INDIA–CHINA STANDOFF: CHALLENGES and OPPORTUNITIES FOR INDIA

Though recent May 2020 standoff that continued between India and China in Galwan valley was not taken by the Indian leadership as routine water testing by the Chinese. India took it seriously and very well managed to handle the aggression on its own and halted the China’s backdoor thinking of projecting themselves a superpower at least in Asia. Now it’s going to be a normal routine along the LAC as India is now determined to change the ground strategic infrastructure reality along the LAC. By tackling Chinese on its own, India has bolstered its position in the world’s strategic power pie chart. Further India need to work on many fronts to meet the challenges and convert these sour relations in a Diplomatic, Economic and Strategic opportunities for India. The aim of this paper is to analyze in detail the India’s stand against the PLA's incursion, internal assessment to meet this “going to be routine” challenge on LAC and further considering the India’s population, market size and china’s sour relations with neighbors, it’s time for India to encash the opportunities out of such attempts from China.

India’s ‘Neighbourhood First’ policy and the Belt & Road Initiative (BRI)

The geopolitics of South Asia attracts both China and India. South Asia has been a region in which, for many years, India and China have tried to achieve political and economic influence. India’s forefront policy to deal with its neighbours since independence has been its ‘Neighbourhood First’ policy. Even if there have been inconsistency and different approaches adopted by the Indian leadership to implement this policy in the region, India has always aimed to avoid major geopolitical changes in South Asia. However, the post-Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) engagement of China has challenged India’s position in the region. This article investigates India’s ‘Neighbourhood First’ policy and evaluates its relevance with that of the BRI.

India-US Relations Through the Lens of Cold War: The Time of Estranged Relations (Brief Overview)

This paper provides a brief description of the estranged relations, ideological differences, divergences in national interests, initial misunderstandings and ups & down in the relations between two democracies - India and the US - during the Cold War period. After the WWII, an ideological clash dubbed “Cold War” started between two competing powers: the US and the USSR. During the Cold War era, both states went at great lengths to expand their ideologies into the Asian region and its periphery. The US formed security blocs and provided substantial financial aid to Asian countries in an attempt to contain the expansion of communist ideology of its main rival (the USSR) in the Asian region. After India gained independence, the US pressured the Indian leadership into joining the US bloc against the communist Soviet Union. On the other side, the USSR built Warsaw Pact and tried to enroll the newly born states, such as India and Pakistan, in its bloc to counter the US course of action. However, India was not disposed to join any blocs, the US bloc above all, and entered the Non-Alignment Movement. The Indian leadership supported the catchphrase “Asia for Asians” and condemned the involvement of extra-regional powers, such as the US, in Asian regional matters.

“The English Did Wrong Them About Their Lands”

This chapter details John Wompas's experience of returning home and finding an English family occupying his house, which was emblematic of the situation facing New England Indians in the last quarter of the seventeenth century, a situation dramatically accelerated by the recent war. Everywhere, the English had taken possession of Indian property, shutting Indians out with their fences, their livestock, and their laws. Not just barriers and deeds, but also colony-wide restrictions on Indian activity made what once had been Indian land off limits. This seems to have triggered a radical change in Wompas, turning him from a man who moved fluidly between Indian and English worlds in pursuit of his own interests to one who consistently represented himself as an Indian, championed Indian interests, and aspired to Indian leadership.