South Asia is appraised as one of the dominant geopolitical regions in the world, with countries like India playing a vital role in the current global scenario. India’s engagement with its immediate South Asian neighbours has always influenced its geopolitical dynamics in the wider international community. However, in the late 1990s, India underwent a policy rapprochement with its neighbours despite the strenuous environment in South Asia during that period.
Illustration by The Geostrata
This witnessed the first phase of rapprochement through the emergence of a significant policy shift under veteran statesman Inder Kumar Gujral formulated five foundational principles that defined India’s rapprochement towards its neighbourhood known as the Gujral doctrine that includes no South Asian country that should allow its territory to be used against the interest of another country in the region; No country should be allowed interfere in the internal matters of another country, all countries must respect each other’s territorial integrity, they should all disputes through peaceful bilateral negotiations and must retain their engagement in a strict diplomatic manner and recognises the importance for friendly cordial relations with its neighbours.
These efforts were later carried forward by successive governments while facing major Roadblocks with the Kargil war and the nuclear test conducted by both India and Pakistan. In the second phase of rapprochement, India adopted the Neighbourhood First policy in 2008, which aimed at bolstering ties with the immediate neighbourhood for the region's collective growth and shared prosperity.
It comprises cohesive engagement in the multilateral forums, building infrastructure to enhance growth and providing a line of credit to Fastrack development in the region.
Nearly 29 years after the policy rapprochement, the inherent dynamics that characterised South Asian geopolitics underwent a significant transformation- at the same time, tackling the underlying problems that have evolved but are still deeply rooted in the region's discourse, including terrorism, separatism and expansionism before the rapprochement
In the present scenario, the geopolitical landscape is shifting worldwide, with South Asia being one of the consequential and vital regions for understanding the geopolitical outlook. However, the rapprochement is facing a strong undercurrent eroding the efforts to establish peace and tranquillity in the region. India, being the regional power, has high stakes in the geopolitical discourses of South Asia.
Thus, it is imperative to understand India’s engagement in its immediate neighbourhood and how it navigates the partnership to understand broader geopolitical implications and the realities in the present world. This article explores the application of India's overall engagement towards its South Asian neighbours and how it reproaches friendships through mediums vital in the current geopolitical realities.
South Asia is one of the least infrastructurally equipped regions in the world, and it needs more basic infrastructure, including roads, electricity, water, telecommunications and health facilities.
This added to structural problems faced by the institutions and the limited financial resources, which have laid hindrances to infrastructural progress till recent times. In the 1990s, the liberalisation of the Indian economy poured financial resources into developing infrastructure through investments, lines of credit, etc. The structural transformation in South Asia provided much-needed economic resources to set up infrastructure. Thus, starting in 2000, India became one of the largest investors in Infrastructure across South Asia.
Presently, India, the fifth largest economy, needs infrastructure as the core concept in exploring economic potential in South Asia that can be later applied to initiating growth in the region. Infrastructure can also contribute to faster regional connectivity through roads, rails and other means necessary to facilitate the movement of goods and logistics. This opens more avenues for exporting goods and makes it easier to access the wider world.
While efficiently reducing time and the cost of transportation incurred by the government. This is followed by the formation of intergovernmental agencies uniform across the region in monitoring of infrastructure policy is necessary as the delays experienced in delivering the project on time and to investigate the reallocation of the credits to other projects to prevent loss to the creditor.
The creation of region-wide infrastructural policy draft projects concerning financial resources. It provides a solid working structure that outlines the project from the beginning till the end.
Through infrastructural outreach, India has set up high-end facilities in science and technology institutions in the neighbourhood to improve overall technical expertise and reduce dependency on the perishable resources in the economy. The package includes advanced machinery, Artificial Intelligence and semiconductor chips. This also added that the resources vital in manufacturing can be evenly distributed, creating a supply chain that doesn’t comprise due to problems faced in one of these countries.
South Asia has been one of the most consequential regions in the world. But has been neglected due to years of poverty, instability and terrorism in the region. The region, from 1947 till recent times, has faced interstate war, civil war, separatist movements, armed insurgency, dictatorship and destruction of the complete social fabric. These have set institutionalised animosity for one another in the region. This creates hurdles in matters about the collective prosperity in the region.
This also leads to politics scathed in hatred and angst against one country by another, not only about government but also clashes that occur between people-to-people interactions. Thus, we see organisations such as SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) are still passive and prove to be inefficient in matters that are entrenched in South Asian politics of the past. India is one of the vital countries in South Asia and has huge stakes in it.
Therefore, it is essential to resolve geopolitical issues with dialogue and diplomacy and achieve matters related to collective prosperity and shared growth in South Asia for itself and its neighbours.
The multilateral organisation helps express issues on a broader level and helps collective growth through cooperation among nations of the international community. South Asian countries have shared hurdles in the same problems when voiced together, drawing out international support and backing the cause of South Asia. It puts the region in a clear stance on matters of dispute in international forums.
This provides them with a clear geopolitical outlook that helps them mediate disputes in a peaceful diplomatic way. Hence, India needs to focus on improving its commitments to the various multilateral organisations for a united force behind the stance and make the regional partners join as a collective goal to pursue in the international arena. The multilateral forums in South Asia need to continue pursuing their current commitment and focus on partners must show much of their effort in harnessing the region's potential.
While not hindering the transformation process by basing our models on the perspective of the previous regional organisations that became multinational blocks. The countries can aspire to transform into a region with a shared goal and collective prosperity through the present trade and multilateral organisation.
In its current global stance, India has earned the international community’s respect but still must deal with issues prevalent in the neighbourhood since its independence, as one policymaker describes how we can choose an ally but not a neighbour.
India needs to evaluate its rapprochement in the past on how effective it was in
overcoming problems that it faced due to South Asian Geopolitics, or there needs to be a new rapprochement to its neighbourhood to revamp its efforts and commitments while navigating through its partnership in South Asia.
BY PRAJWAL V SHYLAN
DIPLOMACY & INNOVATION CENTRE
THE GEOSTRATA
Excellent Article
Very good article👍
Well-articulated!
Well written
Great analysis.