The nations of Southeast Asia, constituted into the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), are close to India more than just physically. Such is the cultural and spiritual affinity of the ASEAN countries to India that Europeans of the colonial period knew them collectively as ‘Further India.’ In his seminal work, The Future of India and Southeast Asia, the statesman and diplomat Sardar KM Panikkar gave that vibrant region of Asia its modern name. It was the intimate link between Indians and South-East Asians, both then struggling under the colonial yoke, that made Sardar Pannikar sensitive to the rising spirit of nationalism in SE Asia.
In the course of their independent history, the ASEAN nations have distinguished themselves in economic development. While India has productive relations with its individual states, ASEAN collectively offers broad market access and investment opportunities, making it eminently in India’s interest to engage the group in all spheres of economic and cultural development.
Where Southeast Asia has generally proved to be greater than the sum of its parts, to the benefit of all member-states, South Asia’s eminently surmountable fault-lines continue to be exploited by third-parties to increase their own influence, further estranging South Asian neighbours and weakening them, in some cases to the point of collapse. What should therefore be of particular interest to Indians is that ASEAN has achieved many diplomatic breakthroughs by coming together in enlightened self-interest on trade and commerce. Not the least of these breakthroughs was the thawing of relations between the two giants of the region, Malaysia and Indonesia, following the Konfrontasi (Confrontatoin) period of fighting and diplomatic alienation. The end of the Konfrontasi paved the way for ASEAN and for regional cooperation, which resulted in fundamental changes to the evolution of post-colonial Asia. In this context, the ‘ASEAN Way’ is equally a model for peace through collective development that South Asia must emulate. Significant progress has been made in India- ASEAN ties since Prime Minister Narsimha Rao’s Look East policy in the early 90s. India became an ASEAN dialog partner in 1996. By 2022 the India-ASEAN partnership had been elevated to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. Today, India is ASEAN’s sixth largest trading partner, with Indian investments totalling US$2 billion annually.
Asia’s future depends on equitable relations between all rising powers, and in this context the India-ASEAN partnership is key. Fault-lines in the old world order have widened into full-blown conflicts, like in Ukraine, and Asia too is rife with potential conflicts- in the South and East China Seas and in restive West Asia. Through a framework of mutual cooperation that can in time be enlarged to include the rest of South Asia, India and ASEAN can constitute the pivot of unity that will help counteract the destabilising effects of belligerent powers in the region.
