Studying Borders and Geopolitics in South Asia: Key Issues, Theories, and Lessons

This chapter focuses on four key issues. First, the concepts of closed border, porous border, and open border define India’s relations with Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nepal, respectively. Second, regional and sub-regional cooperation and energy trade show the interplay between geopolitics and geoeconomics. The Afghanistan and Sri Lanka cases have brought ethnicity to the forefront of border and geopolitical discourse. Third, South Asian border communities are the ‘victims’ of colonial partition politics and arbitrary border drawing. Fourth, nation-states competing against each other has been a recurring theme in the book. Theoretically speaking, while the individual chapters have found relevance in the realist, liberal, and constructivist perspectives, gender has emerged as a new and powerful lens in understanding borders and geopolitics in South Asia. Finally, policy lessons would vary for landlocked states, maritime states, and those confronting geoeconomic and geocultural compulsions.