Dr Arvind Gupta, an officer of the Indian Foreign Service, presently holds the Lal Bahadur Shastri Chair at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi. He also heads the South Asia and the Internal Security Clusters at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA).
Prior to joining the IDSA, Dr Arvind Gupta was Joint Secretary at the National Security Council Secretariat from 1999 to 2008. During his tenure at the NSCS, he dealt with a wide spectrum of national security issues.
He has served in the Ministry of External Affairs and Indian Missions abroad on various diplomatic assignments.
His current interests include: the impact of globalization on India’s security; security in South Asia, foreign policy and diplomatic challenges before India, energy security, climate change, institutional reform, India’s neighbours, internal security, technology & security issues.
He is the Managing Editor of IDSA’s academic journal Strategic Analysis. He has a number of publications to his credit.
The paper looks at the present socio-economic and security situation in South Asia and constructs four scenarios for the future of South Asia. Seven critical drivers which are likely to shape South Asia’s future are identified namely, demography, economic growth, energy, climate change, terrorism, anti-India mindset and the role of external powers. The paper builds four scenarios namely, business as usual scenario, the worst case scenario, the cooperative scenario and a mixed scenario. The paper argues that regional cooperation will need to be strengthened greatly if South Asia has to progress towards a cooperative scenario. This will require inter alia, overcoming of anti-India mindset which prevails in some countries in the region. Political will need to be mustered to encourage regional cooperation. Otherwise the region faces the rise of tensions and even conflicts in the foreseeable future.