Touted as India’s second best foreign policy after Non-aligned movement, the Look East Policy (LEP) has had its share of interpretations not only by development scholars, economists and experts but also policy makers themselves sans a standing official white paper or blueprint.
The learning or “interpretative” process of LEP began in Nagaland Thursday with former Ambassador of India to Indonesia, Navrekha Sharma addressing a session on “India’s Look East Policy & the North East” at St. Joseph’s College, Jakhama.
Delivering the key note address and dwelling at length on history, the former ambassador traced the origin of LEP to the changes adopted by India in its foreign policies necessitated by the shift from a bi-polar to an uni-polar world and the subsequent rapid leap into a multi-polar world now. The leaning session was the first in a series of talks to be organized in other parts of India.
Stating that it was former Prime Minister Narasimha Rao who first introduced to idea in 1994, LEP came about as a consequent necessity of New Economic Policy embarked on by India post 1990s.
Certain moves were made even during Prime Minister Rajib Gandhi’s tenure too but the reactions of Southeast Asian countries then were lukewarm or “a default mindset was of indifference”, said Navrekha Sharma.
While commenting on the unfolding situations post 1990s, the former ambassador too highlighted the kind of trading relations India had with Southeast Asia in pre-colonial times from the maritime perspective and the sea route connections with ports in the region.
During the colonial phase, there was massive transfer of indentured labourers from India for rubber and sugar plantations in Southeast Asia. However, Navrekha Sharma pointed out that in “modern times”, the benefits of trading relations between India and Southeast Asia has been reaped mainly by Bangalore, Chennai and other Indian.
For the day, the current understanding of LEP was best summed up by Dr. Aotoshi, chairman CII Nagaland State Council when he narrated a story of Albert Einstein who was found crying one day and when asked why was he crying, the great scientist replied that everyone talked about the Theory of Relativity but no one actually seemed to know what it actually was.
Commenting on the lack of a non-definitive characteristic of LEP, Dr. Aotoshi raised questions like whether LEP was for the mainland India to look east via the Northeast or for both to look further east or for the mainstream to look at the Northeast.
However, he said LEP was a “process” and the Northeast states have a “role” to play in the same process.
During the interactive session, Neichute Duolo, a Naga entrepreneur remarked that India might have already missed the bus when it came to building a workable trading relations with neighbouring countries particularly Burma.
Citing ground realities, Duolo opined that the people of the Northeast in general and Nagas in particular were matured and ready to shoulder the responsibility of bigger relations based on their age old experience with people across the borders who also shared close cultural affinity. He urged that the people of region should be taken into confidence in the LEP project.
The respondent at the function, Mhonlumo Kikon, chief functionary, DICE foundation said there seemed to be a massive trust deficit when it came to consulting people of the Northeast on LEP. He also said there were numerous instances of Ministry of external affairs and Ministry of home affairs “cross cutting” each other’s purposes when it comes to foreign policies that had a direct impact on the Northeast.
The special address to the session was given by Kumara Guru, director (ER), India School of Business. The leaning session was jointly organized by Confederation of Indian Industry, Young Indians (Yi), ISB-Bharti Institute of Public Policy and public diplomacy division, MEA. The learning session was also attended by many college students.
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