From Look East To Act East - An Analysis Of India’s Engagement With South East Asia

Abstract

The Look East Policy was one of the major components of India’s post-liberalization foreign policy. With successive Indian governments having supported and advanced the policy, it evolved from an economic engagement with South East Asia to a broader economic and strategic engagement with the larger Indo-Pacific region. A change in government in 2014, led to the Look East Policy transforming into the Act East Policy, talking of a deeper and more intense engagement with the Indo-Pacific region and at the same time maintaining ASEAN’s centrality to the engagement. While the circumstances and actors (including India) in 2014 were starkly different from that of 1992, is the “change” in policy real or just a nomenclature change? Has it turned out to be a case of “old wine in a new bottle”? This dissertation examines this transition of India’s South East Asia policy and attempts to discern the dimensions and challenges of the Act East Policy that mark it different from its predecessor.