There has been an eerie similarity to recent developments in South Asia. The Generation Z-led protest movement that ousted Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli in Nepal in September echoes the so-called monsoon revolution in Bangladesh in August last year, when Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was removed from power, as well as the 2022 aragalaya (struggle) in Sri Lanka that unseated then-President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. The frequency of these “people-power” movements speaks to several structural challenges facing the region, including political dysfunction, economic distress, and demographic pressures.
Nepal, for instance, has seen 14 governments in the 17 years since the monarchy was abolished in 2008. Allegations of corruption, nepotism, and economic mismanagement, coupled with a ban on 26 social media platforms, triggered the country’s young people to take to the streets. More than a quarter of Nepal’s population is below the age of 15, the country has a median age of 25 years, and onefifth of its youth are unemployed.
These events also raise a question about the degree to which India’s global aspirations are held hostage to regional instabilities. India is surrounded by an arc of instability: four countries in the midst of International Monetary Fund bailouts (Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka); two countries that can be regarded as failed or near-failed states (Afghanistan, Myanmar); and two with active territorial disputes, a history of difficult relations with India, and which also happen to be nuclear weapons states (China, Pakistan).
Compounding matters is the fact that South Asia is among the least economically and institutionally integrated regions of the world: Intraregional trade accounts for a mere 5 percent of total trade, and the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) has not held a summit meeting since 2014.
Much of the discussion around India in recent years has tended to focus on its global role and aspirations: a Group of 20 presidency in 2023; its space program; its emergence as the world’s fastest-growing major economy, on course to be the world’s third-largest economy by the end of this decade; and its interactions with major powers, including the United States, China, Russia, and Europe. In doing so, India’s neighborhood has often fallen off the radar.
Part of this reflects New Delhi’s own preference to be seen as an emerging global power and its desire to de-hyphenate relations with Pakistan. Despite inviting all South Asian leaders to his inauguration in 2014 and articulating a “Neighborhood First” policy in his first term, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his government have increasingly sought to transcend the country’s region.
This became apparent at this year’s Raisina Dialogue, India’s premier foreign-policy conference, co-sponsored by the Indian Ministry of External Affairs. The conference covered issues from the Ukraine and Gaza conflicts to India’s role on artificial intelligence and space governance, but there was little to no discussion about developments in India’s neighborhood—a surprising choice, considering that it came just half a year after the monsoon revolution in Bangladesh, which overthrew what was arguably one of the most India-friendly governments in the region.
The event also came a month before the deadly attack in Kashmir in April, which triggered the worst period of hostility between India and Pakistan in more than two decades. The fact that the conference participants discussed the deployment of Indian peacekeepers to enforce a potential cease-fire in Ukraine but did not debate what role India should play in stabilizing Afghanistan or Myanmar alludes to the degree of benign neglect that has crept into India’s neighborhood diplomacy.
When asked during a closed-door discussion about the state of regionalism in South Asia following recent India-Pakistan hostilities, an Indian parliamentarian with a multiparty delegation visiting the United Kingdom argued that India does not define its neighbors by geographic proximity, but rather by shared interests. While it is true that groupings of like-minded states—from the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue to the BRICS bloc—have gained momentum in recent years, these initiatives do not substitute robust engagement with neighbors.
Many in India would attribute the challenges of regionalism in South Asia to the chronically difficult India-Pakistan relationship. But though this may explain the sorry state of the SAARC, of which Pakistan is a member, it does not explain why other regional forums have been almost as ineffective. Another regional body, the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation, which excludes Pakistan, has only held six summit meetings since it was founded in 1997.
The juxtaposition of the volatility in South Asia with New Delhi’s tendency to downplay regional developments demands scrutiny that has often been lacking in discussions about Indian foreign policy.
Most countries’ external security threats emanate from their peripheries. This is why the Russian invasion of Ukraine is an existential threat to the security of Europe, or why the greatest threat to the United States during the Cold War came from its backyard during the Cuban missile crisis. Or why illegal immigration is such an emotive issue across the politics of many countries. This is why the proclivity by the Indian foreign-policy establishment to frame the country as a global power while downplaying its obligations as a regional power is not sustainable.
This benign neglect of India’s neighborhood extends to the country’s periphery. Recent unrest in Ladakh—a disputed territory bordering China and Pakistan—echoes instabilities in Manipur—an Indian state bordering Myanmar—in 2023. In both cases, the Indian government was seen as slow to respond. For instance, Modi only visited Manipur more than two years after the unrest there.
New Delhi’s South Asia policy also has broader implications for the country’s wider foreign policy. India’s eastward engagement under the framework of its “Look East” policy— rebranded by the Modi government as the “Act East” policy to signify a more proactive engagement—has been slowed by the conflict in Myanmar and the presence of a less India-friendly government in Bangladesh. This has derailed efforts to establish direct overland links with Southeast Asia.
India’s westward engagement with the Middle East (or “West Asia,” as New Delhi refers to it) has been even more complicated, given New Delhi’s chronically difficult relations with Pakistan as well as enduring instabilities in Afghanistan (although New Delhi’s growing outreach to the Taliban government in Kabul signals an effort to overcome this).
India has managed to overcome these bottlenecks through strengthening air, maritime, and people-to-people contacts with the region through such initiatives as the India-operated Chah Bahar port in Iran and the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor, which was unveiled on the sidelines of India’s G-20 presidency in 2023. And New Delhi has made an effort with recent outreach to the Taliban government in Kabul. However, India’s Middle East engagement remains tenuous, and the contrast is striking when compared with Pakistan and Saudi Arabia’s announcement of a defense pact in September.
Regionalism also matters from an economic standpoint. It is important to recognize that China regionalized before it globalized by integrating its economy and infrastructure with neighboring countries. This helped to cement its centrality to global supply chains and transnational production networks. India will need to do the same if it seeks to fulfill its ambition to emerge as a global manufacturing hub.
Western governments are also guilty of looking at India in isolation without taking account of the broader regional context. Part of this reflect bureaucratic bottlenecks, with India often handled by a different department from the rest of South Asia: For example, in the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, there is a separate India and Indian Ocean Directorate and Afghanistan and Pakistan Directorate.
In the U.S. Defense Department (or Department of War), India is part of the Indo-Pacific Command, while Afghanistan and Pakistan fall under the U.S. Central Command. The appointment of Sergio Gor, who holds the portfolio of special envoy for South and Central Asia, as the new U.S. ambassador to India is a positive development in this context—notwithstanding New Delhi’s concerns that it will prompt the United States to rehyphenate its engagement with India and Pakistan while treating India as merely a South Asian power.
Ultimately, there needs to be a shift in mindset linking India policy more closely to broader South Asia policy. In reframing India through a broader South Asia lens, Western governments will also be better positioned to address some of the shared challenges facing the region.
These challenges include a demographic squeeze, with almost 40 percent of the region’s population below the age of 18; climate risks, as South Asia is among the most vulnerable regions to climate shock events; and migration, since South Asians are among the leading source of undocumented immigrants in many Western countries.
Governments will also need to rethink how they engage countries across the region as people-power movements sweep away well-entrenched dynastic politics, giving way to the rise of a new generation of leaders.
This has been most pronounced in Sri Lanka, where presidential and parliamentary elections in 2024 defied expectations with the defeat of candidates from well-entrenched political dynasties. The winner (Anura Kumara Dissanayake) leads a left-wing coalition of parties, one of which (Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna) had once led an armed insurgency across the country. The surprise outcome of these polls, while highlighting Sri Lanka’s fluid politics, also reflected the level of frustration toward the country’s political mainstream.
Similar trends are emerging in Bangladesh and Nepal. Both countries are being ruled by interim governments led by respected figureheads: Nobel Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus in Bangladesh and former Chief Justice Sushila Karki in Nepal. Student- and youth-led groups, including the National Citizen Party in Bangladesh and Hami Nepal, are also emerging as prominent voices in both countries.
This threatens to weaken the long-standing grip of elites in both countries—the era of “battling begums” in Bangladesh, when power would sway between the Awami League and Bangladesh Nationalist Party, and the old men of Nepal’s three main political parties (the Nepali Congress and the two Communist Parties of Nepal).
Overlaying these political shifts are broader geopolitical developments. Countries in the region are often seeking to leverage the rivalry between China and India to extract concessions from both states in order to meet their development needs while retaining their autonomy. China’s influence in South Asia has grown as it has emerged as a leading trade partner, source of foreign investment, and an increasingly important defense partner for countries in South Asia.
Meanwhile, countries in the region maintain a complex relationship with India, as political parties and candidates often contest elections on an anti-India platform. This has been made evident in the Maldives and Bangladesh, where “India out” rhetoric was a prominent component of campaigns in both countries’ recent elections.
In reality, as the dominant regional power, India remains a key partner for countries in the region. Look at how New Delhi continues to act in its role as a lender of last resort, as with the economic assistance that it provided Sri Lanka and the Maldives during their recent financial crises.
In a world where global norms and institutions are under pressure, regional groupings are finding newfound utility. This adds further urgency to the task of strengthening regional integration and cooperation in South Asia.
When I put this proposition to Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar earlier this year, his response was to point to examples of initiatives through which India has sought to strengthen regional connectivity, from infrastructure projects to financial assistance and vaccine distribution to food grain supplies. But this does not explain why regional integration and trust remains poor in the region. Clearly, there is still room for improvement.
This also matters to the West, where debates about immigration, climate, and China’s global role are all intertwined with developments in South Asia to varying degrees. While they cannot force regional integration, like-minded countries can leverage their strengths and convening power to facilitate cooperation in specific areas, such as climate resilience, migration, and strengthening physical and digital connectivity.
Doing so will be easier said than done given the global cutback in development aid, competing foreign-policy priorities, and fiscal pressures. But with South Asia accounting for a quarter of the world’s population, what happens in this region matters to the rest of the world.
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