Governments in India have come and gone, however what remains perpetual is the dynamic foreign policy construct of India. The concept of the “extended neighbourhood” has been woven into India’s foreign policy, which is now becoming multidimensional and omnidirectional – a 360-degree view necessitated by a rapidly changing world – particularly after 1997 (Atal Bihari Bajpai) or 2004 (Manmohan Singh). The historic change of power in the world provides a compelling backdrop for India’s gradually growing emphasis on “extended neighbourhood” in its foreign policy practice and projection. Historically speaking, the extended neighbourhood has influenced India’s foreign policy since its independence. Philosophically, the idea of “Vasundhara Kutumbakam,” or “the world is one big family,” is intricately entwined with the word “extended neighbourhood.”
The Look East policy and the beginning of India’s economic reforms in the early 1990s paved the way for a multifaceted acceleration of economic and strategic interaction with East and South-East Asia, which are home to some of the region’s most dynamic economies and innovation hubs. India edged closer to the energy-rich regions of West Asia and Central Asia during the next 10-15 years as its need for hydrocarbons developed rapidly. Various geo-economic and geo-strategic imperatives fuel India’s expanding involvement with its wider neighbourhood. The geo-economic imperative requires greater economic integration through trade, investment, technology transfer, and innovation. Additionally, it entails creating a network of connected free trade agreements throughout the area. Engaging and collaborating more frequently to tackle a wide range of intertwining concerns, such as terrorism, maritime piracy, transnational crime, disaster mitigation, and countering transnational pandemics.
INDIA’S INTERESTS IN THE EXTENDED NEIGHBOURHOOD
India’s interests extend beyond its borders, its fixation on the South Asia-centric notion of neighbourhood can no longer be deployed as a useful analytical framework to evaluate India’s regional diplomacy. India’s extended neighbourhood, therefore comprises of the South Asia, Indo-Pacific, South-East Asia, West Asia and Central Asia. Each of these neighbourhood comes with its own opportunities and challenges as far as India is concerned.
BIMSTEC/ACT EAST/ INDO-PACIFIC: India’s preference for BIMSTEC over South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) stems from the diplomatic strategy to ‘isolate Pakistan’ which translates to keep Pakistan out of its strategic interests in the region given the turbulent past of the two countries. However, this isn’t necessarily the only reason for India to focus on BIMSTEC more. Both internal and external strategic considerations prompt India’s involvement in the sub-regional conference for the Bay of Bengal[1].
Internally, countries in the Bay of Bengal subregion are involved in the development and security concerns of India’s eastern shore, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and the Northeast region. Externally, three key policy initiatives—the “Neighbourhood First” policy, the “Act East” policy, and the “Indo-Pacific” construct—direct Delhi’s present regional strategy, which involves the BIMSTEC subregion.
The frontier regions of India, such as the Northeast and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, are far from the country’s main economic centres. With other BIMSTEC members, including Bangladesh, Bhutan, Myanmar, and Nepal, India shares sea and land borders (maritime boundaries with Bangladesh, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Thailand). The Bay of Bengal subregion is being envisioned as a result of the BIMSTEC summit, which makes the Neighbourhood First policy more vital than ever. This suggests that the sub-regional grouping plays a crucial role in the efficacy of this approach. India’s “Act East” foreign policy strategy is launched in the BIMSTEC subregion. India’s journey to the east will proceed smoothly if it maintains good relations with the BIMSTEC countries[2].
As far as the Indo-Pacific is concerned, it is a relatively a new concept. Despite being an American initiative, India adopted the Indo-Pacific framework to expand its hub-and-spoke network beyond its current alliance structure and integrate India into the new security system led by the US. The development of the strategic alliance between Japan and India, which served as the foundation for the Indo-Pacific region, has had the fervent support of the US. India’s prominence on security concerns in the area has improved as a result of India’s growing strategic engagement with the Pacific littoral countries. The idea that major nations should assume more responsibility for maintaining peace and stability in the region has culminated with the creation of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QUAD) framework.[3]
India’s interest in the Indo-Pacific framework is largely due to the prominent position that other nations have given it in the Indian Ocean region (IOR). How other major countries see India will play a role in determining its position within the larger international power system. India is also confident that cooperation with the US, particularly in the Indo-Pacific area, will help it acquire the state-of-the-art defence technologies needed to counter threats from its long-time adversaries like Pakistan and China. India benefits naturally from its proximity to the Bay of Bengal subregion, but it also means that major powers are becoming more interested in its backyard. Long-term strategic problems for India are posed by China’s expanding influence in the wider Indian Ocean region as well as the Bay of Bengal subregion. Beijing has proposed numerous projects as part of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), including the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor, the China-Laos-Thailand Railway Cooperation etc[4].
WEST ASIA: In 2005, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced the “Look West’ policy as an extension of India’s economic hinterland and widening strategic cooperation. Indian interests in the Gulf have continued to be primarily focused on trade, energy security, and protecting the rights of the Indian diaspora in the area. India is actively promoting its culture and educational system in the area with a focus on cooperation and exchange. Strengthening the relationship in the fields of education and culture has been intended to maintain India’s soft power dominance by promoting Indian culture and assisting human resource development in the region. By forging strategic alliances and fostering the region’s crucial energy and trade relations, India has made clear that it wants to incorporate the Gulf region in all practicable new industries[5].
When Modi was elected in 2014, the broad outlines of India’s Middle East strategy were well established. Instead of choosing a different direction, the new administration continued along the same road but reinforced the “Look West” policy by concentrating on three key areas: the Arab Gulf states, Israel, and Iran.
Fast forward 2022, the I2U2 group of countries, ‘I2’ standing for India and Israel and ‘U2’ representing the United States (US) and United Arab Emirates (UAE), held their first summit level virtual meet on 14 July, during US President Joe Biden’s visit to Israel. The summit-level talks come as a welcome push since the meeting of I2U2 foreign ministers in October 2021 was followed by a lull despite many analysts christening this new setup as the ‘Middle East Quad’ (or ‘West Asia Quad’).[6]
Each of the four member countries has emphasised one of the six focal points of collaboration that will serve as the beginning of the next stage of this engagement. The first batch of pilot projects will focus on cooperation in the fields of water, food security, health, transportation, and space cooperation. These initiatives will operate under broader global issues like climate change, international economic stability, volatile energy markets, and food markets that have disproportionately impacted the Global South in comparison to the more developed regions of the world. The foundation of these projects is geoeconomics. As far as India is concerned, joining the I2U2 allows India to take use of its favourable relations with Israel, the Gulf, and the US to develop economic exchanges that are mutually beneficial and have virtually no potential drawbacks.
CENTRAL ASIA: The Silk Road provides the basis for the history of India’s relations with Central Asia. However, as time progressed, India’s ties to Central Asia continued to weaken, which is also apparent from the fact that India didn’t have any sizable post-independence policy aimed at Central Asia. With India’s economy growing, so did the demand for energy, necessitating a diversification of suppliers outside of the Gulf. In order to lessen its reliance on pipelines through Russia, Central Asia also thought about how it could supply energy to Asia’s fast rising countries, such as India and China. India’s “Connect Central Asia Policy” is the result of its growing fascination with the region. E. Ahamed, who was the minister of External Affairs for the State at the time, drew attention to the increasing political and economic integration of Central Asia with the rest of the world in 2012 and noted the region’s proximity to India. India’s “Connect Central Asia Policy” was enhanced when Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited all five in 2015, making him the first Indian head of state to do so[7]. This renewed interest is due to the region’s altering geopolitical landscape, particularly the growth of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), as well as the external security concerns the region faces. India has strengthened the institutional underpinning for its bilateral defence cooperation in the region. Notably, agreements and memorandums of understanding (MOUs) relating to defence and military technology cooperation were signed between India and Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkmenistan during Prime Minister Modi’s trips to those nations in 2015. In order to safeguard its energy interests, India has also boosted its civil nuclear cooperation with the region.
KEY CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES VIS A VIS INDIA’S ACT EAST POLICY
India has been engaged in the South-east Asian region on all fronts since 1992, when Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao announced a “Look East Policy” to engage with Southeast Asia. These fronts include diplomatic, security, economic, and people-to-people engagement. Building on Narasimha Rao’s foundation, Prime Ministers Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh developed a solid partnership with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Following this strategy, Prime Minister Narendra Modi transitioned his Look East strategy into an Act East strategy.
Challenges:
The northeastern region has seen slow development on the AEP overland connection strategy, even though the majority of the 4Cs (commerce, connectivity, capacity-building, and culture) under AEP are classed as “anticipated” or “ongoing” with a flexible/infinite timeframe approach. Despite being in charge of a vital strategic overland connecting point to Southeast Asian countries, Modi continues to have a serious strategic flaw in his determination to play a significant role in world events at the expense of ignoring fruitful engagement in the North East Region and with India’s close neighbors[8].
The Indo-Pacific Strategy of 2017 strengthened the hedging of a China-counter strategy through the AEP, but the incoherent and vague China policy of the Trump administration was marked by uncertainties in terms of priority and emphasis, leading to a “worrying” policy situation in Modi’s strategy against China
According to Sanjaya Baru, many ASEAN nations wanted India to counterbalance China’s expanding power, which was initially sparked by China’s rapid rise after the transatlantic financial crisis and the Xi Jinping regime’s increasing assertiveness. Regional business was dismayed by India’s economic slowdown and inward focus, which were indicated in its decision to renounce the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) pact. While the ASEAN and Indian governments worked to maintain positive ties, Southeast Asia’s influential corporate communities—mostly Chinese—started to become less interested in India[9].
OPPORTUNITIES
When the world was perhaps dealing with the COVID-19 outbreak, India in its extended neighborhood offered COVID-19 related assistance by supplying HCQ and Paracetamol and other medical equipment’s to almost 123 countries including US, Germany Spain etc. India’s stand on Act East policy is perhaps diminishing. Although during the peak COVID-19. Modi’s broad spectrum diplomatic approach is appreciated, it overlooked its key foreign policy interests in the region that is BIMSTEC and ASEAN which emerge as India’s key interests in the ambit of India’s Act East policy. The long-term effect of continued Indian cooperation with ASEAN would bring stronger, more effective, and more outcome-oriented AEP would automatically involve greater engagement, including easier physical connectivity and more interpersonal contact. This should act as a strong incentive for both parties to set up a robust joint pandemic response structure, preventing quicker pathogen transmissions from being caused by improved connection. In order for India to fortify its credibility in the region and given the China question, India should actively pursue a more serious and concrete Act Est Policy.
[1] Beyond the South Asia-centric notion of neighbourhood
Beyond the South Asia-centric notion of neighbourhood | ORF (orfonline.org)
[2] Beyond the South Asia-centric notion of neighbourhood
Beyond the South Asia-centric notion of neighbourhood | ORF (orfonline.org)
[3] Indo-Pacific: Evolving perception and Dynamics
‘INDO-PACIFIC’: EVOLVING PERCEPTIONS AND DYNAMICS – National Maritime Foundation (maritimeindia.org)
[4] Beyond the South Asia-centric notion of neighbourhood
Beyond the South Asia-centric notion of neighbourhood | ORF (orfonline.org)
[5] Accelerating India’s Look West Policy in the Gulf: IDSA
[6] The I2U2 summit: Geoeconomic cooperation in a geopolitically complicated West Asia
[7] Realising India’s Strategic Interests in Central Asia
[8] India’s Act East Policy: Warning to China or Flawed Strategy?
[9] What’s going wrong with India’s Act East Policy
Sanjaya Baru writes: What’s going wrong with India’s Act East policy? (indianexpress.com)
