Sense and sentiments

THE SEMANTIC LURE of the `Look East' policy, which India had formally announced several years ago to define its diplomatic dealings with South East Asia in particular, has laced the official discourse during the Prime Minister, Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee's current tour of that region. However, the danger as usual is that New Delhi will, unless it makes a conscious effort, trip on the very semantics of this policy. The reason simply is that the policy has yet to manifest itself as a substantive dynamic of India's ties with a diverse region which, nonetheless, boasts of an aspiration for a collective economic agenda of cooperation among its constituent-countries. Outwardly, Mr. Vajpayee's latest talks with the leaders of both Vietnam and Indonesia have in fact raised new possibilities of cooperation between India and each of these two ideologically different members of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN). Yet, it is too early to judge the sustainability of the euphoria. New Delhi needs to dispel the general political impression across the ASEAN spectrum that India tends to regard itself as being destined for a major-power status without actually becoming an economic powerhouse. India, which shares a maritime boundary with a few ASEAN states including Indonesia, has never really been seen by the organisation as a direct security threat even in the context of New Delhi's nuclear arms testing in 1998. All the same, New Delhi has not also come in for much reckoning by the ASEAN as an indirect consequence of its original perception, slow in fading, about India as an insular economy. It is in this historical context that Mr. Vajpayee's new diplomatic excursion to Vietnam and Indonesia must be judged.

The historical circumstances of New Delhi's current engagement with the ASEAN states seem to have impelled the Vajpayee administration to invoke the benign images of India's civilisational links with parts of South East Asia. While there is nothing inherently wrong with this, New Delhi should strive to package its `Look East' policy with much more economic and political substance and much less cultural sentiment. An unsustained move in this direction was first made by Mr. P. V. Narasimha Rao, former Prime Minister, and Mr. Vajpayee has now sought to set the right tone. But the specifics of his tour of Vietnam and Indonesia, especially those concerning planned defence linkages, need to be propagated with much sensitivity so as to guard against misperceptions in the wider region itself and beyond.

As the largest member of the ASEAN, Indonesia deserves to be befriended on other grounds as well, given especially the economic and political challenges of its endeavour to become a full-fledged democracy under its President, Mr. Abdurrahman Wahid. New Delhi's new defence-related tie-up with Jakarta does not certainly measure up at this stage as a strategic partnership despite the move to set up a joint commission and institutionalise bilateral dialogue. Similarly, the latest ideas about a systematic military cooperation between Hanoi and New Delhi, inclusive of the proposed training of Indian officers in jungle warfare techniques in Vietnam, do not amount to a major deal as of now. India's offer to help Vietnam in regard to its research and development of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes should be carried forward in a transparent fashion. More recently, the Vajpayee administration has appeared keen on assessing other countries in the context of their outlook on India's credentials for permanent membership of an expandable U.N. Security Council. Unlike in the case of the Vietnamese leaders, Mr. Wahid's political prevarication over Indonesia's support for India on this matter should of course be seen in the context of Jakarta's own aspirations.

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