Welcome to Foreign Policy’s South Asia Brief.
The highlights this week: India commissions a new naval base off its southwestern coast, Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani showcases his wealth with an ostentatious party for his son, and Shehbaz Sharif returns to the prime minister’s office in Pakistan.
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On Wednesday, the Indian Navy commissioned a new base on Minicoy Island, which is part of the Lakshadweep archipelago, located off India’s southwestern coast and just 80 miles from the Maldives. The move suggests a desire to send a strong message to China, which has deepened ties with the Maldives since Mohamed Muizzu became president of the country in November 2023. The base, known as INS Jatayu, is also part of a bigger story about India’s increasing capacity to project naval power far beyond its shores.
Muizzu has called for closer relations with China while pushing back against India, ordering all Indian military personnel out of the Maldives by May 10. On Tuesday, Male signed a military aid deal with Beijing. Muizzu likely wants to establish more balance in the Maldives’ relations with both countries rather than formally ally with China. But India has reason to be anxious about deepening Chinese influence in a neighboring island state near crucial sea lanes in the heart of the Indian Ocean.
INS Jatayu will be the second Indian naval base on the archipelago, and it will bolster existing military resources in Lakshadweep, which include air strips and radar stations. India is also building resorts and infrastructure on Minicoy Island to boost tourism, signaling to the Maldives—which has an economy that relies heavily on tourism revenue—that it can push back on Male’s growing ties with Beijing through nonmilitary means as well.
But the new base is about much more than regional geopolitics. It is part of an ongoing effort to strengthen India’s capacity to secure its interests in areas spanning the Middle East and Indo-Pacific. The Indian Navy has long been on the forefront of its military modernization: As far back as 2009, naval leaders pledged to introduce 100 new warships within a decade. As New Delhi’s increasing global clout expands the geographic scope of its interests, it is keen to protect its assets abroad, as well as those of its partners.
India already boasts this capacity in the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea. It is dispatching naval destroyers to protect its sea trade and to help distressed ships targeted by missile attacks by Yemen’s Houthi rebels and by acts of piracy in the Red Sea. But Indian naval experts say more must be done to strengthen power projection even further afield. Military development in Lakshadweep has so far lagged behind the resources invested in India’s island territories to the east.
The new base on Minicoy Island, coupled with the development of other military resources in the archipelago, gives India a data point to counter critics—including its own officials—who say it punches below its weight on the global stage. These assets enable it to serve as a net security provider in the Arabian Sea. The commission also comes as India has started sending arms to countries in Southeast Asia, including an expected Brahmos missile package to the Philippines.
India is working outside the alliance system to pursue security interests that also align with those of the United States and its partners, validating New Delhi’s long-standing policy of strategic autonomy. The benefits of INS Jatayu can be both operational and reputational: The base can help India address its geopolitical and security objectives, as well as enable it to project itself as a rising power that deploys its clout on its own terms.
Wedding party puts Ambani wealth on display. Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani, who leads the Indian company Reliance, threw a massive party last week in advance of his son Anant’s upcoming wedding. It reportedly featured 500 dishes, a multimillion-dollar budget, and more than 1,000 guests—including Bollywood celebrities, tech titans, and sports stars. Rihanna performed at the event, netting herself $6 million.
The shindig was an opulent reminder of Ambani’s wealth and influence. The list of prominent guests showcased the scale of his investments and partnerships. It included Disney CEO Bob Iger, who last week announced a new joint venture with Reliance; Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg; Google CEO Sundar Pichai; and Microsoft chief Bill Gates, who partners with Ambani on philanthropic causes.
Then there was the airport. Guests from around the world flew to Jamnagar, a city in the Indian state of Gujarat, but the airport there is a domestic-only operation. For the event, it temporarily became an international facility with makeshift immigration and customs capacity—an indication of the sway that Ambani enjoys in India.
With its ostentatious displays of wealth, the party upset many Indians. But that shouldn’t hurt Ambani, who last year started appointing his children to the boards of his businesses to prepare for an eventual succession. Ambani doesn’t face as many reputational challenges as fellow Indian billionaire Gautam Adani, who has fought fraud allegations for more than a year.
Shehbaz Sharif returns in Pakistan. On Monday, Shehbaz Sharif took office as Pakistan’s prime minister. Sharif also served as prime minister during the previous coalition government, which served from April 2022 to August 2023 after former Prime Minister Imran Khan was ousted in a parliamentary no-confidence vote. A caretaker government then stepped in to prepare the country for the elections held last month.
On Thursday, the inaugural session of parliament was disrupted by opposition legislators shouting slogans in support of Khan and insulting members of the ruling party, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), in an indication of the high levels of polarization plaguing Pakistani politics. It won’t get any easier for Sharif, who will lead a fractious coalition and try to fend off pressure from the political opposition, which rejects last month’s election, describing it as rigged, and believes it should be leading the government itself.
Initially, Sharif’s top priority will be economic stabilization, his choice of finance minister will be an early indication of his plans. Shamshad Akhtar, who served in the role in the caretaker government, is a strong candidate because of her good relations with the International Monetary Fund. Ishaq Dar, another former finance minister, is a favorite because of his close ties with Sharif and his brother Nawaz, the head of the PML-N. Dar was heavily criticized during his most recent stint in the role, which coincided with a worsening economic crisis.
Afghan musicians granted entry to U.K. On Monday, the United Kingdom’s government reversed an earlier decision to deny visas to members of an Afghan youth orchestra scheduled to play in the country this week. The young musicians fled Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover in 2021, with the help of celebrity cellist Yo-Yo Ma. They traveled to Qatar before settling in Portugal, where they are attending music school. They have visited countries around Europe to perform with no visa issues.
According to the orchestra director, the U.K. Home Office initially said there was insufficient information about the musicians. The visa refusal became a public relations disaster for the U.K. government. Since taking over, the Taliban have imposed restrictions on a wide array of activities, including music and all aspects of public life for women. The U.K. government may have changed its position because of a bureaucratic issue that was resolved—but the public outcry likely pressured London to relent as well.
Nepali Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal has made a major change to his coalition, dropping the Nepali Congress party and replacing it with the Communist Party of Nepal (CPN), a rival of his Maoist Center party. The move brings together the country’s two largest leftist parties, which have frequently sparred despite their ideological convergences, in large part because of the rivalry Dahal and CPN leader K.P. Oli. A few smaller parties will also join the new coalition.
The leaders of Nepali Congress and Maoist Center have blamed each other for the former’s ouster. The development adds to what has been a highly turbulent political environment in Nepal over in past 15 years. The country has had 13 governments since 2008, when its monarchy ended and it became a republic. The new coalition marks Nepal’s third alliance government since 2022, when it last held parliamentary elections.
In the Express Tribune, entrepreneur Rakhshinda Perveen laments the long-standing struggle to improve the plight of women in Pakistan. “[C]ivil society does assume an ample burden of lobbying for women’s rights but remains effectively disempowered due to the power of bigoted forces … and relatively dysfunctional and ineffective due to their own elite capture,” she writes.
Journalist Sushmita S. Preetha, writing in the Daily Star, decries the diverse and deadly dangers of living in Dhaka, from fires and road accidents to air pollution and dengue fever: “I can’t help but wonder how normal it is for Dhakaites (or residents of any major city in the country) to go through life taking such risks for granted,” she writes. “Why have we accepted this deadly state of affairs as inevitable?”
An editorial in the Hindu expresses concern about the destabilization of the northeastern Indian state of Manipur. “It is now incumbent upon the Union [central] government and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to take into account the severity of the ethnic polarisation and the dangers posed to law and order,” it argues.
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