At first glance it looks as if India nestled into a pocket specially made for it. In fact, India has profoundly changed the outline of Asia. A simple experiment shows how. If a rigid block is pushed into a soft material like clay, it creates a network of criss-crossing faults ahead of it. Additional pushing causes wedges of clay to be pushed to the side, a process called tectonic extrusion. The bottom diagram looks remarkably like the actual geography of Asia.
To the west of India is the main mass of the Eurasian Plate, with a divergent plate margin and North America beyond that. Crust cannot be pushed easily to the west. But to the east are subduction zones where Asia is overriding the Pacific Plate. Crust can be easily pushed in this direction.
