Indian Hegemonic Design in South Asia: Challenges for Regional Strategic Stability

Abstract

The supremacy of Indian in south Asia can be explained by the economic dominance, large geographical land, the modern military might and its location over Indian ocean that makes it a perfect country to dominate and control the region. The term regional power is defined as leading states in the region that control the region either by cooperation or by coercive means. This study is conducted to analyze the hegemonic policies of India towards other South Asian states. This study will undermine the hegemonic polices of India under Modi regime specifically in term of Military modernization drive and nationalist ideology of Hindutva. This study evaluates the strategies of Modi towards making India a hegemonic state in the region. This study has utilized the offensive realist theory to develop the idea of Indian offensive military plans and the nationalist led ideology of Hindutva inside the region. The data was collected using the secondary means by content analysis and reviews of documents, book, and reports. The research was conducted through qualitative methodology and methods. Descriptive methodology was used to analyze the results. This study concluded that without proper dialogues between two nuclear states the probability of regional integration and cooperation will remain zero. At the end certain recommendations are provided to mitigate the effects on hegemonic policies of India towards South Asian region.