A Return to “Greater India”

This article examines India’s diplomacy and self-conception through the revival of the idea of “Greater India”, which flourished in the early twentieth century and died out shortly after India’s independence. Once developed for nation-building, “Greater India”, was based on the idea of ancient India’s civilizational influence in Asia, especially Southeast Asia. After independence, however, this concept was largely abandoned, as it conflicted with India’s post-war aspiration to act as an equal partner in Asia and in Asian and African self-organisation: “Greater India” was incompatible with a partnership of equals and was largely absent at the 1947 Asian Relations Conference in Delhi and the 1955 Bandung Conference. This is now beginning to change. The idea of “Greater India” serves as a historical framework to assert India’s cultural and geopolitical influence. As it has reappeared in the last decade, it has taken older forms, but without the subtleties of those forms.