Neighborhood first policy

Introduction
• India shares its geographical boundary with Afghanistan, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Maldives, Pakistan, Nepal and Sri
Lanka.

• India’s policy towards its immediate neighbourhood is based on efforts to build peace and cooperation in South Asia.

• Its neighbourhood first policy, accords primacy to nations in periphery with focus on encouraging trade, connectivity
and people-to-people contact.

• India’s neighbourhood first policy focuses on cooperation and peaceful coexistence.

• It is part of India’s foreign policy that actively focuses on improving ties with India’s immediate neighbours which is
termed as Neighbourhood first policy.

• Considering the relations and outlook of neighbouring countries, India today needs more pragmatic and peaceful
policy to control the disturbance and aggression along the border side.

• Like NAM, today it is the need of the hour to have peaceful with strategic policy which have deal the challenges of
globalisation, and aggressive neighbours
Salient features of India’s Neighbourhood First policy:

• Immediate priority to neighbours

• Dialogue

• Resolving bilateral issues

• Connectivity

• Economic Cooperation

• Technical Cooperation

• Disaster management
 Challenges for India

• Covid-19 challenge

• Pakistan relation

• Unstable Afghanistan

• China factor

• Anti-Indian sentiment
 India’s initiatives
• Greater Male Connectivity Project

• India contributes 3000 vials of Remdesivir to Myanmar

• ASEAN commemorated 25 years

• SAARC satellite

• BBIN grouping

• Vande Bharat

• QUAD
Greater Male Connectivity Project
India contributes 3000 vials of Remdesivir to Myanmar
ASEAN commemorated 25 years
SAARC satellite
BBIN grouping
Vande Bharat
QUAD
 Way forward
• An Indian connectivity strategy must be informed by new research, knowledge, and data on neighbouring

countries and specific sectors. This will require investment in regional and cross-border studies.

• The strategy will have to be implemented in coordination with new stakeholders, including sectoral

ministries (e.g. power or shipping), state governments, and political parties (e.g. in Uttar Pradesh for Nepal,

or Mizoram for Myanmar), private sector interests (infrastructure companies and industrial lobbies), civil

society representatives (e.g. universities or environmental activists), and also multilateral organisations (e.g.

the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank [AIIB] or ADB).

• India will have to focus on specific areas and projects that enhance its comparative advantage. Rather than

blind competition with China on financing hard infrastructure projects, for example, Delhi should invest

relatively more on the soft dimensions of connectivity, including capacity building.

• India will also require economic openness, beyond all the investment in cross-border

infrastructure. Ports, roads, railways, and airports will be useless barriers to trade and other forms

of mobility persist.

• An Indian connectivity strategy will have to deliver rather than deny. Delhi will have to stay focused,

and be prepared to commit more, better and faster on connectivity initiatives that are sustainable.

• India will have to consider the political, economic and cultural sensitivities of neighbouring

countries

• Finally, India’s approach should refrain from excessive emphasis on cultural unity or alikeness in

the region. In the cautionary observation of I. P. Khosla, a senior Indian diplomat who served across

South Asia, “India’s neighbours find it difficult to endorse proposals that could in any sense hint at

the recreation of past unity.”