Reclaiming The Neighbourhood

On Modi’s watch, India has evolved a softer, defter touch with its neighbours. This course-correction could usher trust and prosperity.

- Pranay Sharma

The air in India is thick with national politics—all eyes are set on the gathering storm, trying to read straws in the wind. Big election results, a sense of tectonic plates shifting, court verdicts on high-profile cases like Rafale and 1984…it’s all happening.

Commoners and pundits alike could be pardoned for not having developments in far-away Maldives uppermost on their minds, or for not devoting time to seemingly elusive trends in foreign affairs. But if you do a quick CT-scan of India’s often ailing neighbourhood, the image slices will reveal a lot of furious action. Pakistan has a mint-fresh prime minister. Bangladesh may (or may not) get one as the New Year dawns: the country votes on December 30. Sri Lanka got a new premier too—or was it two of them?—no, as the dust settled over a most incredible clash of the country’s institutions, the old PM seems to be back. Then Maldives….

All this tumult in domestic politics across South Asian nations has far-reaching implications on the way India is seen and placed in its neighbourhood. Any movement on the scale of importance is relative: the point of comparison is China. The old terms of endearment reserved for India by its immediate neighbours—Big Brother or regional hegemon— now get framed in that larger race for leverage. As Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s tenure winds down to its last few months, it’s an apt moment to take stock. He had, after all, inaugurated his tenure with a dramatic, unorthodox gesture of friendship, inviting leaders from these countries to his swearing-in. How has he fared in a domain where he wished to leave an imprint?