Abstract
The book India’s Eastward Engagement: From Antiquity to Act East Policy, as the title suggests, looks at the continuity of India’s engagement with its eastern neighbours. The authors draw on historical records to establish the continuity in these relations across the ancient, medieval and modern periods. As stated by the authors at the outset, the fallacy of India’s limited engagement with its eastern neighbours needed to be challenged and the relationship revisited well before the ‘Look East’ policy.
The book, based on in-depth historical research, has been able to establish India’s long and continued relations with the region. This breaks the myth of India’s limited and renewed engagement only in the post-Cold War years. The book argues that the current level of engagement between India and its eastern neighbours has been possible as a consequence of a continuous process of engagement, carefully nurtured over two millennia. Therefore, by looking at the broader historical evolution of this relationship, the book provides a fresh perspective on the multifaceted relations between India and its neighbours to the east.
The authors rightfully point to the fact that the east, especially Southeast Asia, has since ancient times been sympathetic and responsive to cultural and religious exports from India. This receptiveness was a major factor in the cultural diffusion and the beginning of the long engagement between India and the East. While the book brings out the role of religion and culture in building these relations, it also explores periods when the level of engagement witnessed a slowdown, such as during the height of the Mughal Empire. This however, did not end the engagement which continued despite diminished patronage from the ruling elite. While cultural diffusion continued and remains the bedrock of the relations, so did the ability of the Southeast Asians to localise the new culture. Cultural assimilation helped create a perfect synergy for a substantial partnership between India and its neighbours in the east. By examining the major schools of thought on the subject of cultural diffusion, the book attempts to show how the nature of the engagement since ancient times continues to be a part of India’s contemporary eastward engagement.
The seven waves of India’s engagement as categorised by the authors are elaborated in the chapters of the book. The first set consisting of three waves, namely the ancient Hindu and Buddhist influence, the Islamic waves and the British era are discussed in one chapter which is followed by the chapter that discusses the Nehru waves, the first from 1927–1967, followed by the post-Nehru era, the ‘Look East’ policy from 1992–2014, and then the ‘Act East’ policy. The final chapter of the book outlines the prospects of future relations by examining the challenges and scope for a much deeper and wider engagement.
The chapter on the Nehru wave not only provides a well-documented account of modern India’s engagement with nations in Southeast Asia but also highlights the factors that helped shape the principles of India’s foreign policy. As this period was marked both by the independence of nations in Asia from colonial rule and by the onset of the Cold War, it created the space for a new narrative resulting in the formation of a non-aligned group of Asian nations. The Asian Relations Conference of 1947 and the Bandung Conference of 1955, which was the zenith of India’s multilateral diplomacy, have been well elaborated in the book. However, the external environment due to the onset of the Cold War, which led to the polarisation around the two power blocks, redefined India’s relations with its Asian partners. The authors’ argue that apart from the polarisation of the world during the Cold War, India’s war with China in 1962 and with Pakistan in 1965 resulted in an inward and cautious Indian foreign policy. This transition from a multilateral diplomatic engagement under Nehru to a more restrained foreign policy, according to the authors, led to the evolution of a new foreign policy approach based on Nehruvian vision of Asia with pragmatic realism.
On the subject of ASEAN, the book provides a detailed account of how India has always been supportive of the association even before its inception. However, events such as the Kampuchea conflict kept India from becoming a dialogue partner of ASEAN until 1992. Since becoming a dialogue partner of ASEAN, India has been consistently supportive of the association and promoted its centrality as vital for regional stability and growth. While ASEAN-led initiatives such as the ongoing Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) remains to be concluded, the book emphasises their necessity given the ever increasing threat to the existing multilateral trading order. The authors view the RCEP as a platform that would help diversify and expand India’s export market and assist India in becoming a member of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation. The economic rationale provided for the conclusion of the RCEP, however, fails to underline the structural weaknesses of the Indian economy, such as its manufacturing sector, which remains less competitive in comparison to its Southeast and East Asian counterparts.
The enunciation of the ‘Look East’ policy in the early 1990s has been well illustrated along with its economic and strategic imperatives. The authors while attempting to understand the difference between the ‘Look East’ and the ‘Act East’ policy feel that there remains more continuity than change. According to them, the difference lies more in the quantitative side rather than on the qualitative side. Culture and religion—Buddhism and Hinduism—linkages are more pronounced under the ‘Act East’ policy provide one example of the difference between the two policies. This also opens this subject for further study and research.
China is viewed by the authors as one of the major factors for India’s strategic push into the region. The emerging concept of the Indo-Pacific has further widened the canvas of the ‘Act East’ policy as mentioned in the book. This has pushed India’s eastward engagement to the next level by making it wider, more multidimensional and action-oriented. The authors nuance, the emerging geostrategic construct, which is becoming an essential element of India’s eastward engagement, with a historical perspective. The Indo-Pacific mentioned in Kalidas Nag’s 1941 book, India and the Pacific World, puts the historical perspective in place. Further, events such as the US intervention during the Indo-Pakistan war of 1971 helped realise that the Pacific and the Indian Ocean as being strategically connected. Thus, the book provides the cultural as well as the strategic rationale for India’s pursuit of the Indo-Pacific construct.
The authors have provided the readers with a book that is rich in terms of well-organised data. The book’s intended audience will not be limited only to students of international relations but would be of interest also to practitioners of foreign policy and trade, and scholars across various disciplines. While the authors have emphasised India’s strategic autonomy, they have been very pragmatic in their thinking by emphasising backing the policy vision with capabilities and resources. Finally, the book has been able to provide a glimpse into India’s eastward policy, which comes across as being sensitive as well as accommodative. It points to the fact that, even though India’s foreign policy has evolved to meet the challenges of its times, there is continuity of its core principles.