
Right after the end of the Cold War, Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao presciently outlined India’s ‘Look East' policy. It was aimed at addressing our neglect of Southeast Asia despite centuries of multi-layered cultural connections. It was expected that looking eastwards would accrue multidimensional benefits to India in trade, development and strategic ties.
The desire to replicate the economic miracle that some ASEAN and East Asian countries had gone through was also in the larger gameplan. To facilitate that, India subsequently reduced much of its trade barriers. Government data suggests that Look East also contributed in enhancing the number of inbound tourists from Southeast Asia.
Post 2014, the policy was taken to a different level with renewed emphasis and a new name—Act East. The emphasis was not just on action, but also on the centrality of Northeast India in this policy. Taking ahead the legacy of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who had established the department for the development of the Northeast region, the Narendra Modi government envisioned closer cooperation between India’s oil-rich and tea-growing Northeast and Southeast Asia. Addressing the East Asia summit at Myanmar’s Naypyidaw in 2014, Modi said, “Commerce, culture and connectivity—these three Cs are the pillars of India's current Act East policy.”
Since then, the policy has achieved remarkable success in both evolving and implementing fresh policy approaches. While the Look East policy focused solely on the ASEAN, Act East expanded the strategic scope, emphasising the broader Indo-Pacific region with ASEAN at its core. It resulted in stronger multilateral and regional engagements through closer partnerships with Bimstec, Asia Cooperation Dialogue and the Indian Ocean Rim Association, too. Besides, more impetus given to defence diplomacy and institutional cooperation resulted in the Philippines buying BrahMos missiles and the signing of a military logistics pact between India and Vietnam.
Last week, speaking at the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas in Bhubaneswar, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar again invoked the spirit of India’s policy towards the East. Eulogising the strength of the host state, he said that just like the key pillars of India’s Look East and Act East policies, Odisha can offer three Ts—trade, technology and tourism.
Government leaders are deeply conscious of the fact that for translating the Act East policy, some more concrete and time-bound actions are needed in select areas. To that end, it would be worthwhile to focus on two important aspects of our cultural heritage: our shared epical traditions of the Ramayan and the Mahabharat, and our shared spiritual and philosophical tradition of Buddhism. However, these two cannot achieve adequate success without strong linguistic linkages. Hence, a crucial action point would be about building strong language bridges with most Southeast Asian countries.
First, let’s look at the epical traditions. People in 25-30 countries around the world relate to the two Indian epics in one way or another. When the Indian Council for Cultural Relations conducts its Ramayan festival, over 15 countries—including the fully-Islamic Brunei—participate, giving out a strong message that although belief systems may have changed, the underlying culture has a lot in common.
This underscores the fact that the deep cultural impact of both the Ramayan and the Mahabharat is not confined to India. These epics, considered a reflection of millenniums-old history, look at some basic human values with a universal appeal. Hence, just like the technology- and economy-oriented Bimstec, can we also think of another grouping that could be named the Ramayan-Mahabharat countries?
Buddhism provides yet another strong linkage between India and the East—here, there are limitless potentials we can build upon. India is the land of the evolution, growth and spread of Buddhism. It was a battery of committed Buddhist teachers and priests from India who have to be credited for the spread Buddhism in other parts of the world—across Tibet and China, and then on to Japan, and throughout Southeast Asia via Sri Lanka.
Bodh Gaya, where Buddha attained enlightenment and the most sacred place for the followers of Buddhism, is in India, where over 8 million practising Buddhists live. The depth of Buddhism’s influence is abundantly visible in Indian art, culture and architecture.
But today, China is trying to claim the Buddhist legacy with louder articulation. If such efforts are to be thwarted, India will have to more effectively emphasise the fact that Buddhism is inherent to the idea of India and an inseparable part of its heritage. To that end, India must undertake measures like organising large global conferences on Buddhism and Buddhist studies, recognising Buddhist scholars and priests from across the world, promoting the Buddhist tourism circuit in a more comprehensive manner while accommodating the needs of all language groups, vigorously promoting Buddhist art, and standing firmly behind all Buddhist monks facing injustice and atrocities.
However, for extensive efforts towards building upon both the shared epical and Buddhist traditions, India will need to walk on the language path. For any country, the languages in its neighbourhood are important for multiple reasons. India is surrounded by at least 12 groups of people speaking as many languages—Sinhala, Bahasa Malaysia, Bahasa Indonesia, Burmese, Thai, Khmer, Bhoti, Uzbek, Kazakh, Bhutanese, Nepali and Pashto. Of these, there is hardly any university department in India offering undergraduate courses in Sinhala, Khmer, Bhutanese, Bhoti and Kazakh. A central university in the Northeast teaches Burmese, but to very few students.
Languages are the vehicles of culture and India’s relations with the East and Southeast Asia are essentially based on a cultural foundation. Hence, apart from promoting courses in these languages, we also will have to dub or provide subtitles to our films in these languages. We have to provide tourist audio and textual guides in them. Extensive projects for creating children’s literature with Indian stories in these languages will go a long way in promoting literacy about our country among the Gen Alfa and Beta in those countries. The next step of Act East should be Attract East.
(Views are personal)
Vinay Sahasrabuddhe
Senior BJP leader