Looking Forward in 2025: Indian Foreign Policy in Asia

This article focuses on India’s neighbourhood priorities in 2025, labelling itself as “more of a trend forecast than a policy prescription." Guest writer Raghav Ghei, a third-year political science and international relations student at Ashoka University, impressively explores the possibilities of a post-2024 normal.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at an SAARC Summit.

A Guest Commentary by Raghav Ghei | Edited by Muskaan Mir

Samir Saran claims great power shifts will alter Indian foreign policy. True. Yet, the battleground that a transitioning world order finds today is Asia. The region has intense militarization, political fragmentation, and bitter geopolitical disputes. EAM Dr. S Jaishankar in a speech in December 2024 mentioned an “over the horizon” grand strategy for India’s external outlook. The uncertainty 2024 brought multiple ‘known unknowns’ and promised even more ‘unknown unknowns’. PM Vajpayee was right when he said we could not choose our neighbours - the "first concentric circle" in Dr. Jaishankar's worldview. What we can choose is the degree of engagement. There is no question that India must engage with the world – her responsibilities, capabilities, and interests have grown far too many to only strive for a regional order. She must preserve her goals of citizen prosperity, modernity, and security by building up comprehensive national strength. 

The article attempts an outline at India’s 2025 subcontinental engagement. The outline is more an attempt to model uncertainty by forecasting trends. This is because foreign policy leaves something to chance, thus making policy prescription a hazardous enterprise.

No foreign policy – including India’s - is solely Pavlovian, i.e., reactive to stimulus. Strategy makes power fungible – from capabilities to outcomes and differs from planning in that it is interactive. India’s neighbour goals and challenges are many. Porous borders and cross-cutting ethnicities intertwine the subcontinent as a geopolitical unit. There is also a duality to economics: bilaterally, comparative advantages are mutually beneficial, yet economic interdependence in a singular interconnected system has not led to political harmony. Dr. S. Jaishankar notes the rise of “economic diplomacy” in the last 10 years that stresses “advancing national development”. This ensures an external environment receptive to India’s transformation, a corollary of Indian foreign policy ambitions. Therefore, economic diplomacy seems India's Way forward. 2024 had other plans though. The eventful year for the neighbours poses new hurdles in regional integration. Pakistan’s “terror factory” continues with impunity. India-China disengagement is only an opening nudge, not a structural alteration. Bangladesh, Myanmar and Maldives prove change is the only surety. Here, theory must meet praxis. 

Will we see a Pakistan policy reversal? Most likely not. Ambassador Ajay Bisaria has accurately characterized India’s mantra vis-à-vis Pakistan as “active defence”. This entails robust counter-terrorism measures that promise future pain and calibrated engagement in areas like the Indus Water Treaty. However, security is a pre-condition for people-to-people ties, softened borders, terror dialogues and ‘cricket diplomacy’. The export of terrorism as state policy is a dealbreaker and the incentive for dialogue with an unimaginative army is hard given they have the means to end this self-damaging policy. Economics can help ‘manage’ the relationship through microcycles of positivity, especially when Pakistan’s economy is on life support (it is lesser than Maharashtra’s GDP). However, the predictable cycle of what Ambassador Shyam Saran calls “dialogue-disruption-dialogue” reduces hopes of what Ambassador Shivshankar Menon describes as a “live and let live” relationship. 

India’s China Challenge is accurately summarized by Kanti Bajpai as the “4Ps: Power, Perception, Partnerships and Perimeter.” Simply put, the irritants are related to the border, capability gaps, how each side views the other and diplomatic partners. The 2024 India-China disengagement is only the first step in a complete process that Brahma Chellaney describes: disengagement, de-induction, and de-escalation. The last two are unlikely – the Army Chief recently confirmed both countries to be in a “degree of standoff”. Foreign Secretary Misri’s recent visit reflects signs of divergence on the “4Ps”. One, there is a lack of trust and differing perceptions as the readout of both sides about the same meeting shows. Two, disengagement is just breathing room, not a shift to a new modus vivendi. It’s too early to tell whether “normal” diplomacy is being reverted to, something Kanti Bajpai’s recent Indian Express piece argues. Galwan tore up all previous agreements and requires creating a new status quo ante. China’s ‘great power autism’ by claiming global ‘centre stage’ will not permit settling the border for forgoing the ability to escalate both horizontally and vertically. It thus has no payoffs nor incentives. Historically, India-China relations have been peaceful coexistence at best and hostile at worst. This year, India-China relations are in for a ride – India will reduce the power asymmetry amid massive economic interdependencies. Thus, deft and pragmatic diplomatic strategy or resource deployment is needed to manage the party-state undergoing a “performance legitimacy” crisis and assertively nationalist – ‘stormy’ foreign outlook. 

The most shocking developments from India’s lens came from Bangladesh and Nepal. Yunus is clearly not the same as Hasina and has ushered in an omnidirectional revolution that is historically, politically, cartographically and socially revisionist. Has the relationship with India turned hostile? That seems like an overstatement. However, it is clear that the dynamics and players and will prop up turbulence in the short term due to fundamental societal reorientation. Mutual interest convergence in economics, railways, power production and energy can help better (re)engage the new Bangladesh which will no doubt be a considerable task. On the other hand, Nepal joining the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is frightening given that BRI’s terms are opaque and is an extension of Chinese geostrategy. India needs to offer its alternative – BIMSTEC – before its too late. A combination of Track I and Track II diplomacy protects national interests by allowing direct conversations. 

In Myanmar, the Arakan Army has largely eroded Tatmadaw sovereignty. A “friends to the maximum” calibration – something Dr. Jaishankar posits - would do India well to prepare all contingencies by engaging all stakeholders. In Afghanistan, the Foreign Secretary’s recent visit accepts the new reality and is seeing the results of engagement. A Taliban report has named Pakistan a terrorist country by “sheltering militants”. Muizzu’s ‘India out’ campaign is dead and buried in the Maldives. This year the hopes are to rekindle the relationship and put the petty dispute in the museum it belongs to. The 2025 Indian budget holds promise for this. Sri Lanka’s Dissanayake is sending positive signals – how long it lasts is the million-dollar question. Bhutan and India will look to maintain the equilibrium of their great relationship and build on it in 2025. These relationships reveal all signs of further strengthening, but it’s the task of diplomats to capitalize on this opportunity.  

If Asia can serve as a microcosm for extracting broader lessons on India’s grand strategy, it is this. Firstly, India’s historical independence of choice in preserving national interests is the way forward. The label does not matter – strategic autonomy, multi-alignment, multi-vector – but the Indian right to what Henry Kissinger calls “freedom of manoeuvring” must remain the same. Targeted minilaterals on cross-cutting transnational problems like anti-piracy and climate change foster trust and goodwill. Secondly, amid what Dr. Jaishankar calls “re-globalization” due to “supply chain reformulation”, de-risking is advisable. Economic globalization has ensured decoupling is a pyrrhic victory. INSTC, IMEC, and the Trilateral Highway offer resilient infrastructure and positive-sum gains in one of the least interconnected subcontinents globally. The idea of India being a “first responder” that Dr. Jaishankar proposes is intriguing. 

India, as a leading power, wants to shoulder greater responsibilities given its sui generis ontology. Sreeram Chaulia correctly identifies that India is not a status-quo power, but one that seeks a multipolar order by “soft balancing” to prevent hegemony. Thus, it desires peaceful improvements to the international order, to paraphrase Shivshankar Menon. Providing public goods in the periphery through infrastructure, humanitarian aid and addressing piracy helps garner Indian goodwill and curb Chinese oceanic adventurism by establishing India as a “net security provider”. 

Dr. Jaishankar is astute in saying “we cannot not rise”. 2025 symbolizes a very different world necessitating an amalgam of difficult choices. Lord Palmerston was right when he said there are only permanent interests of countries. This means opportunistic relationships, especially under Trump 2.0. Is this the post-2025 normal? Only time will tell. Delhi’s axiomatic path is Asian economic integration, “freedom of manoeuvre,” and pragmatic diplomacy to better tackle 2025.  

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