The Bay of Bengal Subzone Within the Indo-Pacific: Historical Relevance and Present Orientation

Abstract

Paradigms and conceptualisations are essential tools used in international relations literature. Such conceptualisations, however, continue to be heavily dependent on Western epistemology and strategically oriented. Such theoretical models and projections fail to adequately conceptualise the Indo-Pacific region. The neglect of local connectivity and subregions within the Indo-Pacific world has resulted in a relative understudy of the Bay of Bengal zone, a crucial subregion within the Indo-Pacific. The essay argues for a more holistic approach by amalgamating present strategic concerns with indigenous versions of regional projections developed historically. Only by grasping the significance and relevance of past build-ups, it would be possible to understand the Bay of Bengal zone and its effectiveness in creating a vibrant and dynamic Indo-Pacific region.

Introduction

Studies on the Indian Ocean constitute an important subarea within the realm of oceanic studies (Vink, 2007, pp. 41–62). The focus on the oceanic space currently being referred to within strategic circles as ‘Indo-Pacific’ is, thus, not new. The term was first used by the German geographer Karl Haushofer (1869–1946) in his writings during the 1920s. The purpose of Haushofer’s initiative, argues Hansong Li (2022, p. 807), was to

forge an anticolonial vision in British, American, and Western European colonies in South, East, and Southeast Asia, and thus undermine the Western rivals of interwar Germany. By recovering Haushofer’s political oceanography and anticolonial vision in the original ‘Indo-Pacific’, scholars not only gain an important episode in the modern intellectual history of politicizing spaces, but also acquire a stimulating language to question what the contemporary ‘Indo-Pacific’ discourse misses: the legacy of colonial and anticolonial politics along the fault lines of natural and social spaces.

Current Indo-Pacific research, however, is more concerned with contemporary issues like China’s rise as a global player and non-state-oriented security threats like terrorism, sea piracy and drug trafficking along with ecological vulnerability. The importance of the Indian Ocean zone, the key area within the Indo-Pacific, is, however, not only because of its expanse, covering 17.5% of the global area, spanning across three continents, including twenty-eight countries, but also because it is a resource-rich region (Kannangara et al., 2018, p. 1). Civilisation linkages, both local and inter-regional, have generated a well-defined segmentation of the entire oceanic zone into interconnected but specific subzones. The Cold War dynamics in the post-1945 period also introduced their own pattern of regional segmentation, leading to the rise of certain subzones within the Indo-Pacific world as global manufacturing hubs. The onset of globalisation, however, challenged this success story as the economic meltdown of the mid-1990s severely affected the so-called Asian ‘tiger economies’ located in the region. Post-Cold War dynamics and the rise of China have also generated new strategic challenges. China’s territorial claims and its maritime border disputes with her neighbours are also based on historical claims rooted in its imperial records. The failure of global treaty agreements like the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) to solve such disputes based on Chinese ‘historical claims’ brings to our attention the problems associated with the rise of non-western powers in global politics and challenges to the established global order. The rise of non-western powers has led to critical questioning of established western norms and a trend towards historicism within the IR discourse. In the context of the Indo-Pacific, a study of the zone’s historic evolution with adequate attention to its subzones, which have been relatively neglected, is thus essential for better understanding. The neglect of Indo-Pacific subregions also relates to the relative understudy of the Bay of Bengal zone, a crucial subregion within the Indo-Pacific.

From ‘Asia Pacific’ to ‘Indo-Pacific’

Longue-duree strategic analyses of the Indian Ocean are not new. K. M. Panikkar, for instance, had highlighted some of these issues. The recent focus, however, is more global, with the Indian Ocean entering into the strategic calculus of the global players as a key area within the projected ‘Indo-Pacific’, replacing the older term ‘Asia Pacific’. The term became popular in strategic circles after former American President Donald Trump formally announced it in November 2017 in Vietnam in the context of outlining a vision for a free and open Indo-Pacific. This was followed by the US National Security Strategy, released in December 2017, recognising the threats from authoritarian revisionist powers (read China) seeking to advance their parochial interests at others’ expense, and the American commitment to protect the freedom of choice of the American allies located in the Indo-Pacific.

Such conceptualisations, however, continued to be heavily based on Western paradigms of power projection and strategic orientation. Developed in the West as a part of Cold War discourse, such theoretical projections often fail to address the strategic complexities within the Indo-Pacific region. This is primarily because the U.S.-led projections of the Indo-Pacific ignore the longue-durée history of the region and patterns of pre-modern indigenous networks that have characterised the region as a segmented yet interconnected one. Some analysts have blamed the ‘area studies’ paradigm for such a trend towards segmentation. As Suryanarayan (2000) noted:

It is necessary to highlight the fact that historians like K.M. Panikkar, Nilakanta Shastri and R.C. Majumdar used the term Southeast Asia to cover both present-day South Asia and Southeast Asia. By accepting the American concept that Southeast Asia – countries stretching from Myanmar to the Philippines – is a different entity, we intellectually distanced ourselves from our immediate neighbours.

The current conceptualisation of the ‘Indo-Pacific’ is also heavily China-oriented. This, in turn, indicates another interesting shift in the strategic focus of the Indian Ocean world towards the eastern and south-eastern areas of the Indian Ocean. Interestingly, this has increasingly found greater acceptability among a majority of countries in the Asia-Pacific, which are dependent but increasingly becoming wary of Chinese hard-line tactics and aggrandisement. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), for instance, in its joint statement in Bangkok during its annual summit held in 2019 titled ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific, defined the Asia-Pacific and Indian Ocean regions as a single interconnected region, the Indo-Pacific (Tyler, 2019). The report also asserted that such areas should be seen ‘as a closely integrated and interconnected region, with ASEAN playing a central and strategic role’ (Tyler, 2019). The formation of the Quad (Quadrilateral Security Dialogue), consisting of Australia, India, Japan and the USA, was also a reactive policy to Chinese regional assertion. While not perceived as very effective until recently (Grossman, 2018), the scene has been changing in recent times. Further attempts towards securitisation of the Indo-Pacific through initiatives like the AUKUS (Australia, UK and USA trilateral security partnership) in 2021 have led to frictions with China. Relations between India and China have also deteriorated following several border incidents and other issues. ‘With the discontents of an assertive China and a dilemma-ridden American power’, writes analyst W. Lawrence S. Prabhakar, ‘India’s role and stabilising impact would build the sinews of a regional order that is not entirely swayed by the ruthless hegemony of China nor suffers from the pangs of the U.S. strategic challenges of staying engaged in the region (Prabhakar & Lawrence, 2018, p. 56)’. Sceptics like Sandy Gordon have, however, pointed out that ‘India’s role in the Asia–Pacific is still circumscribed by a number of restraints that act to shape a “continental” posture to its security—despite its “Look East” rhetoric (Gordon, 2012, p. 1)’. Such debates, notwithstanding, it is crucial that the Indo-Pacific focus has brought the limelight back to the eastern and south-eastern parts of the Indian Ocean, including the Bay of Bengal.

Such academic debates, as outlined above, also ignore indigenous methods and a plethora of regional and local-level engagements within the Indian Pacific world to deal with regional concerns. One of the pioneers of Indian Ocean studies, K. M. Panikkar, for instance, had highlighted the unique nature of the Indian Ocean world by highlighting that the Indian Ocean (Panikkar, 1944, pp. 7–8):

is unlike other oceans in certain respects. While the Atlantic and the Pacific are like gigantic highways … the Indian Ocean has many of the characteristics of a land-locked sea. On its northern side it does not extend much beyond the Tropic of Cancer. Bounded on the top by the southern coast of the Asiatic continent and flanked on one side by the continent of Africa and on the other by Burma and Malaya and the insular projection of the latter, it would have been like a huge parabola, but for the peninsula of Hindustan hanging down far into its space from the Himalayan roof. It is this tapering projection of India with the bights of the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal on either side that determines the strategic importance of this vast oceanic area.

Panikkar further emphasised the vital importance of the Indian Ocean for the Indian subcontinent by noting that (Panikkar, 1944, p. 8)

to other nations the Indian Ocean is important, to India this oceanic area is vital. Not only is she bounded by it on her three sides, but from the point of view of both security and commerce the control of the Indian Ocean is a matter of life and death for her. This is especially so, as the vital points that control the Ocean lie far away from her…It is only India, Burma and Ceylon that depend exclusively on the Indian Ocean.

Such narratives dating back to the last phase of colonial rule also reflected pre-colonial notions of connectivity. To a large extent, India’s efforts to forge greater linkages with Southeast and East Asia through her ‘Look East’ and ‘Act East’ policies in the post-Cold War period have been based upon the earlier historical trajectory of pre-colonial and colonial connections that were disrupted due to the de-hyphenation of Southeast, East Asia and South Asia due to Cold War dynamics that prevailed between 1945 and 1991. Post-Cold War global dynamics provided fresh opportunities to revive substantial parts of those old linkages, albeit in new formats. It is not exactly a revival of pre-colonial dynamics, as the emergence of China as a global player has become a vital factor in all sorts of permutations and combinations within the Indo-Pacific world. It is, however, important to understand the continuities in subregional dynamics within the Indo-Pacific world.

Identifying the Bay of Bengal Region as a Crucial Subzone Within the Indo-Pacific

Academic research on Bay of Bengal connectivity has involved divergent approaches ranging from historical analyses to strategic and economic focus. Strategic researchers point out the importance of the Bay of Bengal zone as the strategic meeting point of global and regional players. One analyst, for instance, notes (Anwar, 2022):

the Bay of Bengal (BoB) is fast becoming a key area of economic and strategic competition in the Indo-Pacific. It is the largest bay in the world, bookended by India on its western side and Thailand to its east, with Bangladesh, Myanmar, and Sri Lanka as its prominent littoral states. Together they host fully one-quarter of the world’s population with sustained gross domestic product growth currently of $3 trillion… A quarter of the world’s traded goods cross the Bay, including huge volumes of Persian Gulf oil and liquefied natural gas, providing energy-scarce countries with a corridor to securing resources. Some of the world’s most important trading routes also run through the BoB. The BoB itself contains vast, mostly untapped natural resources of oil, gas, mineral ores, and fishing stocks, encouraging investments and economic as well as strategic interest from China, Japan, and the United States.

Such narratives, however, ignore indigenous perceptions about the region. The Bay of Bengal, for instance, has been described as a problematic zone by analysts like Bhattacharya and Lorea (2020, p. 30), a unique space that challenges

established notions of water, land, soil and sea. Whereas disciplines at the service of the Empire, such as cartography and (oceanography, have striven to separate navigable sea from taxable land, the Bengal Delta defies these binary notions through its tidal landscape… its métissage of salt and fresh waters, and its cyclical reshaping of sandbars, flooded soil, temporarily emerged land, and submerged coastlines. Studying the nature and the human course around the Bay of Bengal, with its fluid and moving relation between water and land can help us to shift conventional paradigms surrounding land-water visions.

Such analyses are particularly relevant in the context of recent academic questioning of the ‘Western’ bias inherent in Indian Ocean studies and how that has led to the neglect of pre-modern and non-Western linkages within the Indian Ocean zones, which survived colonial assaults and globalisation. This has been attributed to a process of acculturation in this region, coordinating maritime trade and cultural networks (Chakrabarti, 2013, p. 5).

India’s efforts to enhance its economic and strategic linkages with the Indo-Pacific world since the early 1990s under the Look East Policy subsequently broadened into Act East policymaking focussed on the region. Efforts to ensure greater economic linkages between South and Southeast Asia led to the formation of the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multisectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC). Originally founded in 1997 as a regional grouping, the organisation has expanded and currently includes seven members (Myanmar and Thailand from Southeast Asia and five from South Asia: India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan and Sri Lanka). The organisation brings together 1.5 billion people, 21% of the world population, and a combined GDP of over US$2.5 trillion. India’s recent rejection of the offer to join the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), a 15-member group of Asia-Pacific countries, including the 10 ASEAN members along with China, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and South Korea, accounting for about 30% of the world population (2.2 billion people) and 30% of global GDP ($26.2 trillion), making it the largest trade bloc in history, may be an attempt to retain an independent space, bypassing China’s dominance. India, however, hopes to benefit from the supply chain reorganisation dynamic in the Asia-Pacific, notwithstanding its withdrawal from the RCEP (Karmakar, 2020, p. 2).

The Bay of Bengal zone is also receiving greater strategic attention in recent times. An American researcher, for instance, notes that ‘although the Bay of Bengal region has often been treated by the US policy community as an afterthought, this region and Burma in particular, can potentially serve as a fulcrum for US strategy in Asia’ (Heinold, 2013, p. 1). According to the Australian analyst David Brewster, the ‘region’s strategic centrality, just as much as its good economic prospects, drives the unprecedented jostle for influence by the major powers, including China, India, Japan, the United States and even Russia’ (Brewster, 2014).

The acceptance of the Indo-Pacific projection by American policymakers has had positive implications in the revival of the Bay of Bengal’s strategic status. This is evident from how the concept of Quad partnership, originally conceived by the former Japanese premier Shinzo Abe through his dialogues during 2007, was revived by the Trump administration, along with its new focus on the Indo-Pacific since 2017. Recent developments in countries located along the Bay of Bengal coastline, like the restoration of military rule in Myanmar in February 2021 and the recent economic meltdown in Sri Lanka, have enhanced concerns about the enhancement of Chinese encroachment in the Indo-Pacific through the Bay of Bengal zone as an entry point. One analyst notes that the ‘QUAD …has to reimagine its strategic plans for the Bay of Bengal area taking into consideration the importance of three regional stakeholders namely Myanmar, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, where China is a dominant player (Heblikar, 2021)’.

The question, however, remains as to how enthusiastic India would be with such essentially western-oriented strategic concerns. India has already expressed her desire to keep a distance from the AUKUS and to regard the Quad as separate and distinct from this partnership. Veteran Indian diplomat Harsh Vardhan Shringla in a recent public statement had stated, ‘We are not party to this alliance. From our perspective, this is neither relevant to the Quad, nor will it have any impact on its functioning’ (Haidar and Bhattacherjee, 2021). Speaking at the Raisina Dialogue in 2021, India’s External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar also confirmed that the Quad is not an ‘Asian NATO’ and India never had an ‘NATO mentality’ (Basu, 2021). India’s hesitance and wariness in joining any comprehensive partnership grouping has also kept her away from mega trade blocs like the RCEP and the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (Mattoo, 2022). Given the track record, India’s decision to be a founding partner of the newly established US-led Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) came as a surprise to many. As one analyst notes (Gupta, 2022):

Three factors explain the Modi administration’s decision to join IPEF. First, several of IPEF’s features make it attractive to India. Second, IPEF provides a counter-narrative to China-dominated economic and infrastructure frameworks. Third and related, it builds on India’sattempt to reform its trade policy. That said, India’s core economic interests will likely continue to limit theextent of its participation in any new effort at economic cooperation, including IPEF itself.

It must, however, be kept in mind that India has not joined the crucial ‘trade pillar’ of the IPEF while accepting the other three pillars: resilient economy (supply chain), clean economy (clean energy, decarbonisation and infrastructure) and fair economy (anti-corruption, anti-money laundering and tax). In a briefing, the US trade representative recently informed the press that the matter is still being pursued and negotiations with the Indian team are still ongoing (Pattanayak, 2022). India’s engagement within the region, thus, is likely to develop keeping its historical interests in mind and on its own terms.

India’s and the Bay of Bengal Region: Historical Connections

The connectivity between South Asia and Southeast Asia is well documented in regional history and popular memory. Naturally, this has given rise to civilisational contacts in various spheres between the two regions over time. Contacts thrived through pilgrimage, proselytisation, migration, trade voyages and even military missions throughout history. Contacts between the Indian subcontinent and the kingdoms in Southeast Asia particularly flourished from the early centuries of the Christian era to the early medieval period. The Chinese traveller Hsuan Tsang, for instance, during his pilgrimage to India in the seventh century CE, noted that the eastern Bengal kingdoms of Samatata and Harikela (comprising the present areas of Noakhali, Comilla and Chattagram in present Bangladesh and Tripura in India) had close contacts with six areas in Southeast Asia, extending from Myanmar to Vietnam (Ghosh, 2013, p. 148).

The advent of Islam added another dimension to these patterns of contact. According to Fernand Braudel, for instance, in the pre-colonial period the Far East consisted of three large and interconnected world economies, ‘the Islamic world, overlooking the Indian Ocean from the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, … India, whose influence extended throughout the Indian Ocean, both east and west of Cape Comorin; and the Chinese empire’ (Braudel, 1985, p. 484). Modern researchers show that though the arrival of European colonisers did, to an extent, disrupt the pre-colonial inter-Asian networks, it did not happen on a catastrophic scale, as believed earlier. Modern analysts have shown that the colonial powers had to make substantial adjustments and co-opt the indigenous and traditional networks, which survived and morphed into new ones.

One major problem generated during the colonial period was, however, the application of modernist schemes and neo-nationalist ideas employed by a section of the Indian scholars trying to project the inter-Asian networks as a part of ‘Greater India’ project during the pre-colonial period. Though this was primarily conceived in cultural terms, the notion that Indian civilisation in pre-colonial times was capable of spreading Indic civilisation in the lands of the East was evident. As Bayly (2004, p. 708) notes, the Kolkata-based (then Calcutta) Greater India Society, from its inception during the late 1920s, had spread the idea

of India as the source of a great pan-Asian mission of overseas cultural diffusion in ancient times. Their thinking about this era of ‘benevolent Imperialism’ …was summed up in 1927 with the adoption of the triumphalist phrase ‘Greater India’ as the name of their new movement.

Such projections, however, generated considerable conflicts with domestic nationalist sentiment in those countries, displaying anti-Indian trends from time to time with ominous results for the Indian settlers. The onset of decolonisation since 1945 led almost all the newly independent countries (along with those having quasi-independent status till 1945)—cautious of their newly found autonomy and precarious economic status—to adopt inward-looking policies, prioritising their own development. The process had started earlier with the disjunctions generated by the Great Depression during the 1930s and disruptions on a greater scale during the Second World War (1939–1945). Amrith (2013, p. 3) notes that the

fragmentation was rapid, because however closely linked the Bay of Bengal’s coasts—by kinship, by commerce, by cultural circulation—there was never a corresponding political structure to encompass the sea….The region was governed as a patchwork of separate territories, often deliberately kept apart. Lacking political coherence, the Bay did not emerge as a meaningful unit for the planned economic development and social mobilization that held such promise for so many in mid-twentieth-century Asia. Almost without exception, the policymakers of postwar Asia took the nation-state as the most natural foundation for their dreams of a better future.

Strategically, India’s attempts under Jawaharlal Nehru to forge a pan-Asian identity through the holding of the two Asian Relations Conferences in March 1947 and in 1949 in New Delhi and later the launching of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) in 1961 did try to ensure substantial Asian representation, but were considered feeble in the light of Cold War dynamics. Cold War dynamics particularly with the creation of the South East Treaty Organisation (SEATO) In 1954 and later the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 1967. On the other hand, the rise of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and its victory over India during the 1962 war further reduced Indian influence and prestige in Southeast and East Asia. The post-Nehruvian period witnessed sporadic Indian attempts to link up with some of the Southeast Asian countries, but the range of cultural and economic connections remained rather limited. India’s wariness of being drawn into the vortex of Cold War dynamics in the Asian theatre was revealed by its refusal to become a member of ASEAN, despite several offers, up to the 1980s.

India’s strategic engagement with Southeast and East Asian countries, however, began to expand in the post-Cold War period. This has primarily been a part of India’s ‘Look East’ and subsequent ‘Act East’ policymaking. Although it may seem obvious that India should be the principal player in this region given its long border with the Bay of Bengal, this has not been the case in reality. In fact, following decolonisation and independence, India lost many of the established trade routes and links forged during the colonial period. The main power that India has to catch up with is the emerging global giant, China, which sees the Bay of Bengal as an integral part of its ‘One Belt One Road’ policy, which combines its proposed maritime and overland trade routes into one giant network. This is increasingly evident in rising Chinese influence around India’s maritime neighbourhood in countries like Myanmar, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. While there have been sporadic local protest movements against perceived Chinese hegemonisation, Chinese backing of the local regimes through financial and strategic backing, which often help them to bypass international pressure and sanctions, has helped in the continuity of her influence. In a recent study by the Carnegie Foundation, the political and ideological angle of the Chinese involvement in South Asia was brought out by the fact that the bureaucracy, including Chinese ambassadorial appointees, was increasingly being selected based on their background and their connections with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The Report notes (Pal, 2021, p. 11)

The CCP has also mobilized another of its arms in building influence in the region in recent years. Several ambassadorial appointees to South Asia have worked extensively in the United Front Work Department (UFWD) of the CCP, and not necessarily in the diplomatic corps. The UFWD operates to influence political, economic, and intellectual elites in other countries; in the current context, that involves forging a narrative that paints China as a key player in the global order and a partner for the future.

India’s recent approach to counter the threat is based on a two-pronged regional approach. The first is to highlight that South Asia, and even to an extent, the BOB zone is an Indo-centric one and she could make up for her lesser economic or military strength vis-à-vis China through her geographical proximity and civilisational linkage. The second approach is to support regional initiatives on a smaller scale, like the BIMSTEC, Mekong-Ganga Initiative and sea-based projects like the ‘Necklace of Diamonds’ and Sagarmata project, in order to counter the more ambitious Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The BOB zone features in a prominent manner in almost all these strategic projections, which has revived its importance in policymaking circles.

Restored Significance of the Bay of Bengal Zone

There have been several initiatives to project the Bay of Bengal region as a major strategic hub and a major conjunction point within the Asia-Pacific region. The geographical space has been expanded to include not only South and Southeast Asia along with China but also Australia as a key member of this zone. The Carnegie India Foundation, for instance, has recently launched its Bay of Bengal Initiative, which involves undertaking a series of academic-related programmes highlighting the importance of the region. In one of its policy recommendation papers, Raja Mohan (2018) has noted that:

The Bay of Bengal might well be poised to reclaim its historic place amidst the changing economic and political geography of its littoral. The bay would be at the very centre of the new conceptions of space such as the Indo-Pacific. It is also an arena where the interests of the great powers and littoral states are beginning to intersect in a more intensive way and make it one of the most contested zones in the eastern hemisphere.

Such strategic projections, however, continue to display traces of the colonial legacy. During the Second World War (1939–1945), for instance, the creation of the Southeast Asia Command (SEAC) under Lord Mountbatten in 1943 at the Washington Conference attempted to coordinate the land and air forces of the British Commonwealth, the US land and air forces and the British Eastern fleet in Southeast Asia under three separate commands. The newly created SEAC covered territories ranging from Burma (Myanmar), Malaya, Sumatra, Ceylon (Sri Lanka), Siam (Thailand), to French Indo-China (Mountbatten, 1947, p. 3). The headquarter, originally based in New Delhi, was shifted to Kandy (Ceylon/Sri Lanka) in order to ensure seamless wartime connectivity between the South and Southeast Asian regions, considered essential to maintain military supply lines and to shore up Allied war efforts under the tremendous Japanese onslaught. David Brewster, arguing more recently, comments that our ‘understanding of South Asia and South-East Asia as separate “regions” may now seem almost self-evident, but this has not always been the case…. Up until the 1940s, the territories around the Bay of Bengal were closely interconnected in security as well as political administration, trade and migration’ (Brewster, 2015, p. 83).

What actually segmented the Asian landmass following decolonisation were the strategic divisions induced by Cold War mentalities and related global political dynamics. The ending of the Cold War and the re-rise/revival of Asia in world affairs have once again generated opportunities to revive old connections and networks. Such attempts to ‘construct’ and ‘reconstruct’ strategic zones and/or economic hubs, however, often neglect the early patterns of civilisation linkages that reflect earlier projections during pre-colonial and colonial times and have continued to influence regional policymakers even today. As one scholar has noted, the Bay of Bengal itself ‘is a British invention; being known earlier as the Arab Sea of Harkhand, the European Gulf of Bengal and the Chinese Banggela Hai or the Sea of Bengal’ (Mukherjee, 2013, p. 1). Moreover, it has been confirmed that this region was always a core zone within the Indian Ocean world, as opposed to certain formulations that suggest that the Bay of Bengal region was a latecomer in the Indian Ocean world (Mukherjee, 2017, pp. 96–110). Any formulation seeking to conceptualise the Bay of Bengal zone without taking into account or ignoring its diverse historical patterns of growth is bound to face challenges. It could be argued that the Bay of Bengal world, an essential component of the Indian Ocean thalassocracy, is like a palimpsest, with multiple layers of civilisational linkages connecting the past with the present.

In terms of policymaking, a new strategic agenda more in tune with domestic and regional factors and interests could be drawn up, which could lead to a more nuanced phase of policymaking to coordinate between a ‘hard’ security-oriented Indo-Pacific policy based on cooperation between the Quad members from above with a ‘bottom-up’ approach focussing more on ‘soft security’ issues. Even in terms of a hardcore security focus, it seems that in recent decades, the Indian maritime doctrine has become more flexible and nuanced, combining a range of issues related to both traditional and non-traditional security issues. Analyst Andrew Latham ascribes this to a shift on the part of policymakers from the Mahanian strategy of sea dominance to a more soft-key approach advocated by the British naval historian Sir Julian Corbett. Latham comments that the ‘strategic reality today is that the Indian Navy simply cannot hope to sweep the Chinese fleet from the Indian Ocean in a single decisive battle. And it cannot, therefore, hope to establish command of the seas. The growing realization of this new reality is ushering out the age of Mahan in Indian naval circles and ushering in a new, more Corbettian, age’ (Latham, 2021).

Economic and ecological issues have also emerged as major issues of concern in the Bay of Bengal zone. A bottom-up strategic blueprint needs to include these vital non-traditional security issues, which require better regional coordination. The importance of regional cooperation in eradicating poverty and addressing environmental and oceanic pollution can hardly be overemphasised. One analyst pointed out that three major regional ecological concerns are ‘accumulation of plastic waste, existence of dead zones, and destruction of mangrove forests’ (Karim, 2020). Of particular concern is the recent discovery of the third largest ‘Oxygen Minimum Zone’ (OMZ) in the Bay of Bengal region, ‘only less in size than the OMZs in Eastern Tropical Pacific Ocean and the Arabian Sea’ (Karim, 2020). Such ecological threats could adversely affect the local population, numbering 400 million, living in the coastal zones adjacent to the BOB zone (Ahsan & Haq, 2020). The frequency of the occurrence of cyclones in the Bay of Bengal zone due to rising temperature of ocean currents has also been flagged as an alarming issue. The ecological vulnerability of the Sundarban region (40% within India and 60% in Bangladesh) also threatens its rich biodiversity and the lives of nearly six million people who live in the region, which would require active collaboration between India and Bangladesh.

Conclusion

The Bay of Bengal’s emergence as a core subregion of the Indo-Pacific has become noticeable since the 1990s. Regional initiatives like the BBIN (Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal) Network, BIMSTEC and the Mekong Ganga Cooperation Group indicate increasing cross-regional fluidity between South Asia and Southeast Asia. There is, however, a need to project a more indigenous version of the Bay of Bengal projection, transcending the western strategic-oriented paradigm. This would require ‘historicising’ the context and agenda for regional interactions with a more ‘bottom-up’ approach, taking into consideration local factors.

Working on such a theme simultaneously would require a more comprehensive approach than what is being followed at present. A statist approach, or even an exclusively IR focus, would be inadequate to properly comprehend the extremely diversified realm of the Bay of Bengal. In this context, one could mention here Kai He’s recent argument regarding the three faces of the Indo-Pacific from an IR theory perspective: ‘(a) the realist face involving a “balancing strategy” against China; (b) the liberal face aiming to form a new institutional mechanism facilitating cooperation among states across the Pacific and the Indian Oceans; and, (c) Constructivist face, trying to construct a value-oriented and norm-based regional diplomatic efforts’ (He, 2018, p. 149). The BOB zone today witnesses all three ‘faces’ in action within the regional setting but with greater implications for the entire Indo-Pacific. The missing point, however, is the need for greater engagement with the region’s historical heritage. An emerging trend towards ‘non-western’ approaches within social science has, however, generated new opportunities. Scholars like Rudra Sil and Peter J. Katzenstein, for instance, have recently criticised West-dominated universalist assumptions and instead have advocated adoption of ‘analytic eclecticism’ defined as ‘an alternative way of thinking about the relationships among assumptions, concepts, theories, the organization of research, and real-world problems’ (Sil & Katzenstein, 2010, p. 2).

A purely historical perspective, however, would also miss out the new concerns in today’s context. Current strategic and economic concerns, however, must dig out the earlier narratives and projections developed during previous times. Only by grasping the significance and relevance of the past build-ups, it would be possible for policymakers to understand and enhance the role of the BOB in creating a vibrant and dynamic Indo-Pacific region.