On 21st October 2024, Monday, the Centre for Policy Research organised a talk on ‘India’s Neighbourhood Policy: Lessons Learned and Unlearned’ by Prof. S D Muni. The session was moderated by Dr Shyam Babu, Senior fellow at the Centre for Policy Research.
Asfia Kulsoom, Project Associate for International and Regional Projects at the International Youth Edu-Skills Foundation joined the special talk online on Zoom.
Prof Muni, in brief, talked about the 4 phases in which India’s neighbourhood policy unfolded –
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Laying foundation
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Course correction
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Building Community
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India first
For the first phase, he gave some flag points on the Nehruvian Foundation. Nehru had a bigger neighbourhood idea and thought of it as a community. He also did not want any third-party involvement like that of West. During the second phase, the emphasis was on capacity building, regional structure and bilateralism.
The third phase covers the post-Nehruvian period. Here, regionalism was put on the forefront by former Prime Ministers Inder Kumar Gujral and Atal Bihari Vajpayee. It was followed by an emphasis on regional economic liberalisation by former Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh. The fourth phase involves the present neighbourhood policies. Although the current Prime Minister Narendra Modi has done great in visiting the neighbouring countries and being in touch with them, the neighbourhood policy however seems to have derailed with SAARC in limbo and loss of communication with 2 of our neighbours – China and Pakistan.
In his concluding remarks, he highlighted what we should look for in the future.
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How we behave with our neighbour
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Understanding of turbulence in the internal politics of neighbour countries
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Find ways to cope with the Chinese emergence and assertion