Conceptions of Space in India's Look East Policy

Abstract

There are three possible future articulations of India's Look East policy, each underpinned by a different conceptual orientation. Firstly, the Look East policy might be conceived as an extended security trajectory to project India's legitimate power and resist growing Chinese domination of the region. A second vision sees the Look East drive primarily as a strategy of economic cooperation based on globalisation and the pursuit of similar liberal policies by all the major states of the region. The third vision argues for a communitarian reading of the Look East venture, interpreting it in terms of sub-nationalisms and soft border exercises. While power, prosperity and community can be desired in equal measure, their policy implications vary, resulting in uneasy compromises, awkward bottlenecks and policy indecisions. Till India decides which image of space it wants to pursue, the power, market and community visions of the Look East initiative would keep playing against each other, generating complementarities as well as frictions.