Editorial

India’s neighbourhood has increasingly become the focus of its diplomacy and cooperative and security policies. While the concern with the neighbourhood is not entirely new, harking back at least to the Gujral Doctrine, there is renewed political will in New Delhi to sort out differences, tie up loose ends and move forward towards making the neighbourhood a truly South Asian region. States in South Asia have responded positively indicating, perhaps, that New Delhi has ignored opportunities far too long.

Within South Asian states there is a dynamic and self-reflective debate on how domestic politics and institutions hinder or encourage peace and conflict in the region. At the heart of this debate lies the vexing issue of how domestic pressures over land, water, religion, social divisions and ethnicity translate into foreign policy and affect the trajectory of relations in the region. As young nations, all South Asian states are still dealing with the internal politics and strains of nation building. Some, like Nepal, have embarked on a significantly new constitutional journey. Others, like Bangladesh, confront divisions over the nature of the state, divisions which shape policies towards neighbours. Still others, like Pakistan, have settled into an acceptance of a compromise between civilian and military institutions that can only stay afloat on the waters of Islamist forces. At home, regions and provinces have expectations that New Delhi’s foreign policy will speak to domestic concerns over votes, resources, development and connectivity. This often shifts the debate away from Delhi to Kolkata, Guwahati and Chennai, from Islamabad to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Karachi, and from Dhaka to Chittagong. In different ways these connections between domestic political concerns and foreign policy agendas may not be exclusive to the region as the article in the volume on Australia’s upcoming political election tells us.

Many of these debates are reflected in the articles in this volume. Collectively, the articles make a call for looking at the role of domestic politics but they also speak to the growing view that cooperation in security as well as economic and technological domains is possible in the region. Transnational connectivity can create dynamic subregional economies, transforming regions like the Indian northeast. The creation of a SAARC satellite could have positive implications for security as well as for development in the region. Above all, the articles in this volume are an indication that new conversations are afoot, not just in New Delhi but in capitals across South Asia.