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Whatever happened to India's Look East Policy?
The Mekong-Ganga Cooperation
By Chandan Irom
In the backdrop of the Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji's visit to India where the two countries signed business and IT deals, Shishir Gupta writes in the weekly magazine India Today that, "With a high rate of growth fueling the two economies, ambitious Chinese and Indian entrepreneurs are virtually slugging it out in the same markets. China, with its Kunming initiative, and India with its Mekong-Ganga Cooperation, are trying to reach out to the ASEAN [Association of Southeast Asian Nations] markets by promoting mutual economic and infrastructure development and energy security. The two are currently in a race to forge closer trade ties with Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia.
So the question now is whatever happened to the Mekong-Ganga Cooperation? The following is a look at what the Mekong-Ganga Cooperation is about.
The Mekong-Ganga Cooperation was launched on November 10, 2000 in Vientiane, the capital of Laos to increase cooperation in tourism, culture and education. The signatories to the initiative are India and five South-East Asian Nations namely Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar. The initiative was designed to define regions in the new global economy, while keeping their native identity and character intact. The six countries also undertook to develop transportation networks including the East-West Corridor project and the trans-Asian highway.
The ministers of India, Vietnam, Myanmar, Cambodia, Thailand and Laos
signed the Vientiane Declaration, which outlines the basic theme of
cooperation and charts the future course for rapid economic development of the Mekong region countries.
The name of the initiative was changed from
Ganga-Mekong Swarnabhoomi project to Mekong-Ganga Cooperation at the last moment following objections from some countries in the
grouping. This is India's
major cooperative venture in its South-East Asian neighborhood, after the BIMST-EC (Bangladesh-India-Myanmar-Sri Lanka-Thailand Economic Cooperation), a regional grouping that was formed in June 1997.
But by calling itself the Mekong- Ganga Forum, there were obvious questions on why China and Bangladesh were not considered. The answers too were equally obvious. Bangladesh is already a part of BIMST-EC, while China was fully engaged in the Mekong Basin projects through a parallel sub- regional platform. So they were conveniently left out to make the new body more homogeneous and close-knit.
For China, it was the Kunming Initiative, which seeks to link up the Chinese province of Yunnan with Myanmar, India's North-Eastern states and Thailand in an economic grid.
For India, the Mekong-Ganga Cooperation offers immense scope for creating the "linkages". For example, a flight from Delhi to Hanoi takes just four hours whereas a flight from Delhi to Colombo takes over three hours and it is a pointer to proximate locations and the potential this factor holds. Given the "hub" system of air travel organization, a Delhi-Hanoi direct air-link appears to be a complete oddity; but there appears to be no reason why, if trade and travel patterns permit, such a flight route should not exist. And Jaswant Singh used a special Gulfstream jet aircraft to fly the Delhi-Hanoi route for the first leg of the two-nation tour that culminated in the Vientiane Declaration.
And, if one has the development of India's northeastern region in mind, one could even be looking at flights in the Imphal-Hanoi or Guwahati-Ho Chi Minh sector as a possibility.
Senior Indian diplomats in South-East Asia believe that without the development of the northeastern States, cooperation with South-East Asia cannot be meaningful. For the Mekong-Ganga Project to be effective, the Brahmaputra Valley is a crucial
factor. If there exists sufficient trade and industry in this region, overland trade via Myanmar to many MGC countries will become a worthwhile proposition for India.
With this India had extended its footprints into the ASEAN region under the geo-strategic backdrop. By exploiting the historically driven natural connectivity, India has added powerful cultural dimension to its economic diplomacy by encouraging business contacts between the people residing on the banks of Mekong and Ganga.
The Vientiane Declaration had called for efforts to promote new linkages in knowledge-based sectors as well as in old economy areas like transport corridors and infrastructure development. The linkages between India and these countries of Indo-China region over land will also give New Delhi an opportunity to speed up economic development of its North-East region.
When completed the Asian highway project is expected to link up Singapore with New Delhi in South Asia via Kuala Lumpur, Ho Chin Minh city, Phnom Penh, Bangkok, Vientiane, Chiang Mai, Yangon, Mandalay, Kalemyo, Tamu, Dhaka and Calcutta. India has already taken the first step in this direction and is involved in building the road linking Tamu (Manipur) to Kalemyo, a key communication junction in the center of Myanmar.
India's Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh told the ministerial group at the Vientiane meeting then that the Ganga-Mekong cooperation could reap "tangible economic and social gains motivated by profits and benefits." This is precisely what the North-East region of India needs and we are kept wondering as to whatever happened to India's Look East Policy. Perhaps the people of India's North-East need to knock a few doors in New Delhi. |
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