when the idea of South Asian Games floated. It was not official, though.

It was during the International Olympic Committee congress of 1981 when the Indian sub continental nations officially discussed about the possible regional games between the seven south Asian countries.

Delegates from Nepal, India, Sri Lanka and Pakistan were the first to join the official discussion about an event that would primarily maintain the political relations at first and then bind everyone for the one single reason – sports.

The delegates from the region agreed to hold the games in multi-sporting discipline but not without having a federation that would work as a controlling mechanism involving all the SAARC nations.

As the Games would continue to bolster the relations between the participating nations through sports, it would compete with the regional competitions within the South East Asia (SEA) and Western Asia.

The third, and the most important, reason was a weak challenge south Asian nations pose in the Olympics or Asian Games. The south Asian nations only made the numbers during the Olympics, while India was comparatively doing better in the Asian Games.

Sharad Chandra Shah, the former boss of Nepal’s supreme body of sports National Sports Council, played a crucial role to lead this cause. South Asian Games became his brainchild.