Indian Council of World Affairs

Unidentified Speaker: A very good afternoon to everyone present here. Before we begin, may I request you to kindly put your mobile phones on silent mode please. Thank you. Esteemed panelists, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, it is my privilege to welcome you all to Sapru House for today's panel discussion on Unstable Neighbourhood, Mapping Regime Changes and Political Realignments in South Asia Post 2021. We are honored to have with us a distinguished panel and we are grateful to our esteemed panelists for their graciously accepting our invitation. The program will be as follows. 

We shall commence with the welcome remarks by Ms. Nutan Kapoor Mahawar, Acting Director General and Additional Secretary, ICWA. Today's discussion will be chaired by Ambassador Rakesh Sood, former Ambassador of India to Afghanistan and Nepal. The first speaker will be Professor Sreeram Chaulia, Dean, Jindal School of International Affairs, Director General, Jindal India Institute, OP Jindal Global University, Sonipat. This will be followed by Major General R.S. Yadav, Director, Center for Strategic Studies and Stimulation, United Service Institute of India. Our final speaker of the day is Professor Chintamani Mahapatra, Founder Chairperson of Kalinga Institute of Indo-Pacific Studies and former professor at the Jawaharlal Nehru University. The panel discussion will conclude with a question-answer session moderated by the chair.

With this, may I now invite Ms. Nutan Kapoor Mahawar, Acting Director General, ICWA, to kindly deliver her welcome remarks.

Nutan Kapoor Mahawar: Ambassador Sood, distinguished experts, members of the diplomatic corps, students and friends, welcome to today's panel discussion on Unstable Neighbourhood, Mapping Regime Changes, and Political Realignments in South Asia Post 2021. South Asia today stands at the crossroads of uncertainty and churn. And the global geopolitical turbulence is making its presence felt in South Asia. Lest I say that the upheavals in South Asia have begun to remind us of the tumult that the subcontinent last went through in the last century, beginning nearly 100 years ago when the British Indian Empire saw five partitions as a new book titled Shattered Lands by Sam Dalrymple states, leading to the formation of 12 states, seven in present day South Asia.

Human tragedy encapsulated in catastrophic migrations, mass killings and loot, famines, accompanying these partitions then had got drowned in the din of political independence and foregrounding of religion. As human security took a backseat, as borders that didn't exist earlier were drawn, and as a new map of South Asia emerged. Moreover, during the colonial period, the British were the enemy fighting whom it was thought would result in freedom from oppression. Post-British exit, the situation, however, worsened in many ways, with the enemy becoming unknown, invisible, sometimes appearing as unjustified poverty and hunger, sometimes inflicted disease, sometimes morphing into deeply fractured gender relations, and of course, the continuing oppression from all political, economic, social ills, confusing people totally on whom to fight to defend themselves.

That structural flaw, the dark imbalance at the regional and global level, is now playing out in South Asia. Since 2021 and post-pandemic, the intense and unprecedented global churn currently underway has taken root in South Asia. This turbulence has manifested through a wave of political transitions across almost every country in our neighbourhood. Some transitions have come through electoral churn, others through street protests and popular uprisings, still others through coups, elite bargains, or governance breakdowns. Taken together, these regime changes have not only altered national trajectories, but also reset external alignments, creating ripple effects across the entire region.

What makes our discussion today even more timely is the dramatic turn of events in Nepal in recent days. With the collapse of the Nepalese government, adding yet another layer to the region's volatility. These developments remind us that regime change in South Asia is not an abstraction, but a lived, ongoing, and very current reality, shaping and impacting the lives of people of the subcontinent in real time.

It is also important to note that these recent changes, though they appear abrupt and sudden, have unfolded against a backdrop of long-standing structural challenges afflicting countries of South Asia. Fragile economies, governance deficits, entrenched authoritarian tendencies, cross-border militancy, and humanitarian crises. Added to this is the well-known fact that South Asia is one of the most militarized regions in the world.

It would therefore be naïve to assume that the subcontinent would somehow remain untouched by the global shifts currently underway, as seen in the assertiveness of China, the recalibrations of US engagement, the activism of Gulf powers, Russia's renewed interest, Japan's revising security posture, and a Europe that refuses to give up its colonial mindset and cede control. The outcome has been a neighbourhood more unstable, more contested, and more consequential for India's foreign policy.

To briefly recall, in Afghanistan we see diverse narratives emerging surrounding Taliban 2.0 of increasing stability and improved security being seen simultaneously and paradoxically with no credible demonstration of moderation on issues of inclusivity and women's rights. In Sri Lanka we saw the country plunging into its worst crisis since independence, first economic and then morphing into political, the recovery from which continues to remain slow and painful.

In Pakistan, confrontation among civilian parties, the judiciary, and the military continue unabated with frequent flashpoints. Further, every crisis seems to reaffirm the military's dominance, and this coupled with near financial insolvency, the establishment's soft approach to terrorism, and the rampant radicalization of Pak society.

In Myanmar, the junta continues to face widespread resistance from ethnic armed organizations and people's defense forces, leading to instability and criminal activity with ripples and entanglements abroad. In Bangladesh, under the present interim leadership, the country appears to be moving closer to Islamist forces and external partnerships that pose potential challenges for the region's strategic stability.

In Maldives, while India's cautious approach in face of a government with an anti-India stance helped recalibrate relations and bolster regional security cooperation, Maldivian politics continues to remain highly polarized and vulnerable to external influence. In Nepal, the Gen Z-led protests demanding accountability have ousted the government, leading to an interim administration and dissolution of the house.

In short, uncertainty is writ large on these countries of South Asia today, even as interfaith tensions in the region continue to simmer. For New Delhi, the stakes could not be higher. India's neighbourhood-first policy is built on the vision of a stable, cooperative, and interdependent region. But that vision must constantly adapt to changing realities. Instability in the neighbourhood, as I said earlier, is not an abstraction. It has immediate consequences, whether in the form of refugee flows, economic shocks, cross-border terrorism, or shifting diplomatic alignments.

While moments of transition offer opportunities for India to renew ties, more importantly, it also allows opportunities to India to position itself as a rising global power that can shoulder the responsibility of the Indian subcontinent and its own neighbourhood. For India, this requires nimbleness in immediate crisis response, foresight in long-term strategy, and tight alignment between the two.

Further, the vast differential in India's size, economic strength, and international stature, and that of its small neighbours, casts upon it the responsibility of regional stability, and more importantly, alleviating human insecurity in the subcontinent. What are the pathways available to us towards this end? It is to deliberate upon this that we have curated today's panel discussion on unstable neighbourhood. I look forward to thought-provoking discussions, and I wish the panelists all the best.

Unidentified Speaker: Thank you, ma'am. May I now invite Honorable Chair Ambassador Sood to deliver his opening remarks and conduct the proceedings. Over to you, sir.

Rakesh Sood: Thank you, good afternoon. Let me first thank ICWA for inviting me to chair this session on what I think is an extremely important and relevant subject for us, and I'm delighted that to see a full house that obviously knows that you've chosen an absolutely pertinent subject. I'll be very brief because, like all of you, I would love to listen to the panelists. The Acting Director General, Ambassador Nutan Mahawar, has already spoken about the chain of events that have taken place all around us from 2021, beginning with Myanmar, Afghanistan, 2022 Sri Lanka, 2023, almost something happening in Pakistan till the army intervened very strongly and took charge, 2024 Bangladesh, 2025 Nepal.

Now it would be convenient, I would think, to sort of put all this and blame a foreign hand. We have the representative of the deep state, Professor Mahapatra, a former professor of American studies, to talk about that. But I think that would be somewhat oversimplified because in each of these cases there are specificities, and people who study these countries, and all of you do, I think you will find there are also key differences.

What happened in Afghanistan was a series of follies over 20 years, which then led to the downfall of the government that was there and the return of the Taliban. What happened in Myanmar was 10 years of a gradual democratic experimentation, but then the growing power of the NLD led the military into its crackdown phase. What happened in Sri Lanka was different, but in Sri Lanka we saw that the constitution remained intact. There was nothing extra-constitutional that was done. The prime minister was appointed acting president, his position was approved by the parliament, elections were held, and transfer of power took place to the new president after two years.

So Bangladesh is different. There is an extra-constitutional process taking place there. In Nepal we are still trying to figure out what is happening, but what is happening is quite extra-constitutional. The constitution doesn't provide for the interim government, and plus there has been the dissolution of parliament, which again is protested by all the parties, and I'm sure they'll file cases in the Supreme Court.

Interestingly enough, the army has played a role both in Bangladesh and in Nepal in kind of brokering some kind of an arrangement. And it is interesting because that means that the army has enjoyed a degree of respect as an institution, which perhaps political parties, certainly in the case of Nepal, seem to have lost. Because the disenchantment, while one can say that disenchantment in Bangladesh was against the Awami League and Sheikh Hasina's government. In the case of Nepal it was almost all the main political parties that were uniformly targeted.

A lot of people that I've talked to about events in Nepal also say that the protests began as something against the social media, the ban on social media platforms, and were led by Gen Z, and that's how it has been labelled. But then the following day, the protests were infiltrated by different elements, and that's when the vandalism, burning, scaling of parliament, burning down of parliament, burning down of the Supreme Court, other business houses, and so on, happened. So there are differences, and perhaps we can explore some of these.

One thing is quite clear, that youth has played a part, and I think this is relevant. The youth, or Gen Z, as the label goes, is certainly a very empowered youth, and given today's social media age, and given the extent of mobile telephone penetration in our neighbourhood. But even though it is an empowered generation in that sense, it is not enabled, because if you look at political leadership in all our countries, the leadership is nowhere near Gen Z.

If you look at the average age of MPs in India, it's much higher. We've just celebrated the 75th birthday of our Prime Minister, and most of the leaders that we have in our neighbourhood belong to the over 60 age bracket. But that's also a phenomenon common in the world, I mean, so we don't have to look far at just ourselves. The second thing is that, as the country, as the larger country in South Asia, in terms of population, area, economy, etc., etc., we, in 2014, when Prime Minister Modi came to power, he started with the idea of neighbourhood First, but clearly the neighbourhood First doesn't seem to be working. Any regional platform for the neighbourhood First Sark, we know that is now at a standstill for eight years or more.

And overall, I mean, the neighbourhood seems to be in a fair bit of disarray, as was pointed out. It is natural for us to be wary of involvement of external powers in our neighbourhood. We have always been wary of it, and it's quite natural because we don't know if that involvement will impact our own national interests, security interests. But then if political vacuum comes, if we allow political vacuum to develop in our neighbourhood, then we are certainly tempting involvement of external powers.

So from that point of view, I think it is very clear that we have to look inwards while looking for the external hand or whatever. So looking inwards at this stage, if this is the kind of instability in our neighbourhood, it is something that is absolutely vital, because otherwise we will -- it's very easy to fall into this trap of interventions outside inimical forces and so on.

Last word, you can point fingers at anybody, you can point fingers at China, but then this is also to an extent China's extended neighbourhood or direct neighbourhood. And if our markets are full of Chinese goods, then we can hardly blame Chinese goods for penetrating Nepali market or Bangladeshi market or Sri Lankan market or any other market. It's quite understandable. And that is a new development for us. In the days of the Cold War, it was easy for us to tell all superpowers to stay away.

But when your own neighbour becomes a superpower, how do you insulate yourself from the difficulties that that poses to your foreign relationship? Some of the questions that I hope we can deliberate on today.

So with that, let me invite Professor Sreeram Chaulia, then General Yadav, and then finally Professor Mahapatra. Over to you.

Sreeram Chaulia: Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Chair. Namaste, everyone. It's always great to be in Sapru House, a legendary place, and I fondly recall the last time I was here for the launch of my book, Friends, India's Closest Strategic Partners. So fragility is the phrase that we are hearing, and I want to start with that aspect with South Asian countries. There is a very interesting index compiled by the Fund for Peace called the Fragile States Index, and I urge all of you in the audience to do look it up.

They determine the degree of fragility of a country on the basis of a number of indicators, state legitimacy is one, economic decline, uneven economic development, factionalized elites, group grievances which are usually not addressed, demographic pressures, human rights abuses and so on and so forth. Even external intervention is one factor they use for deciding how to rank countries in terms of fragility.

So 179 UN member states are ranked in this Fragile States Index. And look at the data from 2024, Afghanistan is number seven in the list. Low figure means more fragile, 179 means more stable, one means least stable. So Afghanistan is seven, Myanmar 11, Pakistan 27, Sri Lanka 33, Bangladesh 37, Nepal 57 which looks decent but this is before the turmoil that has just happened. So I am talking about last year's index. They do it on an annual basis. And remember Nepal has had 14 governments in the last 20 years. Just think about it, what is the average age of a single regime? Less than one and a half years or so.

Bhutan, only stable country, 98 looks decent. And because I think the monarchy has had a significant hand in chaperoning the transition to democracy, it has somehow worked. Maldives 107 which looks very healthy. In fact it is ranked better than India on this list. But again that's 2024, and currently stable but volatility comes in cycles in the Maldives as you know. So we can't be sure what will happen especially around elections, the next election.

So this failed, failing or fragile state syndrome is disproportionately there in our neighbourhood. It's not a new phenomenon. You can trace it back to the post-colonial evolution of these countries and there is a weakness of nation building in most of these countries and a failure of democracy. So some people say some of these states are artificial, they have been carved out with people of the same ethnicity across the borders and so there's always legitimacy issues. National identity is fractured, it's not very firm.

Think about Bangladeshi today who is a senior citizen, in one lifetime she has been Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi and has witnessed so many upheavals and even violent upheavals. Ethnic domination of one group over others, this has been a perpetual phenomenon in many of these states. Myanmar, classic example, Bamar versus the ethnic minorities, just to give -- Afghanistan, Pashtun versus the non-Pashtuns. State capture by narrow coteries or militaries, this has been a phenomenon. Unitary polities with not much devolution of power to the regions and not much autonomy in the provinces, this has been an issue.

And this is an important point worth remembering also, lack of well-developed institutions and private sectors that can absorb and cushion the losers of elections. In other words, all the resources are mostly concentrated in and around the state and the state apparatus. So capturing power, holding on to power and denying others power is a matter of life and death. You cannot remit office or you should not want to remit office, come what may, because then the other side will take over and you will lose everything, including possibly your life and liberty. We have seen that in Sri Lanka, for example.

So there's a winner-takes-all type of politics here. This has been, it's like a slow, hemorrhaging kind of situation over decades. And new generations of leaders have not been rising up. Ambassador Sood was talking about the age factor, and this, of course, creates legitimacy issues between the people and the elites. So these are some of the fundamental problems that have been bedeviling our neighbours for a long time. Who to blame for these? I mean, a lot of this has to do with elite failure for nation-building. But you can analyze and then look at more granular details, which we don't have time for.

I'm making a generic statement as to what is ailing the neighbourhood and why these regimes are collapsing, like nine pins. External shocks, before I come to foreign meddling, the 2021 sequence and this rapid dominoes type of effect that has been observed in the neighbourhood may be linked to the double whammy of the pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war and the after effects. Public frustration, grievances have always been there. None of us have perfect democracies.

But snowballing effect of it may be linked because the severe shocks to these sustainable development goals in the poorest parts of the world, including South Asia, are obviously at some point adding to the grievances. And youth unemployment, it's such a simple thing. We all know it's a tinderbox. But the last five years since the pandemic and food insecurity, fuel shortages, these things are like they set the prairie on fire. That's the problem.

The other external shock, of course, is foreign meddling, and that's controversial and hard to often prove these. For example, the US Intervention in Afghanistan obviously ended in a disastrous fashion, as has been mentioned. American hand in the downfall of Sheikh Hasina regime subject to a lot of speculation and we can't be 100% sure. There are also conspiracy theories about India as a big brother and interfering in these smaller countries. You hear this from a lot of factions within these neighbouring countries. Most of it is unsubstantiated and based on their own domestic political constituencies where India becomes a football.

The Chinese BRI and the debt trap have also triggered a lot of meltdowns and collapses. Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Maldives, these are all in hock to China at massive levels and you can see how the debt burden and the debt repayment and the rescheduling and the conditionalities all these add up to severe instability and even rebellions. What you are seeing in Baluchistan, it precedes the BRI and the Chinese push into Pakistan, but the current manifestation of it, that rebellion for example, where the state is completely out of control, there is no writ of the state in this vast region of Pakistan is directly linked to Chinese projects and Chinese loans.

So let me conclude with what is the way forward as Nutanji was also referring to and Ambassador Sood also. I think the Indian model, we are very humble people, we always say that if others ask us for help, then we give it. We don't go out as missionaries saying ours is the best model, but I think there is a reasonable case to make that the Indian model, stable and legitimate polity, natural nationhood where there is a general sense of belonging to one nation despite the diversities, constitutionalism.

We have not changed a single constitution. All these countries we are talking about, they have run through like four, five, six constitutions. Every five or ten years you have a new constitution being written, federalism, multi-ethnic coexistence, management of diversity, tolerance and accommodation and a booming economy. We are also blessed with that, unleashing the entrepreneurial spirits of young people, creating that private sector which is often lacking in a lot of these smaller countries around our peripheries.

So India is a template and it offers a solution for the ills of the neighbours, but what happens, they are very prickly about this fact. You see what happened with Sri Lanka with the federalism idea. We kept pushing 13th Amendment, 13th Amendment, 13th Amendment and they kept stalling, stalling, stalling. The war is over but the conflicts continue there along ethnic lines. So we walk the talk in terms of living these ideals through a relatively robust and accommodative democracy, but others think that we should, you know, India should not impose its model, but I think there is a reason why I think the facts speak for themselves for the stability of India vis-a-vis these fragile states.

So export or learning of Indian best practices in some form or the other have to happen. We have been a little bit coy about these things in the past. We say we don't impose or we don't interfere, but I think there is a case to be made and many elites as well as ordinary people in these countries themselves on the ground accept the fact that when India is able to manage its problems, why are we failing? So I am not bragging about this. I am simply stating a matter of fact, a relative matter of fact.

Physical connectivity of India with the neighbours is not enough. We have been doing a lot of it with Bangladesh, for example, last 15 years. Physical connectivity railroads, waterways, shipping and corridors and this and that, great. But I think what we are missing is ideational and values-based connectivity between India and its neighbours. Without being meddlesome, we will need to do more ideational and values-based connectivity. Of course, this doesn't mean that will solve the problems, every country has a lot of complex internal dynamics. The mess in most of these countries is internal. Of course, sometimes it can be, like we said, exploited by geopolitical competition of major powers from outside.

So to find the way out of the quagmires, each of these countries has to grapple and struggle and find consensus internally. There is no doubt about it. But external assistance can help and external ideas and models can help. And Sri Lanka, for example, has relatively stabilized and recovered economically since the fall of the Rajapaksas in 2022. Indian financial assistance, Indian policy assistance, very critical for Sri Lanka to get back on its feet. USD 4 billion is not peanuts for a developing country to lend to another developing country when they have a severe microeconomic crisis.

So we have done that before. And all I'm saying is that, we will need to find ways and means. We are very good at capacity building and trainings and these sort of things. And we do it, actually, discreetly. We do it for a lot of neighbouring countries, the civil society groups, NGOs, journalists, media professionals, social media influencers. Even these Gen Z, we are engaging with them. And we often bring them to India or we take our experts to those countries. In a softer way, we try to build those capacities there, which can lead to cohesion, unity and stability. But it's not always in our hands.

So I'll just close there and throw out the idea that ideational connectivity or values-based connectivity is something we should be a little more proactive in my view, instead of just sitting back and saying, unless that government asks for it, I will not do anything. I think we need to be a little more, I don't want to use the word pushy, but more assertive because that's how a big power can shape its neighbourhood. Non-intervention is good, we don't do it. I mean, there are some politicians in this country say India is interfering in the elections and fixing elections behind the scenes and all. We never do that. This is all bogus conspiracies, theories. But there are different ways in which we can build constituencies that ultimately will see value in the Indian model. Thank you.

Rakesh Sood: Thank you, Professor Chaulia. I think the Indian model and how we strike the right balance between promoting it and not being assertive that's a tough balance. But let's listen to General Yadav. Over to you.

S Yadav: Thank you, Ambassador Sood, and thank you to ICWA for getting me over. I've been largely tasked in the concept note to speak about the strategic competition at the global level, and what are the policy options for India, especially relating to its neighbourhood. So, before I speak on these particular aspects, let me make three statements to you. 

First, it's a reality that the world is interconnected. The intensity has increased manifold. The depth and avenues of connectivity are so deep that they are difficult to monitor and interpret. So, therefore, whether they take the name of intelligence failure, or whether to not to read things correctly, or remaining confused is part of the game.

The second thing which I want to say is that the analysts across the globe are saying that we are transiting towards multi-polarity. But not very many as yet are talking about the, if I may use that word, great game has started to stem this tide, is not being talked about much, but it is taking shape on ground which I shall dwell upon.

The third aspect is when we talk about neighbours, are all the happenings in the neighbourhood, in the neighbouring countries happening because of India, or they are happening because of endemic reasons in those countries, or outside interference has to be correctly interpreted, because that should be actually forming the basis of Indian policy and not otherwise. Otherwise, we go wrong by acting big brotherly, which was just referred to. It should not be taken that way because each country these days is on a equal platter.

So having said that, let me first take you at the global level that how I, in my personal opinion, see things. I think post-World War II, the structure at the global level which was established was favoring a particular side, though both the sides during the cold war seemed equally balanced. The game commenced soon after 1991 that once USSR got demolished, there was quick action thereafter to nimble away with all the fragments which came out of the USSR, and the thing reached a stage where Ukraine came to the forefront.

So it's a house divided, whether it is over-assertiveness of Russia or whether Russians were forced into it. At the moment, what is going on is that there was an anticipation with Trump 2.0 that because of his good understanding of his first tenure, he might be able to get Putin around, but that seemed to have failed after the Alaska meeting, and a lot of pressure is now being put on Russia to come around or to put them down. Let's see what happens.

The aspect which needs to be also taken care of that the contest has begun, so okay, I'll cover that point slightly later. The second thing is about Middle East. This is another area which is resource-rich and capital-rich, and these countries would always be looking for a lot of infrastructure to come up, so it's a very ripe area to be kept control over. So the point which was creating problems all along since 1948 has been the Palestine issue because it has kept the house divided.

The locals, whether they want to support the Palestine or otherwise, the effort of the West now seems to be that the Palestine issue needs to be somehow subdued because if that happens, then everybody comes around because the things have already started in a way of Abraham Accords and IMEC and all those particular things, and as we are seeing, the things are happening, that the Palestine issue is being not talked about much. The two-state solution is being talked about, but how many supporting it, and have we really seriously done anything about it over the last 70, 80 years is to be considered that which side are we progressing.

China needs to be curtailed because it is emerging as a contestant, and therefore, what is happening in the Western Pacific is in front of everybody, that every effort is being made that they remain contained. The thing which happened was that India, which was being talked about by some as the tilting power, is the question mark because India was a favored partner with the US and the West to contain China. But because of the strategic autonomy, we are not being -- or the West doesn't feel that any longer. And therefore, it has to be kept in a state that it cannot exert itself fully.

So therefore, what is happening in South Asia is this part of the larger game because both sides are having it. China wants a China-centric Asia. US wants to maintain control over the globe. And therefore, the forces acting on India are from two different sides. BRICS is under pressure, NATO and EU. The complete security scenario or the load of the security across the globe was on the US. Seeing that there could be problems in the future in form of China or in form of Russia or maybe certain other areas, the military strength, which has become the currency of today's state of dealing with things, there was a need to increase the military power.

So whether the pressure by the US on the European countries and the NATO countries to increase their budget to 5% is to increase that overall power of the West is also a factor to be considered because once Europe is able to take care of itself, US becomes free to look at larger things across the globe. India, as I've already said, now coming to the factor which was there, is China-Pak collusion. It has come out very clearly that a lot of inventory of Pakistan is of the Chinese origin. China did support them fully and outrightly, which came out during Apsandur. But what was the sudden change that the US has stepped in.

So this particular thing also needs to be taken care of that Pakistan has been an opportunist. It has not tried to develop over the last 70, 80 years. It has to keep itself afloat and it is liable to be manipulated. So it can swing. If you see the difference, if I may put it that way, that China has been totally transactional with Pakistan, whether it is CPEC or otherwise, whereas the West would do anything to keep it under its fold, as it has been doing in the past. 

So now the requirement of Pakistan once again comes up because Afghanistan has gone away, Taliban is going to stay there, and this remains a strategic piece of ground. So whether Pakistan will be required for anything against Iran. Whether it will be required for doing anything against Afghanistan or whether it forms part of the containment of China and also India, it becomes important to the West and therefore this is what is happening. 

Now coming to the options for India. Now if we see at the macro level there are basically two options. One is the option which we have been following for last about two, three decades is continue with the West but whether it is giving us dividends. There has been nothing very special which has happened in the last 20 years about our comprehensive national power, more so the military thing, that which has made any difference and we have been kept hanging at number of times. 

Now and the related thing is that if we continue to be with the West, is our security problems or are our security problems which are hanging on our borders going to be reducing or they will continue to be the same or they will be ever increasing. So there is another option which ought to be thought about that if we have to develop as Viksit Bharat by 2047, 22 years later then we ought to be reducing this baggage. There has to be an alternate philosophy for it and I think the alternate philosophy is to bring peace to our neighbourhood and our immediate people around us on our periphery. 

So whether this new thing which has come up, it is not new, it has been there and talked about for quite some time but it has suddenly gained this thing is RIC, Russia, India, China. So all the three people are under pressure of the West at the moment. India definitely is not going to form any alliance as such, but if these three people come together at this particular point of time in the global geopolitics, it can stem the tide possibly and may change the course the globe is taking. But India, because things are not certain on both the sides, we are not certain about the West and we are not certain about China, therefore we ought to be adopting a balanced approach as of now so that we do not get unhinged. 

As regards the regional level, so regional level I am talking about in the form of organizations, the BRICS, SCO, G20, Global South, I think India is coming up in stature. It is also coming up economically. It has come up on a value-based system. So therefore, it is gaining traction. India needs to proceed on those particular lines to have its say there. 

South Asia, I have already made the point that while all the neighbours are important, but our pockets are not that deep to contest the Chinese or the Western inputs. So we ought to be more balanced in the thing that we ought to see what is the local sentiment in these countries and go for it and not bank on a particular individual like we have gone wrong in the past, that whether we just wanted to bank on the king, monarchy, or the communist, we left out communist, we left out the military junta in the east, we left out everybody else apart from Shaikh Hasina, and therefore there were problems, so we need to balance it out. 

And the most important thing which should be taken care of, that the way things are in India, I think there is a little bit of volatility which is there, the societal schism is there. So while we keep everything, we are doing well on most of the fronts, we also need to take measures that we keep things under good control in India because that is the most weak part which can be exploited. I think I'll rest my case here. Thank you, sir. 

Rakesh Sood: Thank you. Mr. Mahapatra.

Chintamani Mahapatra: Thank you, ICWA, thank you, Nutanji. Thank you, Anwar Shah, for this opportunity. I wanted to say something else, but since Ambassador Sooth said I'm the representative of the deep state, I'm going to talk about the deep state. For the last 45 years, I've been a student of the American affairs, 45 years. Now when I wrote my thesis, I broke my neck in the American archives, and the thesis was about how to intervene in the elections in the Philippines to make Magsaysay the president of the United States.

Now much later, when I wrote my first article, which was published in the India Quarterly in the 80s, for 20 years, the Americans supported Marcos, Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines, and when they fell out, there was people's power, a kind of protest in Manila, and that led to a regime change in the Philippines. In the 1980s, Chun Doo-hwan of South Korea, how systematically the US played a role in the regime change in South Korea, that was my second article, which was published in London, Macmillan Publishers and all that. 

Manuel Antonio Noriega, the president of Panama, was in the CIA payroll, and later, when he fell out with the CIA, the US government picked him up from the housetop, brought him to Florida, tried him in the court of law, and put him in the jail. These are all regime changes. So I would say that talking about external intervention in the regime changes in the developing world is not hallucination. There are documentary evidences given by the Americans. One thing I love about America is if you really want to know them, they're so open, go and work in their archives. We know about the archival situation in Europe and elsewhere, how close they are or how open they are. 

So now in South Asia, whether it was internally generated regime change in Nepal, in Bangladesh, in Sri Lanka, or there were elements of external intervention as well is the big question mark. We can talk about the role of the youth. We can talk about the economic crisis, unemployment, inflation, and the people become disgusted with the so-called elite, not able to deliver economically. They give all kinds of reasons, maybe the pandemic, maybe whatever. Yes, then we talk about the role of social media. If the social media would not have been there, would it have been possible for this kind of state demonstrations? There was a role there. 

But if you see the broader picture, then nothing is completely internal. There are major powers which have been trying to play all kinds of game around the world. Some people say great game. Some are not so great game, but they're always there. Being an Indian, I know how many foreign powers came and ruled over us for about a thousand years plus. The British, the French, the Portuguese, the Mongols and the Mughals and the Turks, who did not come to this part of the world, they came.

So we are just about roughly about 80 years old as an independent country. So now let us see how the foreign countries play a role in the regime change. Now if you link it up, I'm just conceptualizing, it's difficult to give you documentary evidence about the foreign hand. But even then, let me say another thing, it's not just the United States of America intervening everywhere in the world and trying to be a dictator of the globe, no. In the 1980s, when the China specialists in India were debating, China is 40% socialist or 50% now, they're inviting MNCs that time.

I was working in the IDSA and I took a look at what the Chinese are really doing in our borders in South Asia. Then I wrote two articles which became new scope. One was on Nepal, how the Nepalese government official would come to India, talk to the people in the MEA and request them to build roads. The MEA official will say MEA, does not build roads. Go and talk to the private companies. The private companies would say, it is not profitable. Sorry, we cannot do it. The Chinese embassy, with a big red gate at the embassy, now the color has changed, would be watching all these developments. 

The same guy would be invited to Beijing. They would sign an agreement to build roads, patch by patch. They build the roads. And by early 80s, straight from Lhasa up to the Terai region in India, super highway. When that article was released by the strategic analysis, next day there was a big news, which I did not know. Nobody knew. 60 truckloads of weapons coming from China to Nepal. So there was a China hand. 1980s, again, mid-80s, Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was in Moscow. General Arshad from Bangladesh went to Beijing. He signed an agreement saying that in the next round of Sino-Indian War, Bangladesh would not allow the movement of Indian troops through Bangladeshi territory. How many people knew it? Was there any news? No. How did I come to know about it? 

Let me tell you my secret. Those days, Far Eastern Economic Review was published. In every issue, on page 12, there was an intelligence column. There were 12 or 13 lines on that. I wrote a 4,000 words article on that. China has been involved, not now. Not when they expect to become super power, from the 1980s, soon after the reforms began. So it is not only the American hand, but also China hand. So how did it happen? Let me tell you. 

First, there will be propaganda. This government is violating human rights, torturing people. People are getting kidnapped. A lot of reports will appear in the local media, in the international media. Then funds will be given to the opposition parties and opposition groups in small, small countries, if they want to change the regime. And then there will be political pressure. The pressure would come, maybe openly or maybe quietly, maybe talking to the ambassador, saying that you should have a no-confidence motion there.

This would happen in case of Imran Khan. How the Pakistani ambassador was told in Washington, DC, there should be a no-confidence motion. Things are engineered, but you cannot see things in black and white. But things do happen. And after that, there could be military action. It could be a military coup, or it could be military intervention, the way it happened in Afghanistan and all. And finally, of course, there could be economic coercion to change the regimes and all.

Now, if you see what happened in India's neighbourhood recently, and we want to link it up with a big picture, without any evidence that I can give to the journalist or to the court of law, let me tell you. At the moment, a kind of competition, rivalry, is deeply taking place between the USA and China, between the existing superpower and the aspiring superpower in a very big way. Innumerable American documents openly say China is our main rival. And the similar documents will say the US will never tolerate the rise of a superpower and being a rival to the United States.

So how it is happening? What are the American goals that I imagine. This is imagination, is not real. Number one, because of the competition between the US and China, number one, the US would like to contain the spread of Chinese influence in Southeast Asia and East Asia as much as possible. To do that, the US would like to weaken the governments which are inching closer towards Beijing. And number three, the US would try to seek military footholds, in the region. Of course, they maintain the two largest overseas bases in the Philippines. After the Cold War, they closed it down. They are again going back to the Philippines.

In South Asia, when there was news about the St. Martin, where the Americans wanted a base, even the Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina herself said, they demanded there should be a base. And it was not given. And the Americans would not like it. And then a country like India, which will talk about strategic autonomy and would not like any kind of military bases or alliances, they would try to look for bases in the neighbourhood, maybe in Bangladesh, maybe in Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka is so strategically important. Why not have a foothold there?

And then, of course, they will try their best to expand the US influence in this part of the world. This is the game. I'll take two minutes, maybe less than two minutes, and just to conclude, because the topic is different. Now, if there are regime changes in Southeast Asia, what are the Indian concerns? I'll not make full sentences because of lack of time. The Indian concerns, number one, you can see anti-India sentiments in almost all the neighbouring countries. Number two, I don't see, maybe I'm wrong, but I don't see any anti-China sentiments in any of those countries.

Number three, the instability in the neighbourhood can lead to forced migration. The experience we had during the 1971 war, we have to rethink about that. Number next, growing presence of China in the neighbourhood  will have long-term serious consequences for India. And US-China rivalry, you can see in some countries. In other places, the India-China rivalry. If we see from the domestic internal dynamics, some people will be pro-India, some people will be anti-China, and some kind of things happening there. My main worry is Pakistan, Bangladesh, China, possibly Nepal. If they have a new axis, it will go against India's interest.

Finally, some kind of soul searching for India. Number one, let us think very hard. Whether the role of the first responder to all kinds of crisis taking place in the neighbourhood, has it helped India? Number two, the large-headed, generous assistance that we would like to give to our neighbours without expecting anything, has it been successful? Even in announcing India's soft power, what should be the narrative to counter anti-India sentiments in this part of the world? Because other countries are systematically trying to promote anti-India sentiments, anti-India narrative in the neighbourhood. Should India go alone? The strategic autonomy? Or we should develop some kind of willing coalitions to handle the situation taking place in the neighbourhood. If we really want to become a major power, we need to do all these things.

And finally, it's very important for every country, not just India, how to regulate the social media. It is becoming a misguided missile. Thank you for your attention.

Rakesh Sood: Thank you. I think we've had some very interesting propositions put forward by the panelists, so now the floor is open. Just raise your hand, identify yourself, and ask your question. We'll take about three questions in each group. Yes, please.

Ashish Shukla: Thank you, sir. Ambassadors who talked about differences in these countries, my point is, I'm Ashish Shukla, IDSA. My point is, is there a common thread connecting developments in the region? Professor Chaulia and Professor Mahapatra, both of them mentioned some of the issues that were common. However, there is a need, in my understanding, to study these issues in detail to arrive at some conclusion.

I may be wrong, but we should not be simply brushing these issues aside by saying that these are the things, these are the issues that were present all the time. The beauty of social sciences is that here we study human behavior, and human behavior changes. So we should always think how people respond in different periods of time on these issues. So that is very, very important. Another issue, Professor Mahapatra talked about external intervention. If we were to give too much weight to this theory, then we have to also introspect. We consider South Asia as a strategic backyard or a sphere of influence. Were we caught off guard? What we were doing when these things were happening? Thank you.

Unidentified Participant: Thank you very much. A very interesting discussion so far. I have just two brief questions, very simple ones. You have all referred to the various problems. What is missing is the solution. Is there any specific policy that India should adopt in its neighbourhood to try and make sure that our interests are secured? That is the first question. And as a part of that question, and that is my second one, would it not be more realistic if India looked at the neighbourhood, maybe for the time being leaving Pakistan out, to establish what I would call a regional economic arrangement, where the Indian market would be open to the whole of South Asia. We already have that in common where Nepal and Bhutan are concerned. It is a question of extending it to the entire neighbourhood. So this is the point.

The first point is, let me make it very clear, from 1954, India effectively accepted that China is now a neighbour of South Asia. When we signed that agreement with China on Tibet and specifying it as the Tibet region of China. That's how the treaty is. So China is very much there. And as you all mentioned, we cannot beat China as far as the resources are concerned. So will an economic relationship satisfy our interest?

Unidentified Participant: Thank you. My question is for Professor Mahapatra. So I would like to know your thoughts on speculations about US-led regime change in Iran.

Rakesh Sood: About regime change where?

Rakesh Sood: Okay, I think three questions. So we can start from that side this time.

Chintamani Mahapatra: I think, sir, your suggestions about the markets, that's a good idea. How best to promote economic interdependence between India and our neighbouring countries. That could be one of the best ways to promote positive image, positive views about India in the neighbourhood. And number two, about Iran. In 1953, the Mossadegh government was removed by CIA. It is admitted by the Americans. 1979, when the Islamic Revolution took place, grand, grand failure of the American presence in Iran, which was a soft underbelly of the former Soviet Union. Soft underbelly. And all the American military bases and intelligence posts were removed from Iran.

From 1979 until today, Iran is still under sanctions. It is an American dream to change the regime in Iran. Periodically, they've been trying to do it. They're supporting all kinds of anti-government forces there. And as and when there is a spark, they would even support the opposition groups there. There are overseas Iranians. They're also being factored into it. But when I talk about the foreign intervention, they don't succeed all the time. They're not God. They failed miserably.

And without spending too much time, let me tell you the USA did not win the Korean War. The USA lost the Vietnam War. The USA, after 20 years of involvement in Afghanistan, went back. Taliban returned to power. In Cuba, they've not been able to change the regime from the beginning. These are all dreams. But they don't succeed. In Iran, it is a tough game for the Americans.

Sreeram Chaulia: Okay, I'll just take up the interesting question. Is there a common thread connecting all the South Asian countries? So yeah, it's about a level of analysis. Sometimes people do very ethnographic studies of individual countries. And then they say, no, no, the dynamics in Maldives is different from Sri Lanka, which is different from Myanmar, different from Bangladesh, different from Bhutan, or Nepal, or Afghanistan, or Pakistan. I think if you take South Asia as a whole and look at that as the unit of observation, there are common factors. I outlined many domestic fragilities and weaknesses in these countries.

And if you look at what is common, actually, is the fact that most of us came out of British colonial rule. At least that is a fact. And then the evolution varied significantly, political institutions, political culture, all these changed. So if you start with that notion that we are all these post-colonial nations that have some inherent weaknesses, then you can do a macro-level analysis of all of them and see similarities and differences.

So I'm not giving a clear non-committal type of response, but it depends on how you want to analyze it, it's the eyes of the beholder. Was India caught off guard? That was another interesting question. If there is a lot of foreign meddling with, my own view is some of these events, they cascade and snowball, and it's beyond anyone's capacity. I mean, look at what happened in 1989, 1990, 1991. They were like a whole galaxy of criminologists, and Sovietologists, and Russophiles in Western academia and in think tanks.

Majority of the funding used to go into studying Russia and the Russian sphere of influence in Eastern Europe and Central Asia and all. None of them saw the collapse of the Balkanization of the Soviet Union. Very few of them. The people writing articles as late as 1990 and 1991 talking about the Soviet threat in the 21st century, and the Soviet Union itself collapsed. So I think sometimes there's an unpredictability to social phenomena which no intelligence agency can fully grasp. People say, and this is all hearsay, oh, our agencies knew long ago that this regime would collapse.

But frankly, what is the assessment? Of course, we are not privy to classified assessments. I think we have a sense that these are fragile and could crumble. But the exact time or the exact manner in which they will crumble, these mass protests, mobocracy, what we are seeing is kind of like a mobocracy. I mean, this is also now becoming a common phenomenon. So next time you see 50,000 to 1 lakh or 2 lakh people being mobilized, you can be sure that something is afoot and something might just crumble. But I think agencies also correct their lenses ex post facto.

So I think we can't be too critical about whether we were sleeping at the wheel or caught off guard. But I think information is always dicey and piecing it together and then coming up with a conclusion. Always you can make mistakes and errors and we are human.

S Yadav: I'd like to comment on Ambassador Malik's thing with regard to that. What is the way out? I think we also have to understand that what are we contesting with our neighbours? The first thing is the internal aspirations, but the larger issue is that issue is that we are, in case we want to have an impact in our neighbouring countries, we would be contesting with the US and China. If that is the comparison, then actually our hands are very tight.

The problem which I sometimes feel is that while India pitches itself a little above its weight, is pitching itself above its weight. On one side, we are at the top of the first world like missile technology and space and all those particular things, but on the other side, I think we are still emerging out of the third world countries. So whether we have that heft to control everything and do everything, that is a problem.

So therefore, all our regional experiments have over a period of time failed. So whether it was SAARC, whether it is BIMSTEC, whether it is BBIN, whether it is anything, they have not got traction because of certain weakness inherent that we cannot carry the whole load on our shoulders. What I feel is that the way things are panning out, it is better to act bilaterally. Maldives, within a matter of, say, a year plus, they started on an India out plank, but they realised that there is something wrong and they will not be able to sustain, so they have come around.

Sri Lanka, that they were being ruled by a particular dynastic order, but the moment the changes have taken place, they also are in a state of realisation that we have to be equally balanced with China. So I personally feel that the current times are not going to have any success in case we were to launch any regional this thing or reactivate anything, but better to be bilateral, I think. Thank you, sir.

Rakesh Sood: Thank you. Any further questions? Yes.

Aditi Shukla: Good evening, everyone. Myself, Aditi Shukla. I am here on behalf of TICE. And my question is, with Pakistan and Saudi Arabia signing a mutual defence pact, what could be the implications on India's security and diplomacy, and how should New Delhi adapt to its strategy and maintain stability in the region? Thank you.

Rakesh Sood: That was not the subject. You have another question? No?

Joel: Good evening to all the panelists. I am Joel from St Stephen's College. Referring to the Doha Accords signed between the United States and the Taliban, rather a nation-state and a nation-state actor. What sort of a precedent does that set for a very volatile South Asian region currently, especially with regards to India, given that India has had a very eventful history with non-state actors and violent non-state actors?

Unidentified Participant: Shripati, if the chair will permit me to ask two questions. One, sir, how much of any discourse on regime change and discourse in IER becomes a bandwagoning and an echo chamber, stitching up things that may not or may not have happened? Yes, Professor Chintamani did mention about regime change in the past, but whenever there's an upheaval, should we always bring out the ghost of the past and say there's a foreign hand or a regime change and why not just call it politics of the day and be done with it?

Second question, how much of such upheavals, whether it be like using a meteorological phase, once in a decade event, once in a century, once in a millennium, or an economic cycle, how much of these are inherent cyclical? If you take in South Asia, in the 70s we had a phase of instability. Today we are 50 years from that. In 1971 you had the start of the JVP insurgency in Sri Lanka, the first phase, which also gave birth to the militant phase of Tamil politics in Sri Lanka. In the 70s you had the rise of…

Rakesh Sood: We know that, come to the question. We know the history.

Unidentified Participant: So in that sense, how much of it is just plain and simple cyclical of a generation and politics playing its way out? Thank you.

Rakesh Sood: One last question, anybody? Yeah, at the back.

Mohammed Hadi: Hello everyone, my name is Mohammed Hadi and I am working as a research intern here. Sir, my question is, sir has said that there have been anti-India campaign in neighbouring countries but not anti-China. Sir, can't we say that we have our own shortcomings in dealing with the opposition parties like BNP? We have ourselves created political or foreign policy vacuum to deal with it. Thank you, sir.

S Yadav: So I think I'll respond to the first girl who asked this question about defence agreement between this thing. I was a defence attaché in Saudi Arabia in 2007-10. You must understand that there are certain underlying things. The US and the West kept the entire Middle East at a sub-optimal level as far as military power is concerned. The highest formation they have is a brigade and their doctrine says that during any attack from outside, just hold on till outside forces come.

What I mean to give from this is that when Saudi Arabia makes an agreement with Pakistan, it is they cannot provide anything meaningful, they can provide capital for procurement of weapon systems or maybe funding a particular project or maybe what we have been talking in the past is the Islamic nuclear bomb. You must have read the article today morning, very, very outlandish, that Pakistan-Israel conflict, and Saudi Arabia being made part of this particular agreement just because they want to keep Saudi Arabia outside the BRICS or maybe on the margins of that particular thing. These are ideas.

So if they have signed a particular thing between them, one thing which I can say is that the Muslim aspect or that religious aspect that they have been maintaining close ties, so if they have signed a particular agreement, it could be the need of Pakistan today that in case it fears that it has to build up capacity and all against India or something of that, it might be getting something from there. And that's about all. To read too much into it as of now, I think it will not be correct. Thank you.

Sreeram Chaulia: I will just take up the question about violent non-state actors being validated by external powers, Doha Accords, Americans effectively handed over the country to Taliban before packing their bags and leaving. And there are other examples. Even we have burnt our fingers by supporting the LTT in the 1980s, you know that, in Sri Lanka. But on the other hand, there have been like great successes also like 1971, we also supported the Mukti Bani, which ultimately could liberate Bangladesh from Pakistani clutches. So it is a mixed record.

I think historically regime changes through external interventions have involved these kind of pacts or deals with rebel groups or guerrillas from outside financing, diplomatic support, moral support. And as per international law, you can argue that, it's a violation of the state sovereignty. But then, on the facts on the ground are many of these groups are powerful and states find them to their national interest to support them in some form. If we are now even engaging with a lot of the ethnic armed insurgent groups in Myanmar.

In the past, we used to say that, no, no, we'll only deal with whoever is in Naypyitaw or in Yangon, right. But now we are dealing with the reality is 50% or more of the country is outside the control of the military now. So we have to be also pragmatic. So not always is it sinister. Sometimes, for national interest, we have to deal with it. But yes, a point well taken that it is a form of meddling, in some form or the other, from a pure state sovereignty or international law point of view.

Chintamani Mahapatra: There are four questions, very briefly. One is very tempting. Why read the past? Why bring the past? I'll not go into the details. I can give a long lecture on this. Give you one example. In the early 1990s, after the end of the Cold War, I spent a few months in Washington, DC. Got an opportunity to talk personally with American Admiral Stanford Turner, who was the CIA director under President Carter, I think.

Now, he said that he was teaching a course on Peloponnesian War for one semester. I said, one war fought 5,000 years ago, and one semester course? He said, yes. Why don't you come to my class, one class, and see how important it is? He talked about a debate between the Athenians and the Spartans, and the main points. Then he asked, is there anything that the Athenians and the Spartans discussed, and we don't debate in the US war colleges now? To apply for a job also, you need a bio data. That is your background. If you miss history, you'll miss many more things. History may not repeat 100%, but learning is very, very important from history.

Then about the shortcomings of India. Of course, we have so many shortcomings. Now, without again going into the details, one example I'll give. After Operation Sindoor, we sent so many parliamentarians to 30-plus countries. Did we send anyone to the neighbouring countries? Believe me, in Nepal, they have the Reddit that's against social media. And many people in Nepal were saying, why should we support India? We didn't even do any research on that. So it is necessary that we have to find out our own shortcomings in the neighbourhood and try to rectify it.

On Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, if what is reported is correct, that attack on one will be considered as an attack on other, it is disturbing. Also because there is another news where Pakistan broke the idea of an Arab-Islamic world NATO type of organization. Pakistan is trying to make it relevant to that part of the world, as we are isolating them in any way. And secondly, after what happened in Iran and the bombing and the Israel and Iran war, how the Islamic countries are looking at it. And of course, Gaza whatever is going on. So we have to do more research and analysis on that and that will be useful for India.

And finally, on your Doha issue, there are many countries who talk to not only the government but also the NGOs. Now it is all part of pragmatic politics, real politics that people and countries have to do once in a while. But if you see literally, and as a scholar, then of course it is very disturbing that you created a government in Kabul, did not even bring them to the negotiating table, you talked to the NGOs, and then you planted them as the government. That's very unfortunate. Thank you.

Rakesh Sood: Thank you. I think we have gone well over our time, so I'm not going to try to sum up or make any concluding remarks, but only to thank the panelists and all of you for having made this an enriching conversation. Thank you very much.

Unidentified Speaker: Thank you, sir. As we draw close to the very, very stimulating discussion, it is my privilege to propose the vote of thanks on behalf of ICWA. I would first like to convey our deepest gratitude to the Chair, Ambassador Rakesh Sood, and our esteemed panelists, Professor Sreeram Chaulia, Major General Yadav, and Professor Mahapatra, for their insightful presentations on today's panel discussion. I also extend my sincere thanks to our invited guests for their presence and insightful engagement in the discussion.

My appreciation goes to the leadership of ICWA, in particular Ms. Nutan Kapoor Mahawar, Acting Director General, and Dr Nivedita Ray, Director Research, for their constant support and guidance. I would also like to acknowledge the efforts of my colleagues, especially the South Asia cluster, as well as the ICWA administration for their invaluable contribution in organising this event. With this, we come to the conclusion of today's program. Thank you all once again for joining us. I now invite you all for high tea in the foyer. Thank you.

*****

List of Particpants

1. Smt. Nutan Kapoor Mahawar, Acting Director General and Additional Secretary, ICWA 
2. Amb. Rakesh Sood, Former Indian Ambassador to Afghanistan and Nepal (Chair)
3. Prof. Sreeram Chaulia, Dean, Jindal School of International Affairs & Director General, Jindal India Institute, O.P. Jindal Global University, Sonipat
4. Maj Gen R. S Yadav (Retd.), Director, Centre for Strategic Studies & Simulation, United Service Institution of India
5. Prof. Chintamani Mahapatra, Founder Chairperson, Kalinga Institute of Indo-Pacific Studies, Former Professor at JNU