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The neighbourhood policy, the eastward turn, and the two institutions that were built to hold South Asia together.
POWER 50 is fifty capsules across fifty days. The whole PSIR syllabus revised once, in the order the syllabus is actually built, one topic a day. Read the capsule, write the same day, and do not break the chain. PSIR Dynamics 2026 and the PYQ Vault run alongside it, the Vault carrying 560 previous year questions across the fifty days, roughly eleven a day.
Day 43 — South Asia: Regionalism, SAARC & BIMSTEC
Today’s capsule opens on the region where India’s power is least contested and its influence least secure. Part A works through Neighbourhood First: its three roots in Kautilyan thought, the Gujral Doctrine and post-liberalisation economics; the five principles of Samman, Samvad, Shanti, Samriddhi and Sanskriti; the criticism from Shyam Saran, S.D. Muni, Happymon Jacob and P. Stobdan; and Rajiv Sikri’s case for a differentiated approach. It then follows the eastward turn from the Look East Policy of 1991 to Act East, with the Northeast as the gateway. Part B is SAARC in full: the Dhaka Charter of 1985, the consensus rule, the charter bar on bilateral disputes, eighteen summits in thirty-nine years, and the economic record of intra-regional trade at about 5 per cent against 25 per cent for ASEAN. Part C sets BIMSTEC and BBIN against SAARC and asks whether one can replace the other. Part D explains why the region does not cohere, taking in the question of ‘regionness’, the 2024–26 resets in Colombo, Malé and Kathmandu, ethnicity and insurgency, cross-border migration, and the hydropolitics of the Brahmaputra. Between 2016 and 2024, this unit carried 8 × 10-markers, 3 × 15-markers and 2 × 20-markers.
Write before the evening:
- Discuss the future of SAARC in the light of India’s increased focus on other regional groupings like ASEAN and BIMSTEC. (UPSC 2024, 20m)
- Why South Asia is considered as the world’s politically and economically least integrated region? Explain. (UPSC 2021, 20m)
- What are the reasons for lack of ‘regionness’ in South Asia? (UPSC 2023, 10m)
If you go blank on a point, it is covered in full in the Foundation and OGP class notes and handouts. Revise it, then write.
