By Akhilesh Pillalamarri
India can take advantage of its location to become a major player in Asia.
In a recent article over at Flashpoints, Ankit Panda argues that India ought to play a bigger role in security in the Indian Ocean, its own strategic backyard. I agree. If India wants to be a major geopolitical player in Asia, it needs to leverage its geographic location to its full advantage.
India’s geographic advantages and its role in India’s grand strategy were clearly grasped by Lord Curzon of Kedleston, former Viceroy of India during the British Raj. Lord Curzon understood the geographic advantages of a state that ruled the subcontinent, truths that hold true today for an independent India. In his 1909 essay “The Place of India in the Empire,” he wrote:
It is obvious, indeed, that the master of India, must, under modern conditions, be the greatest power in the Asiatic Continent, and therefore, it may be added, in the world. The central position of India, its magnificent resources, its teeming multitude of men, its great trading harbors, its reserve of military strength, supplying an army always in a high state of efficiency and capable of being hurled at a moment’s notice upon any given point either of Asia and Africa- all there are assets of precious values. On the west, India must exercise a predominant influence over the destinies of Persia and Afghanistan; on the north, it can veto any rival in Tibet; on the north-east and east, it can exert great pressure upon China, and it is one of the guardians of the autonomous existence of Siam. On the high seas it commands the routes to Australia and the China Sea.
Read the full story at The Diplomat