A Scorecard for ‘Neighbourhood First’ Policy
Priyanka Singh
POLITICS AND GEOPOLITICS: DECODING INDIA’S NEIGHBOURHOOD CHALLENGE by Harsh V Pant Rupa Publications New Delhi, 2021, 216 pp., 595.00
August 2022, volume 46, No 8

South Asia is witnessing a phase of churning in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. Political volatility combined with economic instability has badly hit the region. As the pandemic seemingly recedes, there is great deal of uncertainty in the entire region straddling India’s periphery. Harsh V Pant’s edited volume Politics and Geopolitics: Decoding India’s Neighbourhood Challenge comes at a cusp moment as nations in South Asia grapple to recover from the shock of the pandemic that claimed millions of lives and ground nations across the region including India to a halt for two years.

The book is a ready reckoner on India’s neighbourhood policy, one of the central planks of the reinvented foreign policy approaches under Prime Minister Modi’s Government. It comprehensively gauges the nitty-gritty of India’s contemporary neighbourhood strategy. The forward push on ‘Neighbourhood First’ was unveiled by the initiative to invite all Heads of Government in the South Asian region to the oath taking ceremony in 2014 ushering in Narendra Modi’s first term. Modi’s first visit abroad was to Bhutan closely followed by one to Nepal. Stark choices made early on underscored the strategic capital attached to the neighbourhood by the new political dispensation. Years down the line, now in the middle of his second term is an opportune moment to reflect upon the road travelled and how efforts to reinforce ties with neighbourhood have fared so far. Certainly, there have been upheavals and the journey has not been as smooth. Traversing the years of the Modi Government, the book chronicles India’s bilateral interactions with each country in the neighbourhood in vivid detail.

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