1The regional and sub-regional cooperation today is no longer confined to geographical parameters. The United States, for instance, remains an integral member of several Southeast Asian forums. But when it comes to India’s engagement with what is now called the GMS, their geographical linkages and therefore cultural homogeneity is not a mere construction of their political perceptions. It has been established without doubt that India and GMS share long geological history, the unfolding youngest mountain ranges and the same monsoon rhythm which has resulted in shared needs, values, rituals and cultures.14

2The political distortion of this historical reality was to intervene only from the fact that India and Indochina were to be colonized by separate (British and French) powers and this was to result in their political segregation, undermining their continuum of cultures and interdependence of their communities since ancient times. The British, for instance, were to enforce their boundaries between Burma and Siam based on their security and economic (timber) interests.15 But such acts were to only further facilitate contacts between the liberation movements amongst these colonized people keeping their bonds alive. What remains of critical significance today is that this historical experience makes both Indian and Indochinese people extremely comfortable with each other and this remains the starting as well as central point of India’s current engagement with the GMS countries.

1- Shared Experience, Common Values

3The contemporary phase of this long story of India’s contacts with the GMS countries begins from India’s freedom movement which had triggered the beginning of the end of European colonialism in this part of Asia. Leaders of de-colonization movements – like Gandhi or Ho Chi Minh – were not just fighting for the national liberation but liberation of Asian people. This was to make India appear as if spearheading a larger de-colonization and development pursuit for this larger region. Indeed, contacts and correspondence of Indian leaders with some of Indochina leaders go back to the 1920’s. Much before India became a formally independent country, Ho Chi Minh (in Vietnam) had dispatched an emissary to the Indian capital to seek assistance against the French and Sukarno had appealed to Nehru for help against the British occupation in Indonesia.16

4Though contacts between India and Indochina* had not been far too many compared to, say, those with some other countries like Indonesia or Myanmar yet, in 1928, Doung Van Gieu (a Viet Namese nationalist) had been invited by Jawaharlal Nehru of the Indian National Congress (INC) to their party’s historic annual session in Calcutta.17 Similarly, four months before India’s independence in August 1947, India had convened an Asian Relations Conference in New Delhi in April 1947. This was attended by nationalists from 25 Asian nations to explore avenues for further cooperation including their freedom struggle. Amongst others, this was attended by a special representative of Dr. Ho Chi Minh in Viet Nam.

5After the New Delhi Asian Relations Conference and before India’s independence (i. e. between April and August 1947), the Government of India, headed by Jawaharlal Nehru, had already imposed restrictions on over-flights of aircraft carrying arms and ammunition for use by the colonial masters against the freedom fighters in Indochina. This policy may have had some contribution in ensuring the historic French reversals in Dien Bien Phu which were to lead to the Geneva Conference of 1954. For sure, the international community recognized India’s role and this was to herald another phase in India’s relations with Indochina. India was not only invited to the Geneva negotiations but, given its vigorous role, it was entrusted with (along with Canada and Poland) the responsibility to oversee implementation of Geneva Agreement.18 As indicator of their bilateral ties and to give boost to their inter-State cooperation, Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had visited Viet Nam during 1954 and President Ho Chi Minh had reciprocated with a visit to India in 1958.

6From that perspective, India’s engagement with Indochina had flourished much before its engagement with ASEAN or even before the creation of ASEAN in 1967. To recall, India was one of the several countries to extend economic and technical assistance to the Lower Mekong Project under the aegis of the Mekong Committee (1957) comprising of the four riparian counties, namely, Cambodia, Laos, South Vietnam and Thailand.19 These pioneering experiments at developing Mekong region were to be described as a model in multilateralism and sub-regional cooperation and as “Marshall Plan for Mekong”.20 The Mekong Basin Project, as also India’s ties with Indochina, were to soon fall prey to Cold War dynamics. Especially for India, the Afro-Asian Conference of Bandung (Indonesia) was to mark the peak of India’s engagement with this region. Later, India’s war with China (1962) followed by death of India’s Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and China’s atomic test (both in 1964) were to shrink India’s foreign policy interests for the next three decades, if not more.21

2- India’s ‘Look East’ Policy Redefined

7It was only from the early 1990’s that India’s economic reforms were to trigger its well-known ‘Look-East’ policy and this was to revive India’s interest in Indo-China. This was also to lead to India reformulating its worldview on various economic and political issues as also about its strategic space that was now defined as Southern Asia, including the GMS.22 Similarly, opening up and reforms of GMS and induction of these countries into ASEAN during the later half of the 1990’s was to create necessary atmospherics for the India-GMS rapprochement that had once so flourished during the 1950’s. The success of India’s Look East policy with the original six of ASEAN, and the appreciation amongst those original six of ASEAN that Indochina required special attention for economic and social development, was to greatly facilitate India’s engagement with GMS.23 Indeed, India was to define its niche vis-à-vis GMS from the perspective of (a) being a partner in Integration of ASEAN Initiative (IAI) of year 2000, and (b) on the basis of India’s historical and cultural links with he GMS people. This was to greatly facilitate India’s engagement with GMS and this second phase of their rapprochement was to include several new fields like resource management, technology and science, trade and commerce and also the education and health sectors.24

8India’s larger ‘Look East’ policy had been an attempt to diversify India’s diplomacy as well as realize its new post-liberalization economic engagement with its ‘extended neighborhood’ in Southeast Asia. So, in its first phase during the early 1990’s, this had remained focused on six, richer members of ASEAN and initiatives primarily in building economic engagement. Induction of four GMS countries into ASEAN was to transform focus for both ASEAN and India. Starting from the mid-1990’s, this has witnessed India accelerating pace of its cooperation in a tailor-made fashion with Singapore, Myanmar, Viet Nam, Cambodia with over all China-India rapprochement providing the positive atmospherics. Amongst the GMS countries, Thailand was the first to take a major lead towards building a comprehensive economic and security partnership with India.25 As a result, India-Thailand trade has not only increased from USD1.1 billion to USD3.4 billion during 2001-2006 but India’s total share in Thailand’s foreign trade has also increased from 0.85 per cent to 1.06 percent during this period.26

9In January 2007, for instance, India’s Minister of State in the Ministry of External Affairs, E. Ahmad, was to describe Mekong-Ganga Cooperation Initiative (MGCI) as pillar of India’s Look East policy and the one which especially facilitated a ‘strategic shift’ in India’s vision of the world which he called, “from engaging in trade to engaging India’s civilizational neighbors.”27 According to strategic analysts in India, the GMS states also see India as a source of assurance especially in balancing their neighboring giant, China.28 In the 1990’s, therefore, duly encouraged by some ASEAN countries, India’s overall military cooperation has also heralded a new chapter of joint exercises and cooperation with the naval/air forces of ASEAN, including Thailand and Viet Nam from the GMS. This process was to begin much before the MGCI and, in 1995, naval diplomatic initiative near the Andamans had involved navies of Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand and the exercises included symbolic search and rescue operations at sea and exploring inter-operability.29

10Indeed, regionalism and rise of China [as also India] have been the two new trends in Asia which have been both appreciated and endorsed by GMS deliberations that describe these trends presenting both challenge and new opportunities for the GMS. Recognizing India as emerging “economic powerhouse in Asia”, ASEAN has already signed, in 2003, a framework agreement for ASEAN-India Regional Trade and Investment Area which includes an FTA in goods, services and investments. This is envisioned to become operational by 2011 for a subset of ASEAN countries and, by 2016 for all ASEAN countries including GMS.30 This has its reflection in India’s bilateral relations with GMS countries and the response from GMS has been equally encouraging.

11In October 2003, for instance, India and Thailand signed a Framework Agreement for Establishing Free Trade Are between Republic of India and the Kingdom of Thailand that seeks to “expeditiously negotiate for establishing an India-Thailand FTA” including exchange of already outlined tariff concessions in as many as 84 items including goods, services and investments for a period of 10 years.31 All this has not only reassured both sides but also expanded and strengthened India’s economic and security linkages with the GMS countries. And, the main set of India’s initiatives vis-à-vis GMS have been bracketed together and were launched in November 2000 under the rubric of Mekong-Ganga Swarnabhoomi Cooperation Initiative. For a matter of convenience, the world Swarnabhoomi was soon removed from it and it has since come to be known as the Mekong-Ganga Cooperation Initiative or the MGCI. And since then MGCI remains the central pillar of India’s engagement with the GMS.