(a) What are the main drivers of India-Japan Strategic and Global Partnership? (20 marks) (b) What are the implications of…

(a) Drivers of India-Japan Strategic and Global Partnership

The India-Japan "Special Strategic and Global Partnership", so designated during Prime Minister Modi's 2014 visit to Tokyo, is driven by a deep convergence of shared democratic values and structural economic complementarities. India’s demographic dividend, expanding market, and resource base complement Japan’s capital reserves and technological sophistication. This synergy is institutionalized through the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA, 2011), Japan's position as the largest bilateral provider of Official Development Assistance to India, and large Japanese foreign direct investments in transformative infrastructure projects, notably the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC) and the Mumbai-Ahmedabad High-Speed Rail (bullet train) project.

Strategically, the bilateral nexus is catalyzed by shared security concerns regarding China’s unilateral assertiveness across the Indo-Pacific. This has prompted alignment under the Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP) vision and the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad). Robust institutional mechanisms—including annual bilateral summits, the Foreign and Defence 2+2 Ministerial Dialogue, and the Act East Forum—operationalize this strategic consensus. The civil nuclear cooperation agreement (signed in 2016, in force from 2017) marked a historic breakthrough, demonstrating high political trust given Japan’s non-proliferation sensitivities. Defence ties rest on the Reciprocal Provision of Supplies and Services Agreement (2020), the JIMEX and Malabar exercises and a 2015 agreement on defence equipment and technology transfer. At the August 2025 annual summit the two sides set a private-investment target of ¥10 trillion over the next decade and adopted a new Joint Declaration on Security Cooperation. Cooperation has further expanded into semiconductors, critical minerals, space (the joint LUPEX lunar mission) and economic security, cementing Japan as a pillar of India's external balancing strategy.

(b) Implications of Look-East Policy on Northeast India

The Look-East Policy (and its upgraded 'Act East' iteration) fundamentally restructured the geo-economic positioning of India’s North-Eastern Region (NER), transitioning it from a landlocked, peripheral frontier into a dynamic gateway to ASEAN.

Economically, the policy drives critical cross-border connectivity initiatives, notably the Kaladan Multi-Modal Transit Transport Project, which links Kolkata by sea to Sittwe port in Myanmar, then by the Kaladan river to Paletwa and by road to Mizoram, and the India-Myanmar-Thailand Trilateral Highway. These corridors reduce transport bottlenecks, incentivize local industrialization, and integrate the NER into regional value chains.

Strategically, economic integration addresses the socio-economic root causes of regional insurgency by fostering youth employment and infrastructure development, thereby stabilizing the borderlands. Culturally, it revives historical, ethnic, and Buddhist ties with Southeast Asia, utilizing soft power to build organic trans-border community linkages.

The implications are not uniformly positive. Myanmar's post-2021 civil war has stalled the road section of Kaladan and the Trilateral Highway, with the Arakan Army controlling much of the route. Porous borders enable narcotics trafficking from the Golden Triangle and insurgent movement, and the ethnic violence in Manipur since May 2023 led the Centre to scrap the Free Movement Regime with Myanmar in 2024 and begin fencing the border, which conflicts with the cross-border kinship ties Act East celebrates. Many in the region also argue that the Northeast risks becoming a transit corridor rather than a destination for investment.

(c) Justification for India’s Permanent Seat at the UN Security Council

India’s claim for permanent membership in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) rests on compelling historical, systemic, and normative imperatives.

Historically, India is a founding member of the United Nations and has consistently served as an ideological anchor for global decolonization and South-South cooperation. India is also historically among the largest cumulative troop-contributing countries to UN Peacekeeping Operations, deploying over 2.9 lakh personnel across more than 50 missions since 1950, with the highest number of fatalities of any contributor, to uphold international peace, alongside maintaining regular financial contributions to the UN budget.

Contemporarily, the UNSC’s current composition suffers from an acute representation deficit that ignores post-1945 geopolitical realities. India represents nearly one-sixth of humanity, is the most populous country (since 2023) and is among the four largest economies, playing a central role in achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Additionally, India is a nuclear-armed state outside the NPT with a responsible non-proliferation record, and is a member of the MTCR, the Wassenaar Arrangement and the Australia Group. It has been elected a non-permanent member eight times, most recently for 2021-22. Excluding such a major stakeholder compromises the Council's legitimacy, operational effectiveness, and democratic credibility. India pursues the claim with the G4 (Brazil, Germany, Japan), aligns with Africa's Ezulwini Consensus, and presses for text-based Intergovernmental Negotiations, while the Uniting for Consensus group led by Italy and Pakistan opposes new permanent seats, and China alone among the P5 has withheld explicit support.