Examine – Discuss in-depth, including causes and implications: Assess how India’s ‘Neighbourhood First’ policy navigates the complex interplay of internal fragility within neighbours and external power rivalries, evaluating its efficacy in advancing India’s strategic autonomy and security interests in its immediate periphery.

– India’s ‘Neighbourhood First’ Policy

– Geopolitical significance of India’s immediate periphery

– Internal fragility within neighbouring states (causes and implications for India)

– External power rivalries in the region (major actors, causes, and implications for India)

– Interplay between internal fragility and external rivalries

– How ‘Neighbourhood First’ navigates these complexities

– Efficacy of the policy

– Advancement of India’s Strategic Autonomy

– Advancement of India’s Security Interests

– Evaluation and assessment

– Neighbourhood First Policy: India’s foreign policy approach prioritizing relations with its immediate neighbours through enhanced connectivity, commerce, capacity building, culture, and communication.

– Strategic Autonomy: A state’s ability to pursue its own interests and foreign policy objectives without being constrained or dictated by other powers, often involving maintaining independence and flexibility in a multipolar world.

– Internal Fragility: The susceptibility of a state to internal shocks or stresses, often stemming from political instability, weak governance, economic vulnerability, social divisions, or environmental factors.

– External Power Rivalries: Competition for influence, resources, or strategic positioning among major international actors within a specific region, such as India’s neighbourhood.

– Geopolitics: The influence of geography on political relationships, particularly international relations.

India’s unique geopolitical position necessitates a foreign policy deeply attuned to its immediate neighbourhood. Sharing land and maritime borders with numerous states, the stability and prosperity of this periphery are intrinsically linked to India’s own security and economic well-being. The ‘Neighbourhood First’ policy, initiated with the aim of fostering closer ties and mutual prosperity, serves as the cornerstone of India’s engagement strategy in this crucial region. However, its implementation is fraught with challenges stemming from two major, often intertwined, dynamics: the pervasive internal fragility within many neighbouring states and the escalating rivalries among external global powers vying for influence in the region. This answer examines the causes and implications of these complexities, discusses how the ‘Neighbourhood First’ policy attempts to navigate them, and evaluates its efficacy in advancing India’s strategic autonomy and security interests.

India’s neighbourhood, stretching from the Himalayas to the Indian Ocean, encompasses a diverse array of states with varying political systems, economic conditions, and social fabrics. This diversity contributes to the complex challenges inherent in regional diplomacy. The ‘Neighbourhood First’ policy is premised on the idea that a stable, prosperous, and well-connected neighbourhood is vital for India’s rise and security. It seeks to achieve this through enhanced connectivity (physical, digital, people-to-people), increased trade and investment, capacity building initiatives, cultural exchanges, and robust dialogue. The policy underscores a commitment to treating neighbours as priority partners, often offering assistance with ‘no strings attached’ and respecting sovereignty.

One significant challenge is the widespread internal fragility within many neighbouring states. The causes are multifaceted, including weak state institutions, historical legacies of conflict or authoritarianism, ethnic and religious divisions, economic underdevelopment, corruption, political instability, and increasingly, the impacts of climate change and resource scarcity. For India, the implications of this fragility are direct and significant. It can lead to refugee flows and migration crises across porous borders (e.g., issues with Bangladesh and Myanmar). Weak governance can provide safe havens for non-state actors, including militant groups and criminal networks, impacting India’s internal security (e.g., cross-border terrorism concerns). Economic instability in neighbours can disrupt regional trade and connectivity initiatives vital to India’s policy. Furthermore, internal political shifts or instability can strain bilateral relations, making consistent, long-term engagement challenging. The ‘Neighbourhood First’ policy attempts to address this by focusing on developmental assistance tailored to local needs, capacity building in areas like governance, infrastructure development, and disaster management, and promoting regional cooperation mechanisms that can help states manage internal stress. By investing in neighbours’ stability and prosperity, India aims to mitigate the negative spillover effects on itself. However, external factors and deep-seated internal issues often limit the impact of such efforts.

Compounding the internal fragility is the increasing presence and rivalry of external powers in the region. The most prominent external actor is China, whose Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and expanding economic and military footprint pose a significant challenge to India’s influence. Other actors, including the United States, Gulf states, and increasingly others, also have strategic interests. The causes of this rivalry are rooted in the region’s strategic location along crucial trade routes, its growing markets, and its geopolitical significance in the broader Indo-Pacific theatre. The implications for India are profound. External powers can exploit the internal vulnerabilities of neighbours, offering large-scale infrastructure projects or financial aid that may lead to debt traps (e.g., Sri Lanka, Maldives, Pakistan), thereby gaining leverage and potentially strategic assets like ports or military access. This competition can dilute India’s influence, create a sense of strategic encirclement, and undermine India’s own connectivity projects. External support for certain political factions within neighbours can also complicate India’s diplomatic efforts. The ‘Neighbourhood First’ policy navigates this by seeking to enhance India’s own offerings as a preferred partner, focusing on timely and sustainable projects, fostering stronger people-to-people connections, and emphasizing shared democratic values (where applicable). It also involves strategic balancing, cooperating with like-minded external powers on regional issues while maintaining independent relationships with neighbours and not joining exclusive blocs that could alienate them. India leverages platforms like BIMSTEC and SAARC (albeit challenged) to promote regional solutions over external dependency.

The interplay between internal fragility and external rivalry is particularly challenging. Weak states are more susceptible to offers of large-scale, often opaque, external funding and influence, which can exacerbate internal divisions or create new dependencies. External powers can also strategically support particular groups or exploit existing fault lines within a neighbour to gain an advantage over rivals, including India. This dynamic makes it difficult for India to pursue consistent, principled engagement under ‘Neighbourhood First’, as external pressures and internal instability in the neighbour can rapidly shift the ground.

Evaluating the efficacy of the ‘Neighbourhood First’ policy in this complex environment reveals a mixed record. In terms of advancing strategic autonomy, the policy aims to strengthen India’s position as the indispensable regional power, giving it more room to maneuver globally. By focusing on bilateral ties and regional cooperation, India seeks to maintain its foreign policy independence and resist being drawn into the strategic orbits of external powers operating in its backyard. However, the sheer economic and military weight of actors like China means India often finds itself in a reactive rather than proactive position, constantly having to counter narratives and offers from rivals. While India has successfully pursued partnerships (like the Quad) to balance external influence on a broader level, within the immediate neighbourhood, maintaining strategic autonomy is challenged by the need to respond to the initiatives of others.

Regarding security interests, the policy seeks to create a stable and secure periphery by addressing the root causes of instability (through development) and fostering cooperation on security issues. Successes include enhanced maritime security cooperation with countries like Sri Lanka, Maldives, and Bangladesh, and improved disaster response coordination across the region. Connectivity projects, like those in Bangladesh and Nepal, aim to boost economic interdependence, potentially reducing incentives for conflict. However, the policy has faced significant limitations. Persistent security challenges like cross-border terrorism (especially from Pakistan), unresolved border disputes, and the growing military presence of external powers in the Indian Ocean region continue to pose direct threats. The inability to fully counter the influence of external actors leveraging the internal fragilities of neighbours remains a major impediment to securing India’s immediate periphery effectively. The policy’s success is often contingent on the political will and stability of the neighbouring governments, which can be volatile.

Overall, ‘Neighbourhood First’ represents a sound strategic orientation, recognizing the centrality of the immediate region to India’s aspirations. It correctly identifies the need for positive engagement. However, its efficacy is continuously tested by the deep-seated issues of internal fragility within its neighbours and the intense, often zero-sum, competition from external powers. While it has yielded positive results in specific areas like connectivity, disaster relief, and bilateral engagement, it has not fully insulated the region from external influence or fundamentally resolved the internal fragilities that make neighbours susceptible to such influence. It remains an ongoing, dynamic process of engagement, requiring constant adaptation to the fluid political and security landscape.

India’s ‘Neighbourhood First’ policy operates in a highly challenging environment defined by the significant internal fragilities of its neighbours and the increasing intensity of external power rivalries. These factors complicate India’s efforts to foster stability and advance its interests. While the policy’s focus on positive engagement, connectivity, and development assistance is a necessary approach to address internal vulnerabilities and offer alternatives to external dependencies, its impact is constrained by the scale of the challenges and the limited resources compared to some rivals. The interplay between internal weakness and external intervention creates a difficult landscape for maintaining influence and ensuring regional security. Evaluating its efficacy reveals that while ‘Neighbourhood First’ has achieved some successes and remains vital for India’s long-term strategic goals, it faces significant headwinds that prevent its full potential from being realized in immediately securing India’s periphery or unequivocally advancing strategic autonomy against determined external competition. Successfully navigating this complex milieu requires sustained commitment, adaptive strategies, and a pragmatic understanding of the limitations imposed by the geopolitical realities of the region.