London: Following Tuesday’s tragic terror attack in Pahalgam, claimed by a shadow group of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), India has announced a number of security measures vis-a-vis Pakistan. This also includes suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty of 1960, which survived three wars between the two.
Relations between the two nuclear-armed neighbours have consistently been fraught with tension, but efforts to maintain normalcy through diplomatic presence have remained.
Another measure undertaken by India in the aftermath of this attack has been to reduce the strength of its High Commission in Islamabad from 55 to 30. This includes naval and air advisors – their Pakistani counterparts in New Delhi have been declared persona non grata and ordered to depart the country immediately.
Another time India reached this level of tension with another country was the freezing of relations with China following the Galwan Valley clash of 2020. Although ‘normalcy’ is still being restored via diplomatic channels, the two continue to remain rivals on account of competing interests in the region.
These incidents cannot be isolated from tremors in India’s neighbourhood. Over the past few years, most of India’s neighbours have fallen into turmoil – a military coup in Myanmar in 2021, Sri Lanka’s financial crisis in 2022, and most recently, the collapse of Sheikh Hasina’s government in Bangladesh in 2024. The political landscape in all of these countries shifted towards favouring relations with China over India, notwithstanding those neighbours such as the Maldives, whose President ran his very campaign on an anti-India rhetoric.
Despite India’s steady rise to geopolitical prominence and economic might, to be surrounded by neighbours this unstable presents a grave security challenge that the regional giant will have to reckon with.
Possible solutions will require long-term sustained efforts and reinvigoration of ‘Neighbourhood First’ policy. While Indian foreign policy has historically been that of prioritising its relations with its neighbours, a reinvigoration of its commitment to maintain this priority is the need of the hour. PM Narendra Modi’s recent visit to Thailand for the BIMSTEC Summit was a masterclass in these efforts.
The Indian Armed Forces rank as one of the top militaries in the world, but sustained tension along the country’s land borders with not one but two of its neighbours puts significant pressure on defence capabilities. Although military modernisation has been prioritised in recent years via ‘Make in India’ initiatives, much is left to be desired. Diversifying defence imports, modernising its Soviet-era equipment, and larger investment remain top priorities.
India has also been historically reluctant to partake actively in defence-based treaty alliances, and rightfully so, considering its desire to maintain strategic autonomy. However, with a renewed US interest in the QUAD, and the importance of India to manage the threat of China in the Indo-Pacific, New Delhi will have to tread these waters carefully. While autonomy is of utmost value, there is a lot to gain from more substantial defence partnerships in the region.
Since independence, one of India’s greatest assets in international politics has been its leadership within the Global South. It was a pioneer in non-alignment and still preaches the value to this day. India has always rejected unipolarity, and is a true advocate of a rules-based international order. Along with being the largest democracy in the world – and consistently so for over 75 years – an emphasis on this virtue of partnership as opposed to domination, is what showcases the true essence of what India stands for in the world. A meaningful marriage of hard and soft power is essential to recalibration in the rapidly changing world order.
(Saniya Kulkarni is a Programme Manager at LSE IDEAS, a foreign policy think tank of the London School of Economics and Political Science. Views expressed are personal)
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