India's Look East Policy: Impact on the North East Region Buchkatalog

The early 1990s witnessed the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War accompanied by rapid economic advancement of China in the international sphere. On the other hand, India witnessed the weakening of its economy with virtual depletion of its foreign exchange reserves and the beginning of liberalisation, all of which brought it closer to reviving its ties with South-East Asian countries under the new rubric of 'Look East Policy'. The Look East Policy (LEP) was launched in 1991 under the leadership of the former Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao who championed the liberalization of the Indian economy. LEP is considered to be a strategic foreign policy decision taken by the government following the logic that India's future and economic prosperity will be best served by greater integration with the South East Asian economies, though earlier India did not pay much attention towards this region. However, an interesting point to note is that, the so called 'Look East Policy' has no written document till date and has instead come about due to various pronouncements and deliberations made at various high level meetings.