India will have to rethink its strategy to isolate Pakistan in the region to focus on the bigger challenges, like China
In December 2025, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister, Ishaq Dar, signalled the possibility of creating a new regional bloc in South Asia in collaboration with China. The statement, suggesting India’s exclusion, reflects Pakistan’s longstanding practice of creating strategic and security challenges for India vis-à-vis other South Asian neighbours. The strategy has gained further momentum since the latest India-Pakistan escalations of May 2025, thereby challenging Delhi’s policy of isolating Pakistan in the region and compelling it to reconsider its approach.
Since independence, India has naturally extended its diplomatic and strategic influence across the region, while Pakistan has challenged the same. Even today, despite growing power asymmetries that favour India, Pakistan continues to challenge India’s regional primacy. It continues to be a nuisance to India’s strategic presence and security calculations by engaging with other regional countries, keeping India preoccupied with regional contingencies and diverting attention from its broader global ambitions.
Pakistan established diplomatic ties with Sri Lanka in 1948 and with Nepal in 1960. Islamabad’s engagement with both Colombo and Kathmandu intensified in the 1950s. It sustained these ties by portraying India as a mutual threat and exploiting India’s bilateral differences. In 1965, Pakistan flirted with the idea of using East Pakistan and cooperating with China and Nepal to cut India off from the Siliguri corridor. It had also expressed disappointment with India’s military presence in Sri Lanka and the Maldives in the late 1980s. This strategic approach predates Pakistan’s reliance on China as its principal partner in containing India, particularly following the 1962 India-China war.
It continues to be a nuisance to India’s strategic presence and security calculations by engaging with other regional countries, keeping India preoccupied with regional contingencies and diverting attention from its broader global ambitions.
On their part, South Asian nations nurtured their own distinct ties with Pakistan, reflecting their close geographic, linguistic, cultural, and historical ties. They also saw Pakistan’s ties with China and the West as a potential opportunity to enhance trade, development, and defence partnerships. This helped them push back against India, enhance their agency and autonomy. It also helped the elites advance their domestic politics by maintaining a nationalist image. There was also an expectation that engagement with Pakistan—and, by extension, improved India–Pakistan relations—could promote broader regional integration. This approach largely underpinned their neutral stance between India and Pakistan during the four Indo-Pak wars.
As Pakistan continued supporting terror attacks against India, New Delhi directed its policy to isolate Islamabad in 2016. On their part, South Asian countries that had condemned terrorism and terror attacks broadly differed on isolating Pakistan. Their stance was largely shaped by their domestic politics and ties with India. Both Bangladesh and Afghanistan, having faced terrorism and Pakistan’s interference, aligned with India alongside Bhutan. In contrast, Nepal and Sri Lanka maintained their traditional neutrality. The Maldives remained neutral, despite changes in its bilateral ties with India under successive governments.
Following the 2016 Uri attack, Bangladesh, Bhutan, and Afghanistan were quick to back out of the 19th South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) summit alongside India. With four of eight members refusing to attend the summit, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives also followed suit, though they emphasised the need to reconvene the summit at a more convenient time. A similar pattern emerged in 2019 after the Pulwama attacks and the subsequent Balakot airstrikes: Bangladesh, Bhutan, and Afghanistan supported India, while Nepal, Sri Lanka, and later the Maldives called for restraint and de-escalation.
With four of eight members refusing to attend the summit, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives also followed suit, though they emphasised the need to reconvene the summit at a more convenient time.
In other words, New Delhi’s bid to isolate Pakistan was dependent on mustering support from the majority—rather than all—South Asian countries. During this time, Islamabad too never shied away from exploiting India’s ties with its neighbours, despite its economic mismanagement, political instability, and increasing terror attacks. For instance, even after the Uri attacks, the former Maldivian President Abdulla Yameen and Pakistani officials discussed the prospects of joint patrolling in the Indian Ocean region (IOR). In 2021, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan visited Sri Lanka to boost ties and also tried to repair relations with Bangladesh. Islamabad was also involved in exploiting prevalent anti-India sentiments and campaigns in the region. This is further evident in the Maldives’ India Out campaign and recent social media campaigns in Bangladesh.
The regime changes in Afghanistan in 2021, the Maldives in 2023, and Bangladesh in 2024 altered the regional balance that had previously favoured India. This also laid the ground for Pakistan to strengthen ties in the region. During recent crises, such as the aftermath of the Pahalgam attacks and India’s Operation Sindoor, none of India’s neighbours openly sided with New Delhi, even while condemning the terror attacks. Since 2025, Pakistan has intensified its regional outreach, holding trilateral meetings with Bangladesh and Afghanistan in collaboration with China, and signalling interest in expanding the bloc to other regional countries while excluding India. Pakistan also extended humanitarian assistance to Sri Lanka following Cyclone Ditwah, which was followed by a ministerial visit. Security and defence cooperation has expanded with Bangladesh and Nepal, and the Maldives hosted high-level military delegations. Reports suggest that the Maldives and Bangladesh are also negotiating with Pakistan to acquire its fighter jets for their arsenals.
During recent crises, such as the aftermath of the Pahalgam attacks and India’s Operation Sindoor, none of India’s neighbours openly sided with New Delhi, even while condemning the terror attacks.
This recent outreach could be for multiple reasons: first, following Operation Sindoor, there is a renewed interest in diluting India’s presence and influence in the region. Beijing’s influence, regime change in Bangladesh, and Asim Munir’s concentration of power in Pakistan have fuelled this momentum. Second, increasing normalisation between India and Afghanistan has nudged Pakistan to adopt a tougher stance against the Taliban and create new pressure points against India. Third, Pakistan’s ability to regain relevance in the US’s foreign policy has boosted its confidence. Finally, it's information warfare and narrative of pushing back against a bigger neighbour like India, no matter how exaggerated, has generated sympathy and support from certain countries and their policymakers.
Islamabad’s increased outreach calls for an introspection of India’s policy to isolate Pakistan. The first lesson for India is that its isolation of Pakistan in the region was never institutionalised. The strategy was largely dependent on the regime in power and on securing support from the majority of states in the region. The scope of this isolation was also largely restricted to regional organisations such as SAARC, and finding alternatives such as the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) and Bangladesh–Bhutan–India–Nepal Subregional Cooperation (BBIN). While this policy, over the years, diluted Pakistan’s role as a regional player, it did not restrict Pakistan’s bilateral engagements.
Second, Delhi must ensure that its goodwill aligns with its strategic interests. To achieve this, it will need to leverage its assistance without fearing any impact on its reputation. India’s development support and ability to provide economic access to its neighbours far surpass Pakistan’s. It continues to assist through digital, economic, energy, transport, and trade connectivity initiatives, offering credit lines, grants, and loans to support projects and respond to economic, emergency, and humanitarian needs. Yet, despite these efforts, neighbouring countries have continued to diversify their partnerships away from India.
India will therefore have to bet on strategic bargaining, drawing on arrangements that are contingent on its neighbours respecting Indian security concerns. This could include fixed financial assistance directed to the government of the day; provisions around the donation of defence equipment and hardware; security exchanges; eased labour mobility and trade restrictions; connectivity projects offered as grants; and development and financial support alongside capacity building in critical development sectors. Any violation of the red lines would halt assistance and increase economic costs for the neighbours.
India will therefore have to bet on strategic bargaining, drawing on arrangements that are contingent on its neighbours respecting Indian security concerns.
Without seeking formal alignment, the need of the hour is for New Delhi to show that a non-aligned stance or close ties with Pakistan carry costs. Pakistan’s connectivity with the region remains limited, with no immediate borders. India will thus have to make its neighbours realise that Pakistan cannot serve as an alternative, particularly in financial assistance, connectivity, and development. The entry of new powers into the region, including China, has led to viable alternatives for these countries to diversify and enhance their agencies. India will also have to put the onus of SAARC’s revival on Pakistan—the very organisation the latter turned defunct by sponsoring terrorism, revoking Kashmir, and refusing to endorse the Motor Vehicles Agreement.
Finally, for a region that shares diverse bilateral, historical, cultural, ethnic, and political ties with Pakistan, total isolation would prove counterproductive. India must therefore clearly define its redlines and communicate them consistently and effectively to its neighbours.
Pakistan’s expanding relations and trilaterals with China have triggered fears in India about its two hostile neighbours ramping up pressure through a third party. This, however, is not a new phenomenon. Islamabad has often fished in troubled waters to pressure India and keep it preoccupied and distracted with immediate concerns. It is true that India today has bigger ambitions and goals, and will have to focus on the bigger challenge—China. To pursue this effectively, India will have to revisit its strategy to isolate Pakistan. Without such action, New Delhi will remain vulnerable to Pakistan’s nuisance.
Aditya Gowdara Shivamurthy is an Associate Fellow with the Strategic Studies Programme at the Observer Research Foundation.
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Aditya Gowdara Shivamurthy is an Associate Fellow with the Strategic Studies Programme’s Neighbourhood Studies Initiative. He focuses on strategic and security-related developments in the South Asian ...
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