Abstract: North-East India (NEI) owing to its location plays a very crucial role in various aspects of security, trade, commerce and connectivity across the borders, having huge untapped potential to emerge as a strategic base for foreign and domestic investments. Unfortunately, despite being the only part of India that provides land connectivity to Southeast Asia, it has received very little attention from New Delhi. NEI has been a victim of geographical, insurgency, underdevelopment and political ignorance. To alter this, the Government of India has initiated many efforts for achieving greater economic growth, integration with the rest of India and development for the region. One such initiative undertaken is regional integration with neighbouring countries of Southeast Asia. India’s interest in regional integration can be traced back to 1985 in the form of South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) to address the regional concerns such as security, economy, enhancing cultural linkages among the South Asian nations. Post 1990s, the ‘Look East Policy’ was established, which opened a new chapter in the pursuit of developing closer ties among the states within the region and also giving a much needed attention to North East Region (NER). At the same time, India has also been actively promoting other bilateral and multilateral arrangements with South and Southeast Asian neighbours, like the Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar (BCIM), Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technological and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC), Mekong-Ganga Cooperation (MGC) etc. However, despite promoting many policies, one hears of neglect due to absence of timely delivery of the economic developmental activities in the NER raising questions about the intention of such policies. Thus, this paper attempts to analyse (1) whether these so called developmental policies are merely to counter the rising hegemony of China in the SE Asia and (2) or, these policies are the genuine effort of the GOI to ensure economic development in the NER.
Keywords: Look East/Act East, NER, Development, Trade, Investment, Integration, China.
Title: Northeast India and Its Neighbourhood: Perspective on Regional Integration with Southeast Asia
Author: Joshua T. Khaute
International Journal of Social Science and Humanities Research
ISSN 2348-3156 (Print), ISSN 2348-3164 (online)
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