India will be celebrating its 69th Republic Day celebrations on 26 January this year and for the first time ever, leaders of all 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have been invited as chief guests.This marks a huge step in ASEAN-India relations which would also be commemorated in a summit held at the same time.

On the 14th of November, Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) leaders welcomed Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who arrived in Manila to attend the 31st ASEAN Summit and Related Meetings. On the agenda for Modi was also the 15th ASEAN-India Summit which was hosted to celebrate the 25 years of dialogue, partnership and diplomatic relations between India and ASEAN member states as well as review the broad scale of ASEAN-India cooperation in all its aspects.

The Middle East is often viewed as a region waylaid by feelings of collective humiliation and violent rivalries, both between and within countries. But South Asia is beset by some of the same forces, reflected in a surge of Buddhist nationalism in Myanmar, where the Muslim Rohingya are being driven from the country, and Hindu nationalism in India, under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party.The good news for South Asia is that a “Middle Eastern” future is not inevitable.