India Pivots East

[Valin]

Via Meadia:

2/27/13

 

For years, India’s main security problem was in the west. Pakistan, Pakistan, Pakistan—the troublesome neighbor consumed the attention of policy-makers in Delhi. But with the rise of China and Southeast Asia, things are changing. Events like last December’s epic Indonesia-to-India, 8,000-kilometer car rally suggest a new outlook in Delhi—conveniently termed its “Look East” policy.

 

 

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As a bridge to Southeast Asia, northeast India is critical to Delhi’s outreach to countries like Bangladesh and Burma, both of which share long borders and cultural similarities with India. But northeast India is remote and ignored, the least developed part of the country. Eight states in east and northeast India have more people living in poverty than the 26 poorest African states combined. Infrastructure development is very poor. Illegal mining is widespread. Smuggling—in people, drugs, ivory, and other valuables—is common along the border. Indian and Burmese separatist militants frequently launch attacks from bases on the other side of the border; in the past they sometimes enjoyed state support, back when India and Burma did not get along. Last summer, riots between Bengali immigrants and tribal Indians in Assam resulted in hundreds of deaths, thousands of people displaced, houses and livelihoods destroyed, and a crisis that reverberated across India.

 

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ndia’s relationship with Southeast Asia is one of the more important developments in Asian geopolitics today. Getting this right is important not just for the small-time merchant in Moreh, the dusty backwater town on the Indo-Burmese border, the rice farmer in a rural village in Assam, or the ruling politicians in Kolkata, the historic capital of northeast India; it’s important for the whole of Asia, and America too.

[Valin]

For those who are interested in foreign affair/Geo-Strategy. One of the best (most important?) recent books on this

 

Monsoon: The Indian Ocean and the Future of American Power

Robert D Kaplan

 

Booklist

An inveterate traveler and author, Kaplan recently toured the rim of the Indian Ocean to inspect its geopolitics. Perspectives on the balance of power vary from country to country and speaker to speaker, but most agree that India and China are the ascending powers in the region. As Kaplan’s passages about Indian Ocean history reflect, the two countries can refer to tradition (to the fifteenth-century fleets of Zheng He, in China’s case) for their contemporary activities in the Indian Ocean, but the plain fact is they are busy for one reason: access to resources. As Kaplan journeys from Oman to Pakistan to Burma and Indonesia, the specific raw material comes into focus, as does the geopolitical angle of safely shipping it to the interested country. Touching on what could threaten maritime traffic, such as piracy, ethnic conflicts, or hostile control of choke points like the Strait of Malacca, Kaplan is guardedly optimistic that interested powers, including the U.S., can benignly manage their Indian Ocean affairs. A better-informed world-affairs reader will be the result of Kaplan’s latest title.

 

 

 

[Valin]

India’s “Look East” Policy Taking Off

3/2/13

 

 

 

In Thursday’s budget announcement, Indian Finance Minister P. Chidambaram made an important but overlooked decision to begin upgrading the infrastructure of northeast India. ”Combining the Look East policy and the interests of the northeastern states, I propose to seek the assistance of the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank to build roads in the northeastern States and connect them to Myanmar,” he said.

 

Specifically, Chidambaram plans to upgrade roads connecting the Indian border town of Moreh to the central north-south highway in Burma. Eventually, Delhi wants a highway network that connects northeast India to Burma and Thailand, which would spur economic activity between the three countries.

 

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