Welcome to Foreign Policy’s South Asia Brief.

The highlights this week: An bold connectivity challenge goals to higher hyperlink India to the Middle East, former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan is detained months forward of nationwide elections, and communal violence flares within the Indian state of Manipur.

Last weekend, nationwide safety advisors from India, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and the United States met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Riyadh to debate an bold connectivity challenge to hyperlink the Middle East to India via roads, rails, and seaports. The thought emerged throughout conferences of the I2U2 group—which additionally contains Israel—over the past yr, Axios reported.

The proposed initiative alerts that India and the United States are able to take their joint efforts to counter China past the Indo-Pacific area and into the Middle East. It’s clear the Biden administration views the connectivity challenge as a solution to steadiness Chinese energy within the area. “Nobody said it out loud, but it was about China from day one,” a former senior Israeli official informed Axios.

This is a bit stunning: The I2U2 group—a comparatively new automobile for U.S.-India cooperation within the Middle East—was not envisioned as a China-focused entity, given the shut business cooperation that each the UAE and Israel take pleasure in with China.

It’s simple to see why India would wish to take part in a brand new minilateral effort to push again towards China’s rising Middle East footprint—pushed by Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) investments and by a latest strategic agreement with Iran. (Beijing additionally lately mediated a reconciliation deal between Tehran and Riyadh.) The Middle East is an increasingly significant space for India, given its commerce pursuits there and the several million Indians who work within the area and ship remittances again dwelling.

The connectivity challenge goals to leverage India’s capability as an infrastructure supplier. Its observe report contains the development of the world’s largest rail system in Asia and contributions to cross-border electricity-sharing arrangements. Through the brand new initiative Indian officers hope to develop a deeper infrastructure footprint within the Middle East to counter China’s BRI.

To be certain, the Middle East-India connectivity initiative continues to be purely aspirational, however its potential is huge: linking New Delhi with a area crucial to its pursuits and in cooperation with a few of its prime companions. According to at least one assessment, in a best-case situation India might ultimately profit from land and sea commerce routes stretching from Israel and the UAE all the way in which to Greece’s Piraeus port and onward into Europe.

Saudi Arabia hasn’t formalized relations with Israel, which implies the latter isn’t a proper a part of the challenge, however its membership in I2U2 suggests it’ll have a job. On Tuesday, Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen visited New Delhi. Although he departed early due to a disaster with Gaza, he seemingly deliberate to satisfy with Indian interlocutors concerning the connectivity challenge. In a statement launched earlier than the go to, Cohen stated India can play a key position in strengthening regional stability within the Middle East.

Ultimately, the connectivity challenge exhibits simply how a lot India benefits from the Abraham Accords, the Trump-era settlement that normalized relations between Israel and several other of its Arab neighbors. The deal allowed for the institution of the I2U2 group, and discussions there gave rise to the brand new initiative.

India now has alternatives to scale up affect, commerce, and diplomacy past the Indo-Pacific area—all in a yr whereas holding the G-20 presidency, having fun with fast financial development, and overtaking China because the world’s most populous nation.

Imran Khan arrested. On Tuesday, former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan was arrested earlier than an look on the Islamabad High Court. Khan faces a multitude of corruption and terrorism-related charges, most of which he and his supporters say are fabricated. It’s unclear why Khan was lastly arrested yesterday, however days earlier he posted a video alleging—not for the primary time—{that a} senior army intelligence officer was behind a November assassination try towards Khan. (The army denies these allegations.)

Pakistani officers say Khan was arrested on corruption expenses, however that appears to be pretext to detain the previous chief. The civilian and army management purpose to make sure that he can’t return to energy in nationwide elections to be held no later than October; his arrest takes him out of the operating, as he can’t stage marketing campaign rallies from a jail cell.

In the wake of Khan’s arrest, protests erupted throughout Pakistan. Most have been peaceable, however some protesters tried to storm or set hearth to army amenities. Paramilitary forces performed the arrest, which suggests the Pakistani Army could have orchestrated it. Some observers famous that in some areas, safety forces didn’t make a lot effort to cease protesters approaching army amenities, and experiences have emerged that the state desires to encourage unrest—giving it pretext to maintain Khan in detention and even delay elections.

On Wednesday, Khan made a short court docket look, the place he was indicted on expenses associated to how he dealt with items throughout his time as prime minister. The court docket ordered him to be held in police custody for eight days. The secretary-general of Khan’s get together, Asad Umar, was additionally arrested on Wednesday. Protests continued in main cities, and the web was shut down across much of the country.

Caretaker governments in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces, the place Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) get together enjoys essentially the most help, requested help from the army to handle public order. The assemblies of each provinces have been dissolved earlier this yr in a PTI push for early elections.

It’s tough to foretell what is going to occur subsequent, however Pakistan might construct a case to completely disqualify Khan from public workplace, buoyed by the corruption indictment. Jail time would cease him from campaigning however not from contesting elections, however disqualification would rule out each choices. With the state seemingly set on detaining prime PTI management, plans could also be within the works to ultimately ban the get together from politics.

Deadly violence in Manipur. The state of Manipur in northeastern India was calm on Wednesday after a number of days of ethnic violence that killed at the least 60 folks and displaced 35,000 extra. Unrest started final week, after members of ethnic Kuki and Naga tribes staged protests towards a court docket advice to think about awarding particular social advantages to the ethnic Meitei, a non-tribal group that makes up half the state’s inhabitants. Clashes ensued between the Meitei and the tribal communities.

The Kuki and the Naga are listed below India’s Scheduled Tribes class, which permits them to attract on particular financial and social advantages. But the extra marginalized tribes worry there shall be fewer sources obtainable for them if the Meitei obtain entry to these particular advantages. The Meitei have sought to obtain these particular advantages for years, unsuccessfully, and have raised issues that refugees arriving from neighboring Myanmar might quickly outnumber them, resulting in their marginalization.

The violence in Manipur displays how India’s communal fault strains lengthen far past spiritual divisions. India is thought for its ethnic range and the long-standing tolerance that has allowed so many alternative teams to coexist. But tensions usually emerge—and particularly in Manipur and different areas dwelling to many poor and marginalized communities.

Last Saturday, a mob in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa lynched a cleric, Nigar Alam, who was accused of blasphemy. Alam was talking at a public assembly organized by Khan’s PTI and enraged the gang when he reportedly stated he revered an area political determine like he respects the Prophet Muhammad. Police locked Alam inside a retailer to guard him from the mob, however folks managed to tug him outdoors, the place he was crushed to loss of life.

Unsurprisingly, given the sensitivity of blasphemy allegations in Pakistan, no PTI chief has spoken publicly concerning the tragedy. Blasphemy allegations are frequent within the nation. Just a few weeks in the past, a Chinese citizen engaged on a dam challenge was accused of blasphemy and briefly arrested before being released. Religious minorities and different marginalized communities are particularly susceptible to such allegations.

What makes Alam’s case uncommon is that he was a non secular determine—a reminder that nobody is immune from blasphemy allegations that may shortly change into loss of life sentences in Pakistan.