Setting the Stage: A Region in Flux, the Core  Under Pressure

South Asia is navigating a period of accelerated strategic change. The global environment defined by US–China rivalry, the persistence of the Russia–Ukraine war, the widening arena of grey-zone conflict, and a technology-led reordering of power has intersected with a tumultuous regional churn. India’s immediate neighbourhood is no longer a ring of passive or predictable actors. Instead, it is a mosaic of states making awkward choices, recalibrating alignments, and dealing with internal vulnerabilities that external actors, state and non-state, are willing and able to exploit.

Within this cauldron, the traditional India–Pakistan rivalry is neither dormant nor all-consuming. It is now embedded within a more complex, multi-vector matrix that includes Chinese assertiveness along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) and in the Indian Ocean, the disruptive potential of radicalisation and terrorism with no geographic containment, maritime and cyber insecurities, and climate-driven humanitarian risks. In India we can no longer think in linear terms along lines of traditional threats and must therefore think simultaneously in multiple theatres.

This essay examines the South Asian neighbourhood from an Indian perspective in four domains:-

• The latent and often ignored threats which could surprise us,
• Shifting political and security fault lines, especially in Bangladesh and Nepal,
• The three-front threats India must prepare for,
• The strategic actions India should take to optimise regional dynamics in favour of its long-term interests.

Sri Lanka – Latent Threats and the Balance Between Beijing and Delhi

Sri Lanka’s strategic importance to India is obvious. Its geography places it at the heart of India’s maritime security calculus, its fiscal vulnerability makes it susceptible to external leverage, and its internal security environment has proved more brittle than we could ever appreciate. The April 2019 Easter bombings were a stark reminder that latent threats can erupt with devastating effect, exploiting gaps in intelligence fusion, political incoherence, and societal polarisation which exists in high proportion. Those attacks also demonstrated that South Asian terrorism is a well networked, adaptive phenomenon capable of leveraging global jihadist ecosystems, with or without Pakistani support.

Added to this is the continued existence, however fragmented, of LTTE sympathisers and other remnants, which may not pose a large-scale kinetic threat today, but still represent a latent, transnational capability to mobilise, finance, and disrupt under conducive conditions. India’s counter-terror strategy in Sri Lanka must, therefore, remain intelligence-rich and community-informed, with a focus on financial surveillance, digital radicalisation and maritime intelligence.

Economically, the 2022 crisis ensured that Colombo now recognises India as a critical lender of last resort and a necessary partner in connectivity, energy, and digital integration. India’s play here should not be to “roll back” China (which is neither feasible nor expected), but to create resilient, interoperable, and politically acceptable alternatives. Energy grid integration, the very convenient Indian network of UPI-style payment systems, coastal surveillance networks, and joint domain awareness in the Indian Ocean. These are manageable forms of influence; much less dramatic, but far more durable.

Nepal- The Agniveer Pause, Border Sentiments, and Perennial Hydropolitics

With Nepal, India must acknowledge that avoidable strain has been injected into a relationship already carrying the burden of border disputes, nationalist rhetoric, and perceived asymmetries. The stoppage of Gorkha recruitment under the Agniveer scheme has had a symbolic and material impact. It reduced one of the most time-tested military-to-military linkages and has been perceived in parts of Nepal as a unilateral move that ignored long-standing traditions and bilateral sentiment. Rebuilding confidence here will require institutional creativity, for instance – alternative defence cooperation, scholarships, training slots and employment opportunities.

‘Hydro politics’ remains another underappreciated pressure point. The Kosi River floods in Bihar, a recurring phenomenon with cross-border causes are not merely a disaster management issue. They feed narratives of neglect, mismanagement, and asymmetry, both in Nepal and India’s border states. India must treat flood management, river basin governance, and climate adaptation as central planks of regional diplomacy. Joint monitoring, predictive modelling, floodplain zoning, and transparent data-sharing can yield strategic dividends while repairing political trust.

China’s influence via infrastructure, surveillance, and political outreach will continue to test India’s depth in Nepal. The answer is not reactive nationalism, but proactive, mutually beneficial, visibly fair, and locally-sensitive engagement.

Bangladesh. After the Fall – Radicals, Students, ISI, and India’s Learning Curve

Bangladesh has in the last one year probably emerged to a much higher level of security concern than any other part of South Asia. Sheikh Hasina’s ouster, driven by a coalition of radical extremists, student groups, and crucially, ISI penetration has reshaped Dhaka’s strategic posture towards India. The Bangladesh Army has held the line so far, but the political environment is volatile, susceptible to anti-India narratives, and open to external influence. There are perhaps gaps in our understanding of this in entirety. This gap in understanding needs something beyond just diplomacy to fathom and span.

India’s strategic priority must be to rebuild and broaden the relationship’s social and institutional base. Somehow the Awami League obsession remained an Indian diplomatic comfort. The re-examination and endeavour to rebuild may entail the following: –

• Expanded economic interdependence (power grids, digital payments, trade facilitation, multimodal logistics) for the benefit of both nations,
• Culturally, a conscious effort to make Bangladesh perceive itself an equal,
• Counter-radicalisation collaboration that involves civil society, universities, and tech platforms.
• Narrative correction—investing in local language public diplomacy, Track-II and Track 1.5 engagement, and a policy of non-interference.
• Security cooperation focused on border management, maritime domain awareness in the Bay of Bengal, and joint cyber forensics.

Given the fraught nature of relations and the abrupt changes that occurred on August 5 2024 many of the above proposals sound almost utopian but will need to be kept on course to get a foot in the door.

Bangladesh is no longer just a counter-Pakistan proxy success story; it is a central pillar of India’s eastern strategic depth. A Bangladesh that is either in the paralytic hold of anti-India Islamist forces or tilts opportunistically towards Beijing and Islamabad would dramatically narrow our options on the eastern flank. Bangladesh obviously draws very high priority for us and our approach must not be coloured with a thinking that the entire population has turned against India. There is yet enough room for initiatives and manoeuvre.

Maldives- Symbolism, Strategy, and the Climate Clock

Prime Minister Modi’s visit to the Maldives for the 60th year of its freedom is not just ceremonial optimism; it is strategic positioning. The Maldives sits on the crossroads of the Indian Ocean’s vital sea lanes of communication (SLsOC), and is a canary in the climate coal mine. The political oscillation in Malé—between India-enterprising and China-leveraged postures, demands that India anchor the relationship in projects that demonstrate daily, tangible benefits, rather than episodic, high-visibility commitments.

At the same time, it is climate change that affects Maldives the most. India must start looking seriously and systematically at climate-driven population movements. Sea-level rise and salinisation could generate exodus scenarios in the medium to long term. India’s strategic planning should incorporate contingency frameworks for humanitarian logistics, resettlement diplomacy, and regional climate security compacts.  This is not a “soft” issue, it is a hard national security planning requirement for an India that must secure its maritime approaches and neighbourhood stability.

The Three-Front Threats India Must Now Internalise

• The China–Pakistan Strategic Nexus 2.0.
• A two-front scenario, militarily on the LAC and LoC, and sub-threshold in the cyber, space, and information domains is no longer theoretical,
• CPEC 2.0, PLA naval forays into the Indian Ocean, and Pakistan’s continued reliance on hybrid warfare (terror, disinformation, narco-terror) cohere into a single, multi-domain pressure campaign.
• Maritime + Cyber Convergence in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR).
• The IOR is the decisive chessboard. Chinese submarine deployments, dual-use port infrastructure threaten to compress India’s manoeuvring space,
• Cyber operations targeting Indian critical infrastructure, power grids, financial systems, logistics nodes can paralyse response cycles in a crisis,
• Expect coordinated, deniable cyber disruptions aligned with kinetic signalling on the LoC/LAC or at sea.
• Internal Borderland Instability with External Catalysts.
• Northeast insurgencies, Kashmir’s hybrid conflict, narco-terror supply chains through Myanmar and Bangladesh, and jihadi radicalisation are interlinked by external intelligence facilitation and digital vectors,
• Latent networks like Sri Lanka’s post-2019 extremist cells or LTTE-linked sympathisers can be reactivated opportunistically.

What India Should Do- A Strategic To-Do List for the Decade Ahead

• Convert Economic Leverage into Structural Interdependence
  • Scale power grid interconnections (Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka), UPI exports, cross-border logistics corridors, and regional value chains in textiles, pharmaceuticals, and digital services,
  • Offer predictable, long-horizon credit (with transparent terms) as an alternative to opaque financing to anchor India as the indispensable partner.
• Militarise Smartly, Modernise Jointly
  • Two-front war readiness with integrated theatre commands,
  • Expand defence exports (patrol vessels, radars, small arms, UAVs) to neighbours to create doctrinal and logistical dependencies.
• Own the Indian Ocean with Sensors, Partners, and Lawfare.
  • Extend the coastal radar chain, fusion centres, and white shipping agreements to more IOR states.
  • Practise lawfare and norms-building.
  • Operationalise maritime coalitions with France, Australia, Indonesia, key African littorals and extend this to the Malacca region.
• Bangladesh: Go Beyond the Comfort Zone.
  • Launch a Bangla-language strategic communication initiative to engage the public, academia, and media directly.
  • Prioritise counter-radicalisation programmes, youth entrepreneurship platforms, and joint cyber forensics units with Dhaka.
  • Make connectivity and energy deals politically difficult to dismantle; ones that stick through visible, distributed benefits.
• Nepal: Repair Trust, Reimagine Defence Links.
  • Mitigate the Agniveer issue with new military education, training, and veterans’ welfare mechanisms tailored to Gorkha communities.
  • Treat Kosi flood management as a flagship India–Nepal climate-security initiative, not a technical problem.
• Sri Lanka: Stay Strategic, Not Sentimental.
  • Institutionalise terror finance tracking, joint maritime interdiction, and community-level deradicalisation intelligence exchanges.
  • Keep the economic lifeline open—but channel it into long-term, interoperable platforms (digital, energy, critical infrastructure protections).
• Prepare for Climate-Driven Security Scenarios.
  • Build a Regional Climate Security Compact focusing on humanitarian corridors, disaster logistics interoperability, and anticipatory migration planning.
  • Treat Maldives’ potential exodus as a regional planning challenge, not a bilateral afterthought.

Conclusion

India’s neighbourhood is not slipping away, it is signalling, recalibrating, and waiting to see whether India can be a confident and reliable partner in the digital age. The three-front threats India faces at present are more from a coordinated China–Pakistan nexus, maritime–cyber convergence, and externalised internal insurgencies. These demand a strategy that fuses power with patience, deterrence with development, and dominance with dependability.

The lessons are clear. Latent threats (Sri Lanka 2019) cannot be ignored. Symbolic ruptures (Agniveer and the Gorkha pipeline) must be repaired with imagination. Political upheavals (Bangladesh) call for public outreach not merely elitist diplomacy. Maritime centrality and climate insecurity will increasingly define the strategic horizon and India must plan for population movements as rigorously as it plans for naval deployments.

If New Delhi can convert episodic crisis responses into long-term frameworks of interdependence, resilience, and shared security, it will not only optimise the regional dynamics to its advantage, it will reshape South Asia’s strategic destiny in a century where geography and demography meet technology and climate in unforgiving ways.