Shillong: “Call it serendipity or coincidence but several back-to-back seminars have been happening around the Look East Policy now renamed the Act East Policy,” Meghalaya Governor K.K. Paul said.
The Governor was inaugurating the two-day seminar on ‘India’s North Eastern States and Eastern Neighbours’ organized by Asian Confluence, at Hotel Polo Towers here on Friday.
The Governor said that as far as the North East was concerned “it is history that has created geography instead of the other way round”.
“Eighty years ago there was no North East India. In 1935 Myanmar which was part of the North Eastern land mass was bifurcated and only in 1947 was Assam bottled up after the creation of East Pakistan,” Paul stated.
The Governor pointed out that before 1947 the region was a thriving one but after 1947 it became landlocked. Stating that the much touted Look East Policy has hardly touched North East India, the Governor said only the underdeveloped parts of South East Asia actually border the North Eastern States.
Paul suggested that cooperation by way of tourism, trade fairs and sports are good initiatives that could be taken by India’s North East and countries like Myanmar.
“Manipur will be importing 50,000 tonnes of rice from Myanmar and the Palatana Power Project in Tripura was completed in record time because movement of heavy machinery was facilitated by Bangladesh. These are excellent examples of economic cooperation which is possible between states of the North East and South East Asian countries,” Paul said adding that at present the railway link from Jiribam to Imphal is an engineering marvel that needs to be replicated.
Ambassador Ranjit Gupta of the Indian Council for World Affairs while addressing the audience said that the Look East Policy was the brain child of late Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao and the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) which was at one time a vibrant idea has atrophied over time because no one gave it the attention it deserved since the North East would have been the biggest beneficiary of this arrangement.
Gupta stated that under Prime Minister Narendra Modi who has a ‘must do and can do’ attitude expectations are the BIMSTEC would be revived. He expressed his wariness about the Bangladesh, China, India and Myanmar (BCIM) grouping which he says is being pushed by China in a big way to promote its own exports. He however clarified that BIMSTEC is not a counter to China.
The straight talking Gupta said that infrastructure constraints within each state and among the states are regrettable since the amounts sanctioned by Govt of India to the North East are the highest per capita.
“Someone has certainly befitted from these funds. It could be the politicians, the security establishment, insurgent groups, contractors, bureaucracy or all of them. Civil society should confront these evils,” Gupta stated.
Later papers were presented by academicians, media persons and experts. The conference saw the attendance of delegates from Myanmar, Bangladesh and Bhutan.
The conference organizers say their aims is to build an ‘Intelligent Third Space’ of civil society to engage more pro-actively and meaningfully on the Look East Policy and to come up with actionable points. Sabyasachi Dutta, Director, Asian Confluence said, “We are keen to see some concrete action on the ground vis-à-vis the Look East Policy now rechristened the Act East Policy, hence this conference”.