Discuss the significance of “West Asia Quad” in the light of India’s “Look West’ policy.
How the answer moves
The flow snapshot — the routes in, the body, the counter-view and the routes out.
Route 1 Oct 2021 foreign ministers → July 2022 summit → significance is not the “Quad” label but what it did to Look West
Route 2 old Look West = oil, remittances, distance from Arab quarrels → I2U2 converts it into a geoeconomic partnership
pooled comparative advantage: Emirati capital + location / Israeli technology / Indian scale → two concrete projects: $2bn food parks, 300 MW Gujarat hybrid → India as producer and supply-chain node, not buyer of energy and exporter of labour → political payoff: Washington outside the Indo-Pacific without alliance + de-hyphenation + alternative to Chinese economic presence → Saraswat, “transformational” → IMEC (Sept 2023) extends the same logic
hard security excluded by design → momentum slowed after October 2023 → Vakil: Palestine question + Gulf rivalries weaken political cohesion → 2026 Iran war, Hormuz closure, Chabahar waiver lapse → exposure sits where the grouping does not reach
Route 1 economic architecture gained, strategic architecture not yet
Route 2 Look West now has a delivery mechanism, but its security test lies outside I2U2’s remit
Model answer
Handwritten, in the form it would be written in the examination hall.
Also asked on this head
India and South Asia — 21 questions in the Vault.
- Discuss the future of SAARC in the light of India’s increased focus on other regional groupings like ASEAN and BIMSTEC.
- Why do ethnic conflicts and insurgencies continue to remain major impediments to regional co-operation in South Asia?
- What are the reasons for lack of ‘regionness’ in South Asia?
How this is taught
The same flow snapshot, built for every head of the syllabus, with the answer written in class.
The first session of Foundation 2027 is published in full.
Six programmes across three levels.