Much has been made about the promises that the Look East policy holds for the North-east. But there are major challenges ahead. After all, historically, mainland India’s ties with south-east Asia have been more maritime than continental. While in a continental sense, south-east Asia may be next-door to north-east India, in a maritime sense, the east coast of India is close to it as well. Indeed it was the kingdoms of the Andhra and the Orissa coasts and even the Saka kings of the west coast who had built some of the oldest relationships between the subcontinent and south-east Asia.

Even today it is cheaper and easier for India to trade with south-east Asia by sea rather than by land. The land route is through a difficult physical terrain and there are significant political uncertainties. It would be easy to drift into a more maritime oriented Look East policy.

Downplaying the continental dimension however will have its costs — not only for the North-east but for India’s diplomatic ambitions as well. After all, it is not an accident that the world’s only superpower, the United States of America, is both a continental and a maritime power. But the challenges in giving a continental thrust to the Look East policy should not be underestimated.

Let us look at the promises first. The North-east’s locational disadvantages in economic terms are not just brute physical facts, they are also the result of political factors. The massive disruption of markets and commercial links caused by the Partition is well known. But the region’s isolation also has older roots. The disruption of historic trade routes as a result of British colonial decisions to draw hard lines between the hills and the plains, to put barriers on trade between Bhutan and Assam and to treat Burma as a strategic frontier as British India’s buffer against French Indochina and China is among colonialism’s most enduring negative legacy in the region.

In postcolonial times, formally hard, albeit porous, international borders have worked against the North-east. The “border effect” — tariffs and other market-distorting effects of borders — has led producers to locate industries away from the region and closer to the core of the domestic market. Thus Barauni was supposed to be a better location than Guwahati for concentrating refining capacity. The argument, of course, assumed that the market for the products of the refinery would be strictly limited to India and could not be sold in Bangladesh or Burma without tariffs and other restrictions. An important dimension of globalization is the emergence of new cross-border economic regions. So far as border regions are concerned the softening of national borders can produce very different calculations of locational advantages. Such a possibility was indicated when the former external affairs minister, Jaswant Singh, described the 160-kilometre Tamu-Kalewa-Kalemyo road through Myanmar as “opening up the natural outlet of the Northeast”.

Such rhetoric, however, should not be allowed to obscure what is necessary for cross-national region building and the gap between the potential and the reality. Whether or not the Look East policy might facilitate the creation of a cross-border economic region encompassing the North-east and the adjacent transnational areas on the east will depend on the resources, both economic and political.

There is today a virtual boom in the construction of cross-national highways, road, rail and air corridors thanks to the interest of multilateral organizations and advanced industrial countries with a stake in the globalized economy. Multilateral initiatives have brought together donor countries, land-locked developing countries and transit developing countries on infrastructure development, trade facilitation and regional cooperation projects in many parts of the world. But when it comes to building roads through Myanmar, multilateral development assistance has been unavailable because of the economic sanctions imposed by the US and the European Union. India too had a critical stance towards Myanmar’s military rulers, in the years following their violent crackdown of the democracy movement in 1988. But there was a U-turn in Indian policies in 1993, brought about by the concern over the economic, political and military inroads made by China in the intervening period pushed the change in Indian policy.

Today China, India and Thailand provide bilateral assistance to Myanmar. And while India, Myanmar and Thailand or China, Myanmar and Thailand may cooperate in road-building projects, the four countries together do not sit down to plan road and rail networks. Under these conditions, there are clearly limits on the scope and ambition of the road-building projects being discussed.

There are a number of regional initiatives that would be relevant to the prospects of the emergence of a cross-border region bringing together the North-east and the adjacent transnational areas on its east, that is, the Ganga-Mekong subregion; the Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Thailand Economic Cooperation; and an exercise in second track diplomacy, the Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar Regional Economic Forum — a product of the Kunming Initiative of 1999.

There is considerable variance in the political and economic resources committed to these initiatives. For instance, India is not enthusiastic about being involved with China multilaterally even while it is working hard to improve bilateral relations. At the multilateral level, India prefers the Ganga-Mekong subregion, and BIMST-EC that do not include China to the BCIM forum. Thus, on the road-building front, while there has been movement in the building of the road through Myanmar from across the Moreh in Manipur — expected eventually to connect India to Thailand — there is less enthusiasm for rebuilding the Stilwell Road that could connect the North-east to the Yunnan-Northern Myanmar-south-east Asia corridor.

So long as China is kept at a distance and we remain blind to the long-term uncertainties inherent in the political stalemate in Myanmar, steps towards cross-border region building cannot gain momentum. Yet, since a Sino-Indian reproachment is not out of the question and it is unlikely that the junta in Myanmar will hold on to power forever, it is necessary to make policy with a long-term view.

A reproachment with China could energize the ideas proposed by the Kunming Initiative including the rebuilding of the Stilwell Road. Since there is growing recognition in the US and Europe that the sanctions against Myanmar are not working, India can take a leading role in coordinating international policy towards Myanmar. In cooperation with other international actors, India can promote reconciliation between the military and the democratic forces and facilitate a political transition in Myanmar. Once Myanmar has a more stable government and multilateral initiatives are in place, India will not have to make policies based on fears about Chinese gains in Myanmar.

Another way of giving a continental orientation to the Look East policy would be to give a direct role to the North-eastern states. China has taken full advantage of Yunnan’s geographical location and of its cultural affinities with its neighbours in its efforts to strengthen ties with south-east Asia. We could do the same with the North-east. Yunnan’s road, air and rail links with its transnational neighbours are impressive. The provincial government gives additional incentives to foreign investors for investing in Yunnan. Yunnan’s provincial government plays a direct role in the institutions of the Greater Mekong Subregion. Kunming has become very much a pan-Asian international city with consulates of countries such as Thailand, Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam.

India can take advantage of the North-east’s history and culture as a soft power resource. We talk about Buddhism, Angkor Vat and the Ramayana in stressing our shared cultural ties with south-east Asia. But we rarely refer to the south-east Asian roots of the Tai Ahoms or the Khasis. We do not acknowledge that Balinese Hinduism and art forms are probably closer to Manipur’s than to those of the Hindi heartland. Yet in south-east Asia itself there is growing awareness of the North-east.

If the Look East policy is to live up to its potential of becoming the North-east’s road to peace and prosperity it has to have a robust continental thrust and include a clear vision of a transnational region-building project. That can be done only with greater synchronizing of our foreign policies towards China, Myanmar and the Association of South-east Asian Nations and our domestic policies towards North-east India. To be sure there are some risks. But we will have to be bold rather than cautious: we will have to face up to those risks and actively assess and manage them.