South Asia and the Gulf: Transregional relations, order, human rights and migration

Security ties binding South and West Asia have existed for centuries. Soon after the revelation of Islam in the 7th century CE, the Arab invasion of Sindh in the 8th century constituted the first military interaction between South Asia and the Muslim world. Central Asian warlord Timur’s conquests in both West and South Asia in the 14th and 15th centuries led to the establishment of a fresh pattern of security linkages between the two regions, with rulers in southern India particularly influenced by the Persian Gulf (Karim and Kapur, 2023).

The articles in this special issue explore the contemporary security ties connecting these two regions. The special issue is based on the notion that there has been an uptick in security interactions between the regions in recent years, and new patterns of amity and enmity are emerging across the landscape of South and West Asian. Based on Buzan and Waever’s (2003) regional security complex theory (RSCT), we believe that the two regional security complexes have become sufficiently intertwined to be classified as a supercomplex (Kapur, 2023; Mabon and Kapur, 2023). The authors in this special issue employ a range of theoretical approaches and empirical foci to study the ways in which security interactions between various parts of South and West Asia are evolving. While empirical studies of relations between specific parts of South and West Asia are commonplace, this special issue sets out to provide a broader canvas for evaluating the emerging trends in interactions between the two regions in their entirety. The individual articles offer pieces of the jigsaw that, when put together, portray the rich security interdependence of the Indian subcontinent and the Middle East. It is our hope that this special issue will foster greater academic dialogue on the ways in which these interconnections are evolving, especially amid the transition to a multipolar, decentred world order.