In contemporary strategic discourse, India’s foreign policy is increasingly framed through the maritime vocabulary of the Indo-Pacific. This maritime emphasis has obscured a highly significant continental terrain—the Himalayan arc—within Indian strategic thinking, often reducing it to the narrow focus of border security. As a frontier of Asian geopolitics and the ‘Third Pole’ of global ecology, the Himalayas demand a coherent strategic vision. This essay argues that India must reimagine itself as both a maritime and continental power and lead the institutionalisation of Himalayan regionalism through a proposed Himalayan Security Council (HSC).
The Indo-Pacific Tilt and the Continental Gap
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s 2018 Shangri-La speech highlighted India’s Indo-Pacific strategy, resting on three pillars: strengthening naval capabilities in the Indian Ocean, expanding bilateral and minilateral partnerships, and projecting itself as a net security provider committed to a “free and open Indo-Pacific”. The intellectual foundations of this maritime orientation echo Alfred Mahan’s sea power theory, emphasising maritime connectivity and naval strength as determinants of national power.
In contrast, there is a clear gap in India’s foreign policy regarding a cohesive strategy for the Himalayan region. Historically, the strategic relevance of the region can be traced in Lord Curzon’s policy of ‘buffer states’ in the Great Game between the British and Russian empires. Such a perspective leaves the ‘Himalayan’ bereft of an inherent identity. In the postcolonial era, the Himalayas largely continued to be framed through territorial disputes and border management, particularly in relation to China. This perspective reduces the region to a defensive frontier rather than recognising it as a distinct geopolitical and ecological terrain.
The Himalayan region merits greater recognition not only within India’s foreign policy in particular, but also in the field of International Relations at large. Theoretically, the spatial relevance of the Himalayas can be traced to Halford Mackinder’s Heartland theory, prioritising continental control and Nicholas Spykman’s Rimland theory, emphasising border connectivity. The Himalayas occupy a unique position in global politics as they are both a statist border symbolising Asian power rivalry and a non-statist homeland symbolising cultural and ecological diversity. In the Indian context, the Himalayas constitute not only a zone of traditional military threats but also non-traditional threats of climate change that may have significant security implications in the near future.
The Himalayas as a Regional Security Complex
As the Himalayas remain a strategic frontier and a shared ecological homeland, it is important to conceptualise the region as a Regional Security Complex, with intertwined military and non-military vulnerabilities that no single state can manage unilaterally.
The institutional vacuum within Himalayan regionalism requires both academic articulations and policy positions to address emerging security threats. A ‘Himalayan Security Council’, a minilateral intergovernmental forum comprising the Himalayan states of India, China, Nepal, Bhutan, Afghanistan, and Myanmar, can fill this institutional gap. Considering recent escalations between India and Pakistan, it is highly unlikely that both would cooperate meaningfully in such a joint mechanism. Therefore, Pakistan is not included in the list of potential partners who can cooperate in such a regional institution.
India should take the lead in proposing a Himalayan Security Council, as an important step in addressing both military challenges and non-military ecological security. The borders shared by India with its Himalayan neighbours have been a source of flashpoints, especially with China, along with looming concerns over infrastructural works and economic corridors through disputed territories. India also has strained relations with Myanmar and uneasy relations with Nepal over the Lipulekh pass. The issues such as cross-border insurgency, drug trafficking, and illegal immigration remain at the core of India’s challenges along the Himalayan frontier.
The non-traditional ecological security challenges in the region include issues of disaster management, biodiversity conservation, and hydropower regulation. The concept of ‘Third Pole’ is often used to indicate crucial ice reserves in the Hindu Kush mountains, highlighting the ecological significance of the region. Studies suggest that if there is no effective intervention, the region may see full-scale shrinkage of Tibetan glaciers by 2050, with recent satellite images of expanding lakes corroborating an ominous rise in Glacial Lake Outburst Floods.
The Himalayas are also a biodiversity hotspot, home to several endangered species, a fragile ecosystem, and indigenous communities whose livelihoods are increasingly threatened by unsustainable development models. Known as the ‘Water Tower of Asia’, the region hosts the source of nearly ten major river systems, which have become a hotbed of contestation between different countries.
In this context, the HSC would aim to institutionalise Himalayan regionalism through five core pillars:
First, transparency in traditional security activities and efficient confidence-building measures to improve communication along the contested frontier and reduce the risk of escalation.
Second, glacial monitoring and hydrological data-sharing mechanisms to promote transparency and shift regional dynamics away from hydro-hegemony towards cooperative hydro-diplomacy.
Third, a coordinated disaster response framework, drawing lessons from minilateral models such as the Quad’s humanitarian assistance initiative to address disasters such as cloudbursts, landslides, and flash floods.
Fourth, joint scientific research and biodiversity conservation, inspired by the Arctic Council’s model of combining environmental governance with strategic dialogue.
Fifth, sustainable connectivity and green energy integration, including cross-border renewable energy grids aligned with broader climate commitments.
Such a framework could alleviate geopolitical competition by embedding rivalry within an institutionalised practice and promoting efforts for collective resilience.
Theorising Himalayan Regionalism
The proposal for a Himalayan Security Council must be situated within the flux of contemporary world politics. India’s Himalayan strategy would operate simultaneously across three strategic logics.
From a realist lens, India must navigate strategic autonomy amid US-China rivalry. Recent tensions under President Trump’s administration have necessitated a careful reevaluation of India’s bilateral relationship with the USA. At the same time, India is also entering an era of cautious rapprochement with the Chinese Communist Party, even as the recent Tianjin Summit showcased an alternative emerging order beyond the United States. In this scenario, the Himalayan Security Council emerges as an opportune instrument in aligning the geostrategic and geoeconomic visions of two rising Asian powers.
From a liberal institutional lens, the HSC would fill a regional vacuum. With SAARC largely paralysed and South Asian regionalism weakened by political instability, Himalayan cooperation offers a focused and issue-specific alternative. It would complement India’s Neighbourhood First policy while resisting Pakistan’s challenging involvement in the region.
From a normative perspective, India has consistently projected itself as a responsible power and a leader of the Global South. The Himalayan Security Council indicates a comprehensive security framework beyond traditional conceptions of security towards an inclusive vision of ‘free and open Himalayas’ under India’s responsible and normative leadership.
Reimagining the Himalayas: From Frontier to Connector
Since colonial rule, the Himalayas have been conceptualised more along the lines of a ‘frontier’ than that of a ‘connector’ in International Relations. Within postcolonial postulations, it is important to re-imagine Himalayan regionalism beyond borders and barriers, and instead reframe it as a potential sphere of cooperation and convergence over common interests. There has been a longstanding demand to establish a regional institutional mechanism for the Hindu Kush mountains, and the Himalayan Security Council is an important step towards that vision. It is equally essential to ensure that Himalayan regionalism does not become a mere reductionist outlet for Indo-China power rivalry, and instead strives to uphold a forum of engagement for all Himalayan member states. Finally, India must ensure the spectre of its ‘big brother’ concerns in South Asian regionalism does not bleed into Himalayan regionalism through a constant endeavor prioritizing collective interests of the Himalayan community.
India must develop as a ‘dual-identity entity’ in simultaneously bridging the mountains and the oceans as twin theatres in the grand strategy of its power projection. The Mackinders and the Mahans must unite in their debates over the prioritisation of the land or the sea.