India Act East Policy

The Act East Policy was launched in November 2014 with the vision to strengthen India geopolitically and is about to complete a decade, in this article we will discus about aim, emergence and need of Act East policy and also we will take useful insights on devlopments made during first decade of the policy and scope of further devlopments associated with the policy

This topic is important from UPSC Mains GS2 and Optional Paper

Before Starting with the ACT EAST policy let us first understand LOOK EAST policy as it has been succeeded by Act East

Look East Policy

• Look East Policy was launched by former Prime Minister P.V. Narsimarao in 1992
• Look East policy focused on the economic co-operation and not on defence cooperation
• In 1991 USSR had collapsed and India had lost one of its major partner to overcome this loss India launched look east policy and aimed to foster deep relations with the south east countries and establish a soft power.
• It was under look east policy that India and China pacified the borders and signed the 1993 Border Peace and Tranquility Agreement 
• India with the look east policy also tried to leverage the liberalisation and move away from the cold war era policies.
• India also became a summit level partner of ASEAN in 2002 from a sectoral dialogue partner in 1992.

India’s Act East Policy

• India in November 2014 replaced the Look East policy with Act East policy.
• Aim of the Act East policy is to promote economic coopearation, cultural ties and devlop strategic partnerships providing enhanced connectivity while focusing on extended neighbourhood, ASEAN countries and the Indo Pacific Region.
• Under Act East Policy India has established strong regional presence in the Indo Pacific Region and also it has devloped stronger relations with BIMSTEC, IORA and countries like Indonesia, Japan and Philippines.
• The 4 C’s can define the scope of Act East Policy well i.e. Culture, Commerce, Connectivity and Capacity building.

Devlopments under Act East Policy

1. Kaladan Multimodal Transit Transport Project – To connect Kolkata and Sittwe port in Rakhine state of Myanmar from where a road and rail transport will made for conecting mizoram.
2. Trilateral Highway Project – To connect north eastern states to Thiland and Myanmar.
3. Agartala – Akhura Project – To devlop Rail Link between India and Bangladesh.
4. Bru Resettlement – The deal has been signed between the government of India, government of Tripura, government of Mizoram and Bru community.
5. Naga Peace Accord – In 2015 a peace accord was sign with NSCN Isak-Muivah(IM), government of India and government of Nagaland and cease fire was agreed by the NSCN.
6. Increased ASEAN engagement – India is 4th largest trading partner of ASEAN.
7. India- Japan Act East Forum – Constituted in 2017 for investments in northeast region and increasing connectivity for the south east.
8. Defense Exports – India has recently exported the Brahmos missile to Philippines under a 375  million USD deal.
9. Dhubri Phulbari Bridge – This will be India’s longest bridge over Brahmaputra river and will be connecting Dhubri in Assam and Phulbari in Meghalaya.
10. Port Operation – Recently India has got operational rights of Mongla Port.
11. Restoration of Temples – My son temple in Vietnam, Buddhist Pagodas in Myanmar and Preah Vihar  temple are a few examples.
12. Pharma Sector – India has become a major pharmacy supplier, specially during the Vaccine Maitri Initiative

Way Ahead for the Act East Policy

Above we have discussed how Look East and Act East have contributed to India’s devloping stature and the soft power in the world but there is more to be done, more coopertation can be done with the countries under act east policy like

• We can collaborate with Nepal over the hydraulic energy requirements.
• Tourism and specifically regional tourism sites related to buddhism can be promoted as buddhism has a large following in the eastern countries.
• Partnerships with the south eastern countries like Singapore, Malaysia and Taiwan for the semiconductor manufacturing.
• India also needs to focus on the trade deficit issue as it holds $85 Billion with China.
• India’s top 10 trade partners include 4 from the eastern countries namely Singapore, Indonesia, Hong Kong and South Korea and with all these 4 countries India holds a trade deficit of 6.79, 17.42, 12.21 and 14.72 Billion dollars respectively.

Total trade deficit of India was around 238 Billion dollar This can be significantly reduced if we could engage more with the ASEAN countries and others, collectively with ASEAN India has a 38.46 billion dollar trade deficit.

Table below mentions about top 10 India’s trading partner –

Only with USA India has a surplus with rest 9 there is a trade deficit.

Other than the mentioned top 10 if we look at other trading partners of India from the eastern region like

Only with Bangladesh India has a trade surplus with rest all countries India is having a trade deficit.

Act East Policy has brought India immense success to be a soft power and as a key player in the region, India can leverage the act east policy and certainly we can partner with the countries in the matter and area of cooperation discussed above and along with trade India has a scope for increasing its defence exports to the countries and look for the strategic partnerships in the region and play an instrumental role in establishing rule based order in the region.

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