India and its Neighbors: Development Scenarios 2009–2029

This report aims to provide an analysis of India’s potential future trajectories during 2009-2029. It will base its arguments on both long-term evolutionary trends, the various strength of the driving forces, potential branching points shaping this region, as well as current domestic and international developments. Predicting developments two decades ahead is by its very nature arbitrary. In retrospect few would in the 1980s have predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union, the end of the bipolar world, and the vast implication this would have for India’s foreign policy alignments and the ideology underpinning its domestic system of governance. Absent any straight lines to foresee India’s future in the next decades, it is nonetheless safe to say that the shape of India today is the least likely shape of the country two decades ahead. Notwithstanding these uncertainties, this report identifies four fundamental drivers which are likely to affect this region throughout the next two decades.