Comment: “Look East” policy of India. (2002, 20 Marks)
“Look East” names India’s post-1991 effort to reintegrate with Southeast and East Asia. It has no white paper or statute. Its intellectual statement is P. V. Narasimha Rao’s Singapore Lecture of 8 September 1994, India and the Asia-Pacific: Forging a New Relationship, which never used the phrase; officials and commentators applied the label afterwards. That looseness is the key: an orientation rather than a programme, flexible enough to survive every government since.
Origins and logic
- Drivers: the 1991 balance-of-payments crisis and liberalisation, the Soviet collapse, SAARC’s stagnation and China’s growing presence in Southeast Asia.
- Rao’s frame: India belongs to the Asia-Pacific by geography and history; economic reintegration precedes security cooperation; ASEAN is the entry point.
- Ending an estrangement: ASEAN had seen India as Soviet-aligned after the 1971 treaty and the 1980 recognition of the Heng Samrin regime in Cambodia, so the policy was also reassurance.
Evolution in three phases
| Phase | Scope | Content |
|---|---|---|
| Look East I (1991–2003) | ASEAN | Trade, investment; dialogue partner 1995, ARF 1996 |
| Look East II (2003–14) | Japan, Korea, Australia, China | 2003 framework agreement, East Asia Summit 2005, AITIGA 2010 |
| Act East (2014– ) | Indo-Pacific | Four Cs, security, connectivity, Quad |
The rename at Nay Pyi Taw (November 2014) came four years after Barack Obama told the Indian Parliament that the United States wanted India not only to “look East” but to “engage East”. Danielle Rajendram (2014) judged it continuity with greater ambition; its real additions were the Indo-Pacific frame and a security core.
Achievements
- Institutional ladder: summit partner (2002), Strategic Partnership (2012), Comprehensive Strategic Partnership (2022). Pakistan, a sectoral partner from 1993, never advanced, a measure of what India gained.
- Trade rose from about US$2 billion in 1991 to US$128.38 billion in 2025–26.
- Security partnerships with Vietnam, Singapore, Indonesia and the Philippines (BrahMos deliveries from 2024; Strategic Partnership, 2025), and the Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative (2019), aligned with ASEAN’s own Outlook.
- Soft power: restoration at Angkor and My Son, the revived Nalanda University, technical training.
Critique
- Realists see an under-resourced soft-balancing project; China–ASEAN trade dwarfs India’s. Rajesh Rajagopalan (“Evasive balancing”, 2020) argues India wants balancing’s gains without its costs.
- Liberal economists point to an unbalanced trade agreement: a deficit of about US$45 billion (2024–25), an AITIGA review still unfinished in 2026, and the RCEP exit (2019) that dented credibility.
- Delivery gap: Kaladan, agreed in 2008, has stalled since the Arakan Army took Paletwa in January 2024; the Trilateral Highway is unfinished.
- North-East scholars such as Thongkholal Haokip (2015) argue the region is treated as a transit corridor, not a stakeholder.
- Constructivists: Amitav Acharya’s account of the consensus-bound “ASEAN Way” (Constructing a Security Community in Southeast Asia, 2001) explains why India can partner ASEAN but not lead it.
Current position
Narendra Modi joined the 22nd ASEAN–India Summit (26 October 2025) virtually; it named 2026 the ASEAN–India Year of Maritime Cooperation and backed a 2026–30 Plan of Action, as ASEAN admitted Timor-Leste as its eleventh member. US tariff pressure since 2025 makes Asian markets more valuable, while Myanmar’s war keeps the land bridge broken.
Conclusion
Look East is India’s most successful post-Cold War regional initiative in political and strategic terms: India now sits at every Asian table it once lacked. Economically and in the North-East it remains under-delivered. The gap lies in delivery, not intent, and closing it needs economic competitiveness more than new summits.