Welcome to Foreign Policy’s South Asia Brief.
The highlights this week: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi embarks on a two-day visit to Israel amid deepening ties, Pakistan carries out another counterterrorism operation across the border in Afghanistan, and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney stops in India on an Asia-Pacific trip.
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Modi Heads to Israel for Two-Day Trip
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in Israel on Wednesday for a two-day visit, which will include talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu; an address to parliament; and a visit to Yad Vashem, the country’s official Holocaust memorial
India’s relationship with Israel has grown and morphed from a cautious arrangement to a deep partnership during Modi’s nearly 12 years in power. His trip to Israel in 2017—the first by an Indian prime minister—was a landmark moment. For years, India has been Israel’s biggest defense customer, and it is Israel’s second-largest Asian trade partner in merchandise.
The shift in India-Israel ties can be attributed to some convergent interests. The two countries have formed partnerships around health, science and technology, water, and cultural exchange, among other areas. Both countries are regional tech powers, and they are keen to leverage this clout, whether through deepening cooperation on artificial intelligence or partnering on agricultural technology.
As India looked to reduce its reliance on Russian weapons following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Israel emerged as a critical arms supplier. And New Delhi has returned the favor, with Indian companies reportedly shipping rockets and explosives to Israel in 2024 as it waged war in Gaza.
The improvement in bilateral ties is also a consequence of Modi and Netanyahu themselves. The two leaders see themselves in a shared predicament: helming nations in hostile neighborhoods threatened by Islamist militancy, with neither getting the level of support that they desire from the international community to tackle that threat.
Modi’s decision to ramp up relations with Israel poses some risks for several key Indian interests. One is New Delhi’s cornerstone foreign-policy principle: strategic autonomy. For years, India balanced smooth but modest relations with the Israelis and Palestinians; in 1988, it became one of the first non-Arab states to recognize the Palestinian state.
To be sure, India would point to its humanitarian aid to Gaza and continued support for a two-state solution as indications that it continues to value its ties with Palestinians. But its embrace of Israel challenges that notion. Unsurprisingly, India’s political opposition has accused the government of abandoning Palestinians.
India’s pro-Israel stand could also complicate its high-priority efforts to project itself as a champion of the global south. Many of these countries, especially those in the Muslim world, have condemned Israel in the harshest terms for its war conduct in Gaza.
However, such considerations won’t deter Modi. New Delhi tends not to pull back from its closest friends, and Israel—which threw its full support behind India during its conflict with Pakistan last year—is firmly entrenched in that friend zone. Furthermore, India’s geopolitical interests dictate the need for deep partnership with Israel.
For India, the Middle East is a key strategic space. It is a critical source of energy imports and broader trade, and it hosts several million Indian expatriates who send home large remittances. As New Delhi eyes future opportunities to build out commercial and connectivity plans in the region, a close association with Israel will be essential.
In the past few years, India’s relationships with close partners—including Bangladesh, Russia, and the United States—have faced challenges. The fast-growing relationship with Israel is a reassuring contrast for Modi, and that trajectory is unlikely to change any time soon.
What We’re Following
Fresh Pakistani strikes in Afghanistan. Pakistan launched airstrikes across its border with Afghanistan on Sunday, saying that the operation killed at least 80 militants across the provinces of Nangarhar and Paktika. Taliban authorities countered that the strikes hit civilian targets, including homes and a religious school, and killed more than a dozen people; they vowed retaliation.
The strikes are the latest reminder of the serious tensions on Pakistan’s western border with Afghanistan, even as its eastern border with India remains on tenterhooks. Pakistan’s contention that the Taliban regime is sheltering the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) is driving the conflict. The TTP have ramped up attacks in Pakistan since 2021, and Islamabad’s diplomatic tactics with both the militant group and its allies in Kabul have failed.
Pakistan last carried out cross-border strikes in October, but its military could feel growing public pressure to take more robust action amid indications that Pakistani civilians are now being targeted. Last November, a TTP faction claimed responsibility for an attack on a major courthouse in Islamabad.
If Pakistan intensifies counterterrorism strikes in Afghanistan, it could encourage the TTP and other allied militants to carry out retaliatory attacks in Pakistan—thereby intensifying a deadly and destabilizing cycle.
Carney goes to India. This week, Canada announced that Prime Minister Mark Carney will arrive on Thursday in India, where he will meet Modi after his return from Israel. The visit marks a turnaround in bilateral relations, which were plunged into deep crisis under Carney’s predecessor, Justin Trudeau.
Trudeau’s government accused India of transnational repression, including orchestrating the 2023 assassination a prominent Sikh separatist activist in British Columbia. These tensions led each country to expel their respective high commissioners and to shrink their diplomatic missions. They haven’t altogether subsided and could flare anew as Canadian authorities investigate Indian actions.
However, since Carney took power, the relationship has stabilized. Last June, he and Modi met on the sidelines of a G-7 summit in Canada, and in September, the countries announced that they had appointed new envoys. The departure of Trudeau seemed to provide a fresh start, and New Delhi and Ottawa likely concluded that shared interests offer a strong incentive for resetting ties.
Both countries’ shaky ties with the United States provide another reason to patch up relations. Tellingly, Carney will also visit Australia and Japan, fellow members of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue. This may signal that Canada is prepared to work in spaces previously occupied by the United States—at a moment when Carney himself has suggested that the U.S.-led order is a thing of the past.
More political drama in Pakistan. On Tuesday, a doctor at a Pakistani hospital revealed that imprisoned opposition leader and former Prime Minister Imran Khan was brought to the facility for eye treatment. The news came a few weeks after the government acknowledged that Khan received an eye procedure at the same hospital.
Khan is being treated for an eye ailment that, according to his lawyers, has left him with only 15 percent of vision in his right eye. Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party and its supporters have assailed the country’s leadership for allowing the leader’s condition to deteriorate in prison and for not being transparent about his hospital visits.
The recent controversy has heightened fears about how Khan is being treated in prison. In recent weeks, his family and his lawyers have reportedly been denied access to him. Khan’s two sons, who live in Britain, say they have failed to receive visas to travel to Pakistan to visit him.
Pakistani authorities are rarely kind to political prisoners, but they face unique risks if they mistreat Khan. Social media makes it easier to bring global attention to Khan’s plight, which puts more pressure on the government. And Khan is much more popular than the average Pakistani political prisoner, raising the risk of mass outrage.
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Under the Radar
Bangladeshi President Mohammed Shahabuddin has made some striking comments about Muhammad Yunus, who led the country’s interim government from August 2024, when mass protests ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, until a new elected government took office last week.
In an interview with newspaper Kaler Kantho on Feb. 20, Shahabuddin—who holds a largely ceremonial role—said Yunus violated the Bangladeshi Constitution by not informing the president about his trips abroad. Shahabuddin also said that several of his own planned trips abroad were not allowed to go forward.
Shahabuddin also accused the interim government of trying to remove him from power but said that the military and leaders of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, which now leads the government, stepped in to prevent his ouster.
The comments have received extensive coverage in India, where Yunus’s government was unpopular. However, their significance shouldn’t be overstated, as the political stakes are limited. If true, the allegations also aren’t surprising: Many senior figures in the interim government were bitter rivals of Hasina, and Shahabuddin is a holdover from the Hasina era.
Accordingly, Yunus and other leaders weren’t about to treat Shahabuddin with warmth; indeed, last year, reports surfaced that Dhaka had ordered that the president’s portrait be removed from Bangladesh’s diplomatic missions. All this said, the allegations do suggest a breach of the constitution, with troubling implications for democracy.
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