A CONSTRUCTIVIST ANALYSIS OF THE INDIA-PAKISTAN-BANGLADESH STRATEGIC TRIANGLE: IDENTITY, RIVALRY, AND REGIONAL ORDER

This article reinterprets the India, Pakistan & Bangladesh strategic triangle through a Constructivist lens, arguing that South Asia’s persistent rivalry is not solely the outcome of material competition but the product of historically constructed identities and intersubjective threat perceptions. While Realist scholarship emphasises military asymmetry, nuclear deterrence, and territorial disputes, such explanations inadequately account for the symbolic intensity and recurrent reproduction of antagonism in the region. Drawing upon Alexander Wendt's typology of Hobbesian, Lockean, and Kantian cultures of anarchy, alongside broader Constructivist scholarship, this study traces how critical historical events Partition (1947), the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War, the 1998 nuclearization, and the institutional evolution of SAARC have successively shaped South Asia’s regional culture. The analysis demonstrates that the region has oscillated between Hobbesian enmity and Lockean rivalry, while failing to achieve Kantian transformation. The persistence of insecurity reflects not structural inevitability but identity-driven reproduction of rivalry. By distinguishing between material capabilities and non-material meanings, the study concludes that South Asia’s regional order is socially constructed and sustained through identity narratives rather than determined exclusively by power distribution.