Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore

India and Thailand are linked by sea routes. As early as the 3rd century BCE, Indian traders and scholars sailed there, trading spices and textiles and bringing religious and cultural ideas that deeply shaped the region.

Look at the names. The Dvāravatī culture (6th–11th centuries CE) took its name from a Sanskrit word meaning 'that which has gates', after Dvārakā, Kṛiṣhṇa's city in the Mahābhārata. Later, the Ayutthayā kingdom, founded in 1351, was named after Ayodhyā, Rāma's birthplace.

All the kings of the present Chakri dynasty are named after Rāma; the current king is Rama X. Theravāda Buddhism is widely followed, and Hindu gods and stories from Indian epics are part of Thai royal ceremonies, dance and literature. Bangkok's airport is called Suvarnabhumi, and a huge sculpture there shows the samudra manthana, the churning of the ocean.

A modern project revives these old links: the India–Myanmar–Thailand Trilateral Highway, running from Manipur through Myanmar into Thailand, to improve road connections, trade and cooperation.

India's links with Malaysia go back over 2,000 years. Hindu and Buddhist influence came early (the Srivijaya kingdom, for example), and around the 4th century CE the region adopted a script based on India's Brāhmī. These influences still show in Malaysian art and literature, although Islam became the main religion by the 15th century.

In the 19th and 20th centuries, many Indian workers, mostly from south India, went to Malaysia to work on rubber plantations. Today about 9 per cent of Malaysians are of Indian origin. India is one of Malaysia's biggest trading partners, working together on palm oil, energy, infrastructure and IT.

Singapore gets its name from Singapuram, 'lion city', an ancient kingdom off the southern tip of Malaysia. Like Thailand and Malaysia, it had close ties with India, with Buddhist monks and traders visiting a few centuries BCE. It became a British colony, then part of Malaysia, and finally a separate nation in 1965.

Singapore is famous for its town planning and cleanliness: throwing litter, breaking traffic rules or crossing the road carelessly brings heavy fines! Tamil is one of its four official languages, with English, Mandarin and Malay. Singapore is now one of the biggest foreign investors in India, especially in infrastructure and technology, and about 9 per cent of its residents are of Indian origin, many living in an area called 'Little India'.