Lopsided Diplomacy?

The past few weeks have witnessed considerable hostility between India and Pakistan. India, on May 7, conducted civil defence mock drills across 244 officially designated Civil Defence districts, to enhance emergency preparedness. Around the same time, it also executed Operation Sindoor—targetting terrorists sites in Pakistan and Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir. In response to the operation that killed over 70 individuals, Pakistan carried out fatal cross-border mortar shelling and attacked Indian military establishments—most of which were successfully intercepted. As a counter-measure, India, too, attacked Pak military establishments. Lahore’s defence system was dismantled in the process.

On the Eastern border, India has deployed the Russian-made advanced S-400 Triumf air defence system in the strategic Siliguri corridor, often called the Chicken’s neck. This deployment is seen as a response to the growing air force activities by China and Bangladesh near India’s border. Military experts have often warned that if an enemy, especially China, carries out a quick and well-planned attack — through the sensitive Doklam Plateau — it could cut off India’s north-eastern states from the rest of the country in just a few hours. It is reported that the interim government of Bangladesh has approached China to build a new air base in Northern Bangladesh, adjacent to the Indian border.

India’s big neighbour, China, enjoys strong trade and military relations with Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Myanmar, with whom India shares long land borders. All these Indian neighbours are members of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which India has often criticised and abstained from joining. As of February 2025, the number of countries that have joined the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) by signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with China was 149. The countries (excluding Palestine) of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) are spread across all continents. This also includes: 17 countries of the European Union (EU) and 8 countries of the G20. After Trump's threat, Panama exited the BRI in February 2025.

Meanwhile, amid a global trade war between the USA and the rest of the major economies, India is geared up for a ‘very high’ degree of urgency in concluding trade deals with the US, the European Union, and the UK. According to Ajay Srivastava, a leading trade analyst, the US administration has been able to ‘dominate the perception battle’ with its Indian counterpart.

IMEC: An Alternative to BRI

After the Indian Prime Minister visited France and the USA in February, India's Middle East Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) — pushed to the background during 2024 due to intense conflict in Gaza — has been revived. India announced the IMEC project with much fanfare at the summit concluding its G20 presidency in September 2023. The ambitious plan immediately ran into a roadblock with the Israel-Palestine conflict erupting in the following month. IMEC is intended to connect the Arabian Sea to Jordan and Israel via a railway through the Arabian Peninsula. When completed, this corridor will likely include three major Mediterranean ports: Haifa (owned by the Adanis) in Israel, Piraeus in Greece, and Trieste in Italy. It is claimed that IMEC represents the revival of a dominant Eurasian trading route that thrived from antiquity to the 16th century. Documents such as the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, written in Greek in the 1st century CE, confirm the maritime trade between India and the Greco-Roman world. This sea and overland linkage functioned as part of the Silk Road until Portugal’s conquest of India.

The IMEC is positioned as an alternative route to China’s BRI — the new Silk Road. The railway and maritime corridor of IMEC will pass through the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Israel. The eastern segment will connect India to the Persian Gulf, and the northern corridor will link the Gulf to Europe. The joint statement issued at the end of the last Modi-Trump meeting in Washington equates the IMEC and the I2U2 (India, Israel, the UAE, and the US) — which is also called the ‘West Asian Quad’. The plan was to assemble partners from the IMEC and the I2U2 group within the next six months to announce new projects. Both the leaders have agreed on the TRUST (Transforming Relationship Utilising Strategic Technology) initiative to emphasise on creating strong supply chains of critical minerals, advanced materials, and pharmaceuticals.

India’s ‘Look West’ Policy

India's 'Look East' policy, initiated in 1991, can be traced back to India's rapprochement with China, which began with Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi's visit to China in 1988. The policy (renamed the ‘Act East’ Policy in 2014) emerged in the aftermath of the Cold War amid efforts by New Delhi to revive the importance of Southeast Asia (and later East Asia and the broader Indo-Pacific region) in India’s foreign policy agenda. As India started to lag far behind China in the mid-1990s, India slowly shifted its focus to West Asia and beyond. India’s free trade agreements with Korea (2011), Japan (2010), and ASEAN (2010) ended up with huge trade deficits. These pacts are hurting the domestic industry, and the Indian government is now negotiating to review the free trade agreements (FTAs) implemented with these countries.

In July 2005, the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh launched the ‘Look West’ Policy to boost cooperation with the Gulf. Since 2014, the Modi government has put more importance on West Asia, at the cost of flourishing East Asia. Notwithstanding century-long trade ties of the Indian east coast with the South and East Asian countries, the Indian government has not put in the needed efforts to revive those relations. The Cholas excelled in foreign trade and maritime activity, extending their influence overseas to China and Southeast Asia. Bali Jatra is a festival that commemorates the maritime trade and cultural exchange between Odisha and Southeast Asian countries, particularly Bali. The term Bali Jatra means ‘Voyage to Bali’. During the Ming dynasty, traders from Bengal moved up to the South China Sea using Bay of Bengal as a marine trade route.

Historically, invasions on India primarily occurred through the northwest due to geographical features like the Khyber Pass and the relatively flat terrain compared to the Himalayas. The Aryan invasion (1800-1500 BCE), Persian invasions (535 BC), Alexander or Greek invasion (336-323 BC), invasion of Seleucid (305-303 BC), Greek-Indo invasion (180 BC), Huna invasions (458 AD), Mohammad Bin Kasim's Arab invasion (712 AD), invasion of the Turks by Mahmud of Ghazni (1001 AD), Turkish invasion by Muhammad of Ghur (1175 AD), Mongol invasion (1206-1368 AD), the Mughal invasion (1526-1761 AD), Nader Shah's invasion of India (1736-1747 AD), and the European & British invasions are the major examples. Compared to Northwest, India’s East and Northeast regions enjoyed more peaceful co-existence with their East Asian neighbours.

Neglecting peaceful and economically strong neighbours of East Asia may prove costly for India. Long years of civil war in the northeastern state of Manipur — bordering Myanmar — along with the government’s indifference to the citizens' plight, is reinforcing this narrative of dumping the Northeast from India’s national consciousness.

The writer is a professor of Business Administration who primarily writes on political economy, global trade, and sustainable development. Views expressed are personal