India is bounded by many countries on its northern borders while all its southern borders are sea-bound. India’s neighbors from its most northwestern border to its northeastern border are Pakistan, Afghanistan, China, Nepal, Bhutan, Burma and Banglasdesh in that order. Except for China and Burma, all the other nations are considered to be a part of the Indian Subcontinent. They even have formed a group called SAARC which stands for “South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation”. There are a couple other members to this group as well but these border sharing nations are its core.
India as a whole shares a turbulent history with Pakistan and Bangladesh as these two nations were carved out from India. Pakistan in particular has already had 3 major wars with India in the past 60 odd years. These conflicts occurred in 1965, 1971 and 1999. Of these three the 1971 also lead to the creation of Bangladesh which was originally called East Pakistan, but besides sharing a common religious background had totally different customs and hence wanted to be their own nation.
Besides having many skirmishes with Pakistan, India also has a frosty relationship with China. They have fought a war in 1962 which showed India’s friability in their defenses and since then both countries have remained wary of each other.
With Nepal, Bhutan and Burma, India has friendly relations. India has mostly civil relations with many nations all over the world, however the Indian subcontinent remains a hotbed area for conflicts and it remains to be seen how all of it will pan out.
