“We, the members of South Asian Diaspora located in North America and Europe, desire peace, harmony and good neighborliness among the countries of South Asia, and social justice and economic wellbeing for the people there. We also have a responsibility to make a contribution in these directions. Over the years many of us have been engaged in individual or organized capacity to work for secularism, democracy, human rights and social justice. Time has come for us to come together and work in concert with each other”.

Thus came into being the International South Asia Forum, INSAF, at a conference held in Montreal, Canada on September 4 and 5, 1999.