Bilateral relations between Singapore and India have deepened in recent years. With India’s continued
rise as well as its links with a fast-growing East Asia, Singapore-India relations are set to develop further.
Currently, Singapore-India relations are mainly focused along the more traditional lines of diplomatic,
military and economic engagements. However, India’s historical, cultural and civilisational heft also
opens up other cultural and intellectual possibilities for strengthening Singapore-India relations. This
brief pursues these possibilities, and drawing on recent scholarly work, as well as fieldwork interviews
conducted in New Delhi in 2013, it suggests how bilateral relations can be further enhanced through
expanding our conceptions of foreign policy. This can be achieved through broader engagements
between academia and policymaking, and through recognising the ways in which culture – and cultural
processes related to film and literature – contributes to foreign relations and security. This brief concludes
with three policy recommendations aimed at enhancing Singapore-India relations: active support of
film and literary festivals; inclusion of Indian film and literature into Singapore’s educational curricula;
and fostering greater engagement between academic communities of Singapore and India in these
aforementioned areas of research.