ABSTRACT
The opening chapter of this book relates the sub-continent of South Asia to other continents through a discussion of geology and plate tectonics. Most of the rest of the book concentrates discussion on South Asia itself, although external factors such as the invasion of Mohammed Ghori, or of the first Mughal Babur, or the advent of the British and their subsequent pre-occupation with the North-West Frontier, are reminders of the significance of the relationships between South Asia and the outside world. This chapter looks at how the international relationships of South Asia have developed in the years since Independence. The word ‘international’ here subsumes two different kinds of relationships: those between the South Asian states themselves, and those between South Asian states and countries outside the region. Until the last moments of the Raj, the British had mostly managed to contain any difficult regional relationships between the parts of their Indian Empire. They were, however, concerned with the political, military and economic relationships between India (South Asia) and the outside world. They had more or less succeeded in keeping other external powers at bay, although they perpetually saw a bogey in the guise of Imperial Russia and later of post-revolutionary Russia in the northwest, which they feared would extend its power like a latter-day Mogul through Afghanistan and then on to the Indus and Ganges plains. This anxiety accounted for numerous military interventions in Afghanistan. The rivalry with Russia was what Kipling termed ‘The Great Game’, and the phrase has been used ever since to hint at some stratospheric geo-political game of chess, beyond the vision of mere earth-bound mortals. On the other flank of India in the northeast, during the Second World War the Japanese did take Burma and threatened at one stage to break into India too. The Himalayas, and empty and arid Tibet beyond, provided a strong defence line in the north.
