ABOUT THE BOOK

The role of states in foreign policy has long been debated both within the Constituent Assembly and beyond it. The drafters of the Indian Constitution, in their wisdom, have given the Union government exclusive authority over foreign policy. Yet, from time to time, States of India have raised issues pertaining to India`s external relations, especially its relations with immediate neighbours. Coalition politics has amplified this dynamic, as regional parties governing these states have pressed the Centre on matters affecting their electoral fortunes. Over time, the Union has increasingly involved Border States in shaping and implementing its neighbourhood policy. This shift reflects a broader recognition that Partition disrupted centuries-old social, economic and cultural ties across newly drawn boundaries. Post-colonial India thus had to balance sovereign territorial control with enduring familial and community connections that spilled across borders, making it difficult to neatly untangle foreign policy from its domestic constituents. The emerging economic paradigms in foreign policy have reshaped how India views its Border States. Today, India`s approach to its borders is no longer defined solely by geopolitics and security. Emerging geo-economic priorities have recast Border States as strategic assets-gateways for trade, connectivity, and people-to-people links that can advance India`s foreign policy objectives in the neighbourhood.

ABOUT Author

Smruti S Pattanaik is a Research Fellow at the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analysis (MP-IDSA). She holds PhD in South Asian Studies from the School of International Studies, JNU. She was a visiting Asia Fellow at the Department of International Relations, Dhaka University in 2004 and 2007, Kodikara Fellow in 1999, postdoctoral fellow at FMSH, Paris in 2008 and visiting fellow at PRIO in 2011, Fellow at the University of Hull in 2018, Visiting Professor on ICCR`s India Chair in Colombo University in 2013. She attended the prestigious Symposium on the East Asian Security (SEAS) Program of the US State Department and USPACOM in 2011. She has lectured extensively in India and abroad on India`s foreign policy and South Asia.

Dr Pattanaik has published more than 100 research articles and chapters on various aspects of politics in South Asia and have focused on India`s relations with its neighbours. She is the author of Elite Perception in Foreign Policy: Role of Print Media in influencing Indo-Pak relations, 1989-99 (2004) and has edited three books titled South Asia: Envisioning a Regional Future (2011) and Four Decades of India-Bangladesh Relations: Historical Context and Future Direction (2012), Recounting the Memories of Bangladesh`s Liberation War: Why It Is Still Relevant (Routledge, 2024) and coedited Towards Reformed Multilateralism in the Era of Indo-Pacific (Pentagon Press-MP-IDSA, 2026). She has also authored a monograph Afghanistan and its Neighbourhood: In Search of a Stable Future (PRIO-IDSA, 2014).