I am delighted to bring you the May 2026 issue of India’s World, dedicated to examining the geopolitical complexities unfolding in India’s Eastern frontier.
I belong to the school of thought that firmly believes India’s eastern flank is not yet a settled theatre. It continues to be a restive space, and the arrival of China has only made it more contested. As a matter of fact, China is no longer at the periphery of that contest, but at the heart of every consequential conversation about it. Nepal, Myanmar, and Thailand have thrown up new governments with fresh instincts and worldviews. It is good news, provided we are able to make use of the opportunity that typically comes with new regimes bearing no anti-India instincts. At least on the face of it.
In this issue, we will take you beyond the immediate headlines of leadership changes and connectivity announcements to unpack the complex nature of India’s restive east. The “Great Game in the East,” as our contributors demonstrate, is at once a function of geography, history, infrastructure, and politics.
We begin with Sreeradha Datta, who provides a sobering reminder of why India’s East has remained restive seven decades on, despite Neighbourhood First and Act East. Shashank Ranjan reads the fracturing of Buddhist ethno-nationalism in Myanmar as a moment of unexpected solidarity between monks and protestors against the junta. Sujeev Shakya argues that India has not yet reckoned with the New Nepal, one that is younger and more impatient. Rajiv Bhatia and Mahendra P. Lama, drawing on long practitioner experience, offer two complementary portraits of a Myanmar that refuses to fit the neat frames imposed on it from the outside.
This issue also carries thoughtful interviews with Muhammad Riaz Hamidullah, the Bangladeshi High Commissioner to India, and Ranjit Rae, former Indian ambassador to Nepal. The Great Indian Debate this issue brings together a range of voices on Pakistan’s mediatory role in the US-Iran conflict—a question that has, in recent weeks, exposed sharper fault lines in Indian foreign policy thinking than almost anything else.
Don’t miss out on our Art and Culture section. Tanushree Bhowmik writes on hilsa diplomacy, Chamdam Tungkhang on the Stilwell Road, Yaibiren Sana on the Kohima War Cemetery, R. Dona Aideau on the imperial discovery of tea in Assam, Naulak and Lallienzuol on Moreh, and Junjun Sharma Pathak on the Tawang Monastery—together they make the case that the restive East is at once a strategic frontier as well as a cultural melting pot.
My personal favourite this time is Vineet Thakur’s “U Nu and the Unquiet Birth of Burma”, which reminds us of the unfinished business of state-making in Myanmar, an old question that keeps resurfacing in new clothes every now and then.
I hope you enjoy the rich fare of geopolitics, diplomacy, art and culture, book and film reviews, and interviews. I look forward to hearing from you. Write to me at editor@indiasworld.in.
Happymon Jacob