India & Neighbourhood

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  • India by far is the largest country in terms of area, population, and economic and military capabilities, larger than all its neighbours put together.
  • Each neighbour shares some significant ethnic, linguistic or cultural features with India but not so much with the others in the subcontinent.
  • It is this asymmetry which shapes the neighbourhood’s perception of India and vice versa.
  • But India also must recognize that the asymmetry is still not of the scale that can compel its neighbours to align their interests with its own. This is the challenge of proximity.
  • India also launched New Neighborhood Policy, 2005 to address the need of regional integration in South Asia in the age of globalization.
  • It focused on development of border areas, improved connectivity in the region and encouraging cultural and people to people contacts.
  • In 2014 India enunciated ‘Neighbourhood first’ policy by inviting leaders of all South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) countries to swearing-in ceremony, of new government.
Lack of Regional heft
1.Unfavorable Structural Challenges:
  • India has historical legacies of border conflict, ethnic and social tensions and India’s are the dominant structural handicaps working against success of India’s policy in South Asia.
  • For example, the issues related to Madhesis in Nepal, Tamils in Sri Lanka, border and river water disputes with Bangladesh are accorded to various structural handicaps of India.
2.Lack of Consensus on Core issues of Security and Development:
  • South Asia is one of the only regions without any regional security architecture nor there is an effort to evolve any such architecture due to lack of consensus and neighbours perceive India as a Big Brother.
3.Impact of China:
  • China providing much needed investment in economy, especially infrastructure hence neighbours look out for China.
  • Also they try to check India through China card.
  • In Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, the Maldives and Pakistan, China holds strategic real estate and has stake in their domestic policies and also they align with china to check India and vice versa.
4.India’s Hard Power Tactics has failed and led to Political loggerheads
Way Forward
  • Use soft power
  • Re orient the binary approach with China: Instead of opposing every project by China in the region, India must try to collaborate in China’s regional project or suggest a parallel offer with the help of QUAD (USA – India- Japan – Australia)
  • Replicate ASEAN Model in South Asian region and India must take a back seat in decision making in order to wipe off the Big Brother Image.

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