Going East without a strategy

The underlying assumption of the Look East policy was articulated by India at recent meetings of the ARF. It was looking at the Asia-Pacific as "the springboard of our leap into the global marketplace" and at playing a meaningful political and strategic role in Asia-Pacific. Included in this assessment is the belief that India is regarded by others as a major Asian power in political, economic and strategic terms. There is also a conviction that ASEAN countries believe that there cannot be an Asia-Pacific century without India. Thirdly, ASEAN despite its Islamic and other predilections towards Pakistan, will continue to deal with India on merit. Finally, there is an overall feeling that ASEAN’s support for India is based not only on its capability as a factor in China’s containment and ASEAN’s autonomy in ARF vis-a-vis the US, but the fact that ASEAN is equally lured by India’s emerging market potential as well as known assets like the reservoir of skilled but under-utilised manpower.

The success of India’s Look East Policy hinges on two major issues. First, increasing the level of economic and technological cooperation between India and the region, taking advantage of skilled manpower, untapped markets, massive market potential and other synergies that give the economic relationship a major thrust. Second, the exploitation of defence cooperation opportunities with countries in the region. Success in these areas would guarantee a highly visible role for India in the emerging Asia-Pacific community.

Through the ARF and its many fora, both at the governmental and non-governmental levels, India has participated actively. But, sadly, it has not been able to suggest specific initiatives which could put its permanent impress upon the ARF process. This has been the result of a failure to coordinate New Delhi’s approach in the different activities being undertaken within the ARF process.

The ARF process is unique in the sense that it involves government, non-officials, academic and research institutions. In other regional organisations, there has been no experience of a systematic transition of ideas from the non-official (Track II) to the official level (Track I). They run along mutually exclusive routes, denying these regional organisations the ability to draw upon new ideas as well as inject a sense of realism into the Track-II dialogue.

Within the ARF process, most new ideas are introduced at the non-official level, slowly moving upwards and ending up on the formal agenda of the ARF ministerial meetings. To achieve success in such fora, close interaction between non-officials and government becomes imperative. In India, unfortunately, the area of strategic studies has remained confined to the capital, with universities, academic institutions and individuals from elsewhere being largely neglected. The present arrangement by which India participates in the ARF remains largely unsatisfactory. Our participation at the non-official level has produced no concrete results and we continue to remain marginal in most of the issues being discussed. This is the result of the absence of a coordinating mechanism which would ensure that ideas put forward in non-official meetings enjoy the confidence of the government.