India's Look East Policy

Abstract

The Look East policy has emerged as an important foreign policy initiative of India in the post-Cold War period. The essential philosophy of the Look East policy is that India must find its destiny by linking itself more and more with its Asian partners and the rest of the world, and that India’s future and economic interests are best served by greater integration with East and Southeast Asia. Thence, the Look East policy is an attempt to forge closer and deeper economic integration with its eastern neighbours as a part of the new realpolitik in evidence in India’s foreign policy, and the engagement with Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) is the recognition on the part of India’s elite of the strategic and economic importance of the region to the country’s national interests. As Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said, "The Look East policy is not merely an external economic policy; it is also a strategic shift in India’s vision of the world and India’s place in the evolving global economy."

Keywords: India's Look East Policy, Third Concept - An International Journal of Ideas