Opinion Why the Bay of Bengal region has re-emerged as a key arena shaping Asia’s strategic and economic future

A key focus for policymakers and scholars has been the Bay’s role within the contested geography of the Indo-Pacific region. As research on the Bay intensifies and new centres dedicated to its study have emerged, a brief review of Bay of Bengal studies is timely. Over the past two decades, the Bay has regained prominence in strategic discourse due to its position along vital global sea lanes and as a critical node in the emerging Indo-Pacific construct.

The renewed scholarly interest spans multiple issue-areas. Central to this focus is the Bay’s growing strategic significance and its potential influence on global and regional power dynamics. Researchers have examined the Bay’s strategic transformation and framed India-China competition within the broader Indo-Pacific context. Others have explored the Bay through a subregional lens, highlighting its role as a bridge between littoral states and between South and Southeast Asia. Topics of interest include regional connectivity, economic integration, cooperation on traditional and non-traditional security threats, humanitarian assistance, disaster relief, climate change, piracy, blue economy initiatives, marine resources, and coastal ecosystem management.

Another area of significant interest is the Bay’s historical role as a space for the exchange of goods, people, and ideas, and the imperative to document its rich maritime cultural and economic history. Jayati Bhattacharya and Carola Erika Lorea, in the introduction to the special issue Recentering the Bay of Bengal: Connected Spaces in an Inter-Asian Bordersea (International Institute for Asian Studies, 2020), capture this historical identity succinctly: “a network of interdependent livelihoods, a busy seascape, and a web of littoral hubs, which constitute the life of the Bay of Bengal.” Scholars such as Aparna Vaidik (Imperial Andamans: Colonial Encounter and Island History, 2010) and Sunil S Amrith (Crossing the Bay of Bengal: The Furies of Nature and the Fortunes of Migrants, 2013) reinforce the idea of reimagining the Bay as a network of networks within emerging regional dynamics.

In contemporary studies, the Bay’s strategic importance is frequently highlighted. Works such as Robert D Kaplan’s Monsoon: The Indian Ocean and the Future of American Power (2010) and Bertil Lintner’s The Costliest Pearl: China’s Struggle for India’s Ocean (2019) underscore the return of the Bay as a key site of geopolitical contestation. The rise of Asia and the increasing reliance of major powers on maritime spaces to safeguard interests have intensified strategic tensions, particularly between India and China. Scholars including Nilanthi Samaranayake (The Long Littoral Project: Bay of Bengal – A Maritime Perspective on Indo-Pacific Security, 2012), David Brewster (India’s Ocean, 2014), Kent E Calder (The Bay of Bengal: Political-Economic Transition and Strategic Implications, 2018), and Anasua Basu Ray Chaudhury and Harsh V Pant, eds. (Anchoring the Bay of Bengal in a Free and Open Indo-Pacific, 2024) have analysed this intensifying maritime rivalry.

The Bay has also been examined through subregional frameworks, most notably via the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC). Though the grouping has yet to fully realise its initial ambitions, it has inspired significant research, including Prabir De’s Twenty Years of BIMSTEC: Promoting Regional Cooperation and Integration in the Bay of Bengal Region (2020), the special issue Connecting the Bay of Bengal (Seminar, 2018), and Constantino Xavier and Amitendu Palit’s edited volume Connectivity and Cooperation in the Bay of Bengal Region (2023).

Attention has also turned to landlocked regions such as Northeast India, Nepal, Bhutan, and Southwest China, which rely on the Bay as a gateway to the maritime world. Studies including Assessing Connectivity between Northeast India and Bangladesh: Towards a Prosperous Bay of Bengal Region (Asian Confluence, 2023), Situating India’s Northeast in the Bay of Bengal Regional Architecture (Basu Ray Chaudhury and Ghosh, 2022), and In Search of the Sea: Opening India’s Northeast to the Bay of Bengal (Basu and Bose, 2021) emphasise the potential of leveraging the Bay to foster economic growth and regional integration.

There is a growing focus on developing a landlocked perspective from the vantage point of Northeast India, which serves as the continental gateway to the Bay, alongside the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, India’s maritime gateway to the East. Exploring the synergy between Northeast India and the Bay of Bengal has emerged as a critical area of research, adding yet another dimension to the expanding study of this strategically vital maritime space.

The writer is a senior fellow and editor at Asian Confluence, Shillong