Heading East: Security, Trade, and Environment between India and Southeast Asia

The end of the Cold War and economic liberalization in India marked a new turn in Indian diplomacy. The ‘Look East’ policy promulgated in the early 1990s entailed several strategic and economic initiatives aimed at deepening India’s ties with Southeast Asia, which had been neglected earlier. Despite the launch of the program a decade and a half ago, Indias involvement with the region proved to be fitful. With the ‘Act East’ initiative, which was launched in 2014, there appears to be a renewed emphasis on forging working relationships with various states in the region.

This volume, part of the Oxford International Relations in South Asia series, presents an overarching assessment of the contents, successes, and failures of India’s Southeast Asia policy, with important pointers to how this relationship could be steered in the future. The contributors to the volume dwell on three critical areas- trade, security, and environment- and outline the existing ties of Indias northeast with Southeast Asia and the prospects of their expansion.