The Indian Geopolitical Thought

Intended as a pilot flagship project under the Chinese-led Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) has received relatively positive responses from actors in and outside the South Asian region. Islamabad, New Delhi, and Washington have offered their support to the project to varying degrees, because the financial commitments made by Beijing can help narrow the substantial funding gap for regional infrastructure connectivity. Nevertheless, enduring animosity and mistrust between India and Pakistan and growing strategic competition between Beijing and Washington present the biggest challenges to the project’s sustainable progress. Although the unfolding U.S.-China competition has not tangibly affected regional cooperation, as Washington’s enthusiasm for and investment in the U.S.-led Indo-Pacific Economic Corridor (IPEC) remain low compared with China’s down payment, the potential change in the balance of power in South Asia has triggered increasing concern from and collaboration between the United States and India. By highlighting the positive-sum logic of improved infrastructure interconnection as well as greater economic integration, and contributing to a more stable geopolitical environment in South Asia, Beijing can help alleviate the longstanding enmity between India and Pakistan and assuage Washington’s and New Delhi’s skepticism about its strategic intentions.

India's Space Pursuit and the Changing Matrix of South Asian Security

'Caste' is today almost universally perceived as an ancient and unchanging Hindu institution preserved solely by a deep-seated religious ideology. Yet the word itself is an importation from sixteenth-century Europe. This book tracks the long history of the practices amalgamated under this label and shows their connection to changing patterns of social and political power down to the present. It frames caste as an involuted and complex form of ethnicity and explains why it persisted under non-Hindu rulers and in non-Hindu communities across South Asia.

This book is a ground-breaking analysis of the India-Pakistan nuclear confrontation as a form of ‘cold war’ – that is, a hostile relationship between nuclear rivals. Drawing on nuclear rivalries between similar pairs (United States-Soviet Union, United States-China, Soviet Union-China, and United States-North Korea), the work examines the rise, process and potential end of the cold war between India and Pakistan. It identifies the three factors driving the India-Pakistan rivalry: ideational factors stemming from partition; oppositional roles created by the distribution of power in South Asia; and the particular kind of relationship created by nuclear weapons. The volume assesses why India and Pakistan continue in non-crisis times to think about power and military force in outmoded ways embedded in pre-nuclear times, and draws lessons applicable to them as well as to other contemporary nuclear powers and states that might be engaged in future cold wars.

Before departing in August 1947 the British divided their Indian Empire into India and Pakistan because the warring Hindus and Muslims could not be reconciled to a joint inheritance. The last half a century of Pax Britannica was marked by intense sectarian conflict which worsened as the end of the Raj became imminent. But the partition of the country, itself marked by some of the worst carnage in history, far from ending the Hindu—Muslim rivalry merely elevated the inter-community blood-bath into inter-state rivalry. Even though India is over ten times larger than Pakistan in size, population and resources, Pakistan has refused to acknowledge its inferior status and has fought at least three major wars with India in 1947, 1965 and 1971. Despite being truncated in 1971 by the secession of Bangladesh, Pakistan remains determined to maintain the balance of power in South Asia, even if a lopsided one.

The current research aims to critically analyse the official discourse of Prime Minister of Pakistan Muhammad Nawaz Sharif during his third tenure. It is an effort to unravel the implicit political propositions present in the prime minister's discourse and the way they relate to governance of present regime and manipulation of power as well as Pakistan's relations with the United States of America and Peoples Republic of China. The current research follows Norman Fairclough's model of Critical Discourse Analysis as methodology. The study concentrates on the role that grammar, vocabulary and structure of a text play in the ideological use of language. The current case study reveals that instrumental ideology of language is at work in Nawaz Sharif's official discourse and that his press releases are of undemocratic character. As he is a powerful personality, the structure of his discourse is affected by his social position. Nawaz Sharif is not satisfied with the standard of good governance of his executive and bureaucracy. The study also shows that Pakistan feels its sovereignty at stake in its relations with the United States of America and China is playinga key role in maintaining balance of power in South Asia.

En las dos últimas décadas, India se ha convertido en una potencia emergente y se ha preocupado de su desarrollo, de su imagen internacional y del papel que puede llegar a cumplir; pero no se sabe mucho acerca de India a nivel regional. Es por eso que el objetivo de esta investigación es describir su rol como potencia emergente en Asia Meridional, en sus dimensiones política, económica y cultural. Para esto se analizarán tres puntos, primero el rol político y militar del país, a través de su conflicto 
 con Pakistán y la lucha contra el terrorismo en Afganistán; el segundo es el papel de India en la Asociación Surasiática de Cooperación Regional, y por último, el hinduismo y su importancia en el continente asiático.

Humour and the Performance of Power in South Asia

Preface: Food, Space, and Power in South Asia

At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, the South Caucasus and Central Asia became a "labyrinth" of world politics, where the interests of the great powers seeking to fill the region with their influence inevitably clashed. This policy continued at the borders of the 20th and 21st centuries. The USSR as a world power, whose global leadership began to erode in the 1980s, disintegrated by the end of the century. The new Russia, in search of its lost equilibrium, unleashed bloody wars in the former geopolitical space in order to maintain its influence. The South Caucasus, with its unique geopolitical position, is a kind of micro-model of the world, where borders and bridges in all these spheres are intertwined in a complex historical and geopolitical knot. In this context, the region is of particular importance as a point of contact between the international interests of Western and Eastern countries. The rapid transformation of the South Caucasus countries from objects to subjects of international relations was the military and political collapse of Russia. The geopolitical turmoil that followed the collapse of the socialist system was in the hands of all the leading geopolitical players in international relations. The new Russia also took advantage of the chaos, hoping to hold on to the post-Soviet countries. To this end, Russia instigated all the conflicts that are still unresolved today. Initially, the US and the West in general did not oppose Russia much in its geopolitical game, there were times when Moscow acted with their tacit consent and sometimes in a veiled form, even in tandem with them. This policy led to the occupation of the Georgian regions of Abkhazia and North Kartli (so-called South Ossetia), where about half a million people became refugees in their own country. The post-World War II world order was shattered, and the powers that created the UN Charter were in no hurry to be guided by it, since they themselves were involved in one way or another. Georgia and the South Caucasus as a whole is a region at the epicentre of the dominant geopolitical currents. The main geopolitical powers - the US and Russia - are fighting over the South Caucasus in order to acquire their geopolitical and geo-economic space, with Caspian oil and gas at the forefront of their policies. The geopolitical position of Georgia and Kazakhstan, of the Central Asian states in general, and their influence on the current geopolitical confrontation prove that our countries have objective parameters that allow them to occupy a special place in the system of global prostate power relations. However, their effectiveness can and should be increased if the necessary structural, organisational and substantive measures are taken. The relevance of Kazakhstan and the region as a whole is determined, first of all, by the growing importance of Central Asia in modern international relations as a point of intersection of the interests of the world's largest players - Russia and the United States. Central Asia is not just a key region on the world map, the control of which will allow major emerging economies (especially China) to manage the global transit of hydrocarbons and other strategic raw materials, and thus influence their economic growth, aggregate power and areas of expansion. Central Asia is a crossroads of civilisations, the control of which, it has been believed for centuries, allows one to dominate the world. The region retains this exceptional geopolitical importance today. Thus, a comprehensive analysis of the place and role of the geopolitical interests of the Central Asian and South Caucasian states in the modern political process has shown that their priority is to ensure national and state security, political stability and fair international relations, while preserving the aspirations of individual countries to control territories and resources of strategic importance.

The article analyzes the evolution of military strategy of the Republic of India and key factors that influences its development. New Delhi keeps an eye on the balance of power in South Asia to create favorable conditions for its economic and social development, yet the remaining threats and new challenges still undermine the security and stability in India. The ambitions of China aspiring to power in Asia-Pacific region, combined with its immense military build-up and territorial disputes, cause disturbance in New Delhi. The remaining tensions between India and Pakistan also cause often border skirmishes and medium-scale conflicts. Close relations between China and Pakistan, labeled as “all-weather friendship”, are a source of major concern for India. The fact that both Beijing and Islamabad wield nuclear weapons means that without effective mechanisms of nuclear deterrence any military conflict may turn into a full-scale nuclear war. Terrorist activities and insurgency in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir and in the North-Eastern regions of the country, along with maritime piracy and illicit drug trafficking contribute to the complicated nature of the challenges to the Indian security. Indian military strategy is considered as a combination of the army doctrine, maritime doctrine and nuclear doctrine. The Indian political and military leadership wants to meet the challenges of changing geopolitical environment and thus continuously adapts its strategy. However, there is still a gap between theory and practice: Indian armed forces lack the capacity to implement the declared goals because of bulky bureaucratic system, outdated military equipment and insufficient level of command and control. The government needs to mobilize political will and administrative resources to upgrade its defense sector to counter its security threats and challenges.

China has enhanced its friendly engagement with South Asia in recent times, especially India. For the emergence of China as a great power in Asia, it wants to avoid any sort of resistance from regional countries and in this pursuance China considers India could be the hindrance. China is recently increasing diplomatic and economic engagement with the South Asian countries, after it has successfully implemented its ‘feel-good’ diplomacy in Central Asia and Southeast Asia. China’s diplomatic initiative is based on Gramsci’s ‘consensus’ theory approach by embracing the regional countries through cooperation and consensus in order to ensure that no one should oppose its supremacy in Asia. Keywords: China, Hegemony, South Asia, Consensus

United States' long-term strategic interest in South Asia has made it a dynamic area for its foreign policy priorities. The cold war, the 9/11 incident, and the rise of China as a global power are the main factors responsible for U.S. involvement in the region. Over decades, the U.S. has under gone ups and downs in its relations with Pakistan and India to accomplish its strategic objectives.Against this backdrop, the paper examines the U.S. changing interests in South Asia, its attempts to fulfill its strategic objectives, its ties with India and Pakistan, and its role in the balance of power between Pakistan and India. While doing so, a descriptive-analytical method has been used to study and present facts with the optimum level of objectivity. The study's findings concluded that U.S. changing policy towards South Asia and its quest for containing the rising Chinese influence in Euro-Asia is playing a significant role in the balance of power between Pakistan and India.

In order to emerge as a regional leader and an influential global power, India has been expanding its role as a donor or development partner across South Asian and Sub-Saharan African countries. To cash on its identity of the Big Brother of South Asia India, despite having some serious domestic and regional problems, recently invested a lot of money in a number of development projects in neighbouring countries. This article attempts to delve into Indias role as an emerging power in South Asian development business. With a view to examine Indias prospect in this context, the article analyzes three pertinent development cases from three major South Asian countries namely Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka where India attempted to prove its regional development leadership through bilateral arrangements. After reviewing those cases, the author argues that India is still holding its image rather as a political Big Brother of South Asia with occasional attempts to interfere into the internal matters of its neighbours. In spite of some big joint development ventures in recent years, India in all three cases, failed to formulate trust and credibility among the people living in neighbouring countries. It also could not build an image of a regional development partner. This image crisis is one of the key reasons why it is very unlikely that India will soon become a regional or global super power especially in the light of increasing Chinese influence in the region.

Russia's place in the contemporary world is shaped by both permanent and transient factors. Russia is the world's largest country, geopolitically defined by its position straddling the Eurasian land mass. Its size and location have long been central components of its foreign policy thinking, in terms of both potential influence over global affairs and potential threats to the security of Russia itself. Russia sees itself as a 'great power', with the right to a sphere of influence related to its geopolitical position, and to a place at the top table in global affairs more broadly. As one of only five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, Russia's influential position in global affairs has formal recognition. A regional sphere of influence, however, is not something so straightforwardly recognized. For example, while Russia might — and indeed does — perceive itself as having a legitimate case for preventing any future expansion of the NATO military alliance to countries such as Ukraine and Georgia, there is no formal justification for Russia to have a veto over the alliances formed by sovereign independent states, whatever their historical and geopolitical relationship with their larger neighbour.