Prominent Indian politician and diplomat Sashi Tharoor has touted India’s “multi-alignment” strategy in the Indo-Pacific region, while recognising Thailand as a key strategic Asean partner due to centuries-old cultural links.
Mr Tharoor, a member of India’s Lok Sabha, or Lower House, gave a speech recently in Bangkok titled “The New India Abroad: Diaspora, Soft Power & Opportunity”, addressing attendees of the Indian diaspora living in Bangkok.
He began with an observation that Bangkok is a city that is “deeply rooted, yet remarkably dynamic”.
“A city where temples stand beside towers of local commerce, where tradition does not retreat before modernity, but actually converses with it,” Mr Tharoor said.
He then touted India-Thailand partnerships amid an increasingly unpredictable global order where “the comfortable certainties of globalisation [are giving way] to a far more anxious world”.
“And it’s precisely in such moments that partnerships like those that made India and Thailand acquire renewed significance, not merely as bilateral relationships, but as anchors of stability, progress, prosperity, and strategic balance in the wider Indo-Pacific region,” said the MP. “I would say this relationship with Thailand is not only important, strategically and economically, but civilisation… far more than diplomatic protocol or commercial engagement.”
He noted that in April 2025, Thailand and India officially elevated their bilateral relations to a strategic partnership during Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s official visit to Bangkok to attend the 6th BIMSTEC Summit.
That partnership includes the India-Myanmar-Thailand (IMT) Trilateral Highway, a 1,360-km strategic route connecting Moreh in India’s Manipur state to Mae Sot in Thailand via Myanmar, part of India’s “Act East” policy, maritime connectivity between the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea, as well as cooperation in technology, trade, and education.
On regional relations, Mr Tharoor said India views Asean as a vital partner.
“We do not view the region through the prism of block confrontation or any kind of zero-sum rivalry,” he said. “In recent years, I’ve often argued that India’s real strategic advantage lies precisely in its capacity for what one may call multi-alignment. The ability to sustain multiple productive relationships, across competing centres of global power, without becoming excessively dependent on or other group to any single one of them.
“No country should seek dominance over the Indo-Pacific, and no nation, large or small, should be denied the opportunity and the freedom to pursue its legitimate interests. Infrastructure should strengthen regional prosperity, not create unsustainable dependencies. And finding maritime cooperation must extend beyond security alone.”