India’s persistent alienation in South Asia: an alternative interpretation

This paper seeks to answer the question: Why is India alienated in South Asia? Given its centrality in the region’s geography, demography, economics, culture and military power, India stands to be the leader of South Asia. Surprisingly, however, the neighbours not only reject India’s leadership bid but also resist it from exerting regional dominance. References are made to historical legacies and India’s hegemonic ambitions that underpin this alienation, a concept defined as India’s inability to develop and strengthen mutually beneficial relations with the neighbours and the resultant isolation from them. This paper makes a break from this traditional interpretation and argues for a broader perspective on the alienation issue. It employs a combined theoretical framework of neoclassical realism and regional security complex theory to integrate a three-level analysis of factors pertaining to domestic, regional and global politics to offer a more nuanced and comprehensive understanding of why India suffers from, and can hardly avoid, its alienation in South Asia. The alienation issue has added some new dimensions to regional power dynamics in view of China’s growing footprint in South Asia – a development India abhors but its smaller neighbours welcome.