Rajeev Ranjan Chaturvedy, an associate professor in international relations at India’s Nalanda University, said the nation’s 30th anniversary dialogue with Asean in 2022, which involved the relationship being elevated to Comprehensive Partnership status, had also raised New Delhi’s standing in the region.

Chaturvedy added that many Southeast Asian nations viewed India as a “peaceful, non-threatening force”, while New Delhi’s strong economic performance and potential, its emphasis on multilateralism and its refusal to submit to China’s “territorial grab” had also played a role in raising its status, he said.

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India set to overtake China as the world's most populous country in 2023, UN predicts

India set to overtake China as the world's most populous country in 2023, UN predicts

The World Bank said in a report in December that India remains one of the fastest-growing major economies in the world, and even revised the country’s 2022-23 GDP growth to 6.9 per cent, from 6.5 per cent.

But Claudia Chia, a research analyst at the National University of Singapore’s Institute of South Asian Studies, said India’s neutral position on the Ukraine conflict had contributed to evolving perceptions as many Southeast Asia countries had also chosen not to publicly condemn Russia.

In war of narratives, where does Southeast Asia stand in Ukraine-Russia conflict?

Chia also said that India’s international profile had risen with New Delhi’s greater involvement in the Quad – a quasi-security alliance which also includes the United States, Japan and Australia – and its deepening ties with Washington.

Earlier this month, India and the US agreed to deepen cooperation in various areas including defence, artificial intelligence, semiconductor supply chains, jet engine production and commercial space launches.

“Asean is beginning to perceive a boost in Indian credibility and capability as a strategic and economic partner,” Chia said, noting that Asean increasingly viewed India as a “desirable partner”.

Jagannath Panda, head of the Stockholm Center for South Asian and Indo-Pacific Affairs, said that with Southeast Asian countries increasingly seeing India as an alternative global supply chain, New Delhi needed to quickly improve on its domestic infrastructure and enact investment-friendly laws.

“India needs to act fast to win its credibility as an emerging economy … Southeast Asian countries would like to see that in India to solidify their partnership [with it],” he said.

However, analyst Chia said Asean countries had realistic expectations of New Delhi’s political willingness and ability to embark on major investment economic projects, given India’s ongoing border rows with neighbouring China and Pakistan.

“[The] rise of Hindu nationalism and citizenship issues which have been perceived as anti-Muslim have certainly undermined India’s reputation,” she said, adding that had particularly happened in South Asia and countries with significant Muslim populations.

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In recent years, there have been growing calls from religious right-wing groups to declare India a Hindu nation and enshrine Hindu supremacy in law.

Attempts by Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to secure a Hindu nationalist agenda have also alienated religious minorities, especially Muslims, with critics pointing out the marked increase in hate speech and violence targeting the nation’s 210 million Muslims.

India’s 2019 Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) fast-tracks citizenship for Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Parsee and Christian immigrants who arrived in the country before 2015, but such rights were denied for Muslims, leading to violent riots in Muslim-majority neighbourhoods in Delhi in 2020.

However, Chia said these domestic issues were unlikely to represent a significant setback to India’s reputation among Asean members.

“The bloc does not necessarily have the best track record on similar issues and does not interfere in others’ internal affairs,” she said, referring to the group’s policy of not criticising the actions of other governments towards its own people.

Markey said that unless India entered a period of “seriously destabilising communal violence at home”, its Southeast Asian neighbours were unlikely to be put off by the country.

‘China is an exception’: India says ties good with all big powers - besides one

Speaking at the Munich Security Conference last week, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz endorsed comments by Jaishankar, saying he “had a point” when he commented last year that Europe needed to grow out of the mindset that Europe’s problems were the world’s problems, but the world’s problems were not Europe’s problems.

Noting that a change in mindset was necessary, Scholz said it was important to work with regions such as Asia, Africa, and Latin America to find solutions to the many challenges they faced, including growing poverty and hunger, climate change, and the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Describing Jaishankar’s remarks on Europe as criticisms meant to highlight the “unequal, lingering imperial European perspective of the world”, Markey said they were also meant as “a dismissive rejoinder” to calls for India to stand up for global norms like protecting state sovereignty and solidarity with fellow democracies.

Markey said that the German chancellor had accepted that Europe should take a more active interest in the Global South, or countries with lower levels of economic and industrial development.

“But [he] still observes that it wouldn’t be Europe’s problem alone if the law of the strong were to assert itself in international relations,” Markey said.