Abstract

As South Asia's dominant country, how India interacts with her neighbors is of a central significance to the region's stability and standing the world. The subcontinent's geostrategic position amplifies the importance of these relations, with South Asia bridging vital global regions and acting as the anchor-point for trade and energy security routes across the Indian Ocean Region (IOR). While India dominates the region in terms of territory and population, as well as in economic and military terms, this supremacy also makes India the number one threat to its neighbors, many of whom look for external support to protect themselves. This chapter investigates the root of these highly complex dynamics and how they have affected different states across the region, along with India's varied response to them from the earliest decades under Jawaharlal Nehru until the contemporary policies of Narendra Modi.