Regional Indifference and Maritime Diplomacy in the Bay of Bengal

BIPSS Research Assistant Nazmul Islam Mahmud explores how the Bay of Bengal is transitioning from regional indifference to immense strategic importance and to what extent this transition is responding to global maritime power play and securing the sovereign interests of the littorals. He argues that this transition is from the littoral states’ inward-looking approach to a coherent maritime identity development to secure sovereign maritime interests. And there persists an effort to overcome the regional indifference because of great power rivalry and India’s self-proclaimed hegemony in the Bay of Bengal regional security complex, where the small littoral states are striving to come up with a multidomain strategy that would open up the scope for establishing a regional maritime coherence with a vibrance of multiple voices.