India-ASEAN FTA: Implications for India's NorthEast
- Part 2 -

By James R. Ruolngul *

India and ASEAN: Shared ties, divergent policies and convergence?

Although India and ASEAN countries have shared cultural and historical ties, India's interactions with ASEAN countries was quite limited during the Cold War as the two pursued policies which were not very conducive to deep rooted interactions and commitments to each other.

Soon after the end of the Second World War, India championed the process of decolonisation and drew recognition and appreciation from different parts of the world. It became one of the founding members of the Nonaligned Movement (NAM). Even though Indonesia was also a member of NAM alongside India, this relationship did not extend beyond that.

The arrival of bipolar politics in Southeast Asia, the Vietnam crisis and India's close ties with the Soviet Union led to the adoption of divergent policies by both India and ASEAN. ASEAN was formed in 1967 during the Vietnam War primarily to diffuse regional conflicts and to promote better relations between members.

Communist victories in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia soon worsened the already fragile security situation of Southeast Asia. Thus by 1976, ASEAN was forced to contemplate to become an association with security as its main concern. The reunification of Vietnam and the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia created another security dilemma.

While ASEAN chastised Vietnam, India supported Vietnam. ASEAN's suspicions of the Soviet Union and the paranoia it had with anything communist led many, including India, to regard ASEAN as allies of the capitalists or a pro-American bloc. Suspicion was so high during this time that India refused to hold dialogues with ASEAN twice in 1975 and 1980.

But with the end of the Cold War, interactions between India and ASEAN became more frequent; and relations between the two began to improve at a very fast pace. Following the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union, India began to adopt liberalisation policies.

Meanwhile, ASEAN had also emerged as an important regional organisation with great potentials and opportunities for growth. The transformation of the international system and new outlooks led to the adoption of the Look East Policy by India. When India initiated its Look East Policy in 1991, it marked a strategic shift in its foreign policy and perceptions towards its eastern neighbours.

ASEAN's strategic importance in the larger Asia-Pacific region and the potentials it has in becoming India's major partner in trade and investment also added an impetus to India to develop closer ties with it.

In addition, considering that the proposed South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA) is unlikely to produce any solid outcome, this policy shift and agreement on the part of India is as strategic as it is important. The Indian Prime Mister Manmohan Singh commented thus, "This was not merely an external economic policy; it was also a strategic shift in India's vision of the world and India's place in the evolving global economy. Most of all it was about reaching out to our civilizational neighbours in the region." [iii]

In continuance of India's Look East Policy, the process of interregional cooperation was institutionalised with India becoming a sectoral dialogue partner of ASEAN in 1992; a full dialogue partner in 1995 and member of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) in 1996.

India became a summit-level partner of ASEAN in 2002 and concluded the ASEAN-India Partnership for Peace, Progress and Shared Prosperity in 2004.

India also became engaged in regional initiatives such as the Mekong-Ganga Cooperation (MGC) and the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC). India has now become a member of the East Asia Summit (EAS) since December 2005.



To be continued ...