From being one of the earliest and principal advocates of regional integration, India's multilateral journey in the Asia-Pacific region began in earnest in the 1990s when it began proactively seeking membership of regional and inter-regional institutions. In the span of nearly two decades, India has become a member of virtually all important Asian regional organizations except Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC). Frustration with the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), which has been a dragging anchor and not a launching pad, motivated India to look at new regions transcending South Asia. As a result, India has been actively looking at any and every growth/engagement triangle as well as regional/sub-regional economic grouping with potential and promise. It is reinventing South-South groupings by forging new coalitions and dialog groupings like India-Brazil-South Africa (IBSA). After many decades, India is again contributing ideas on regionalism and participating proactively in the visions of Asian integration.

Jawaharlal Nehru (1947–1964): Pan-Asianism

Even prior to independence, Jawaharlal Nehru proposed the establishment of a ‘South Asia Federation’ of India, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Burma. On the eve of independence, Mahatma Gandhi advocated the concept of an Asian federation praising Asia's special message of spiritual enlightenment.Footnote ¹

Nehru's vision in hosting the Asian Relations Conference (March–April 1947) in New Delhi was to forge a new post-colonial Asian identity and see Asia as an integrated whole. This vision of resurgent Asia and India's critical role in shaping its future was based on three basic assumptions: that it was geo-strategically central to Asia being at ‘the meeting point of western and northern, and eastern and southeastern Asia’; that its historical and cultural roots were deeply embedded into the larger evolution of Asia over the centuries; and that the decolonized and newly independent countries of Asia would prefer to keep away from great power rivalries and conflicts and liberate themselves from political and economic bondage forever (Singh, Reference Singh2004). At the conference, Nehru envisaged an ‘Eastern Federation’ with China and India as its core.

At the Bandung conference (1955), India sought to build Asian solidarity on three important pillars – decolonization, non-alignment, and faith in Asian civilization and values. However, such notions of pan-Asianism were viewed with skepticism by many Southeast Asian countries which were apprehensive that domination by the two Asian giants might turn out to be worse than Western domination. There were certain inherent fallacies of pan-Asianism, which ‘mistakenly assumed the homogeneity of Asia in its imagined community of Pan-Asianism’ (He, Reference He2004: 110–11; Gupta, Reference Gupta1964: 37), despite their diverse security needs, political aspirations, and mutually competitive economies. The Bandung conference did not produce any Asian regional institutions, but this was never one of its goals (Acharya, Reference Acharya2008: 47). Nehru was perhaps ahead of his time when he envisaged the possibilities that Asian unity could offer.

The ideas of regionalism that India articulated in the 1940s and 1950s were more in the nature of ‘an idea and an aspiration, rather than a well-conceived plan or a policy to promote regionalism in Asia’. There was really ‘no systematic thinking done on how to establish and run such regional co-operative institutions’ (Muni, Reference Muni, Hettne, Inotai and Sunkel2000: 109). As a result, Indian enthusiasm for building regionalism in Asia was lost completely.

Defining the region

Initially, there was not much clarity amongst Indian leaders in identifying where the region for possible integration began. Their idea of a region where cooperation was to be initiated was too extensive, spanning from Aden to Indonesia and even to Australia. Nehru lacked a precise definition of the region to which India belonged. ‘We have not,’ Nehru told the Indian Parliament on his return from Indonesia on 8 March 1949, ‘yet decided what the region of cooperation might be, because . . . India is interested in several regions of Asia. Whether all should be grouped together or separately, we do not know. That is for us to consider together and decide which is more feasible.’ This issue was never decided either during the Nehru era or for several decades thereafter (Deshingkar, Reference Deshingkar1999; Baru, Reference Baru2007: 70).

During the prime ministership of Atal Behari Vajpayee (1998–2004), India began to articulate the concept of ‘extended neighbourhood’ (Scott, Reference Scott2009), which was later elaborated to stretch from the Suez Canal to the South China Sea and includes within it West Asia, the Gulf, Central Asia, South East Asia, East Asia, the Asia Pacific, and the Indian Ocean Region (Sinha, Reference Sinha2004). One of the most comprehensive statements on India's ‘extended neighbourhood’ was made by Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran at the Shanghai Institute of International Studies on 11 January 2006:

After a decade, the Look East Policy included an expansion of its geographical scope – from the initial focus on Southeast Asia to ‘an expanded definition of the “East” extending from Australia to East Asia, with ASEAN at its core’.Footnote ³ It is with this dynamic region that India seeks to forge closer economic, political, and security relations. Home to one billion people, India, according to Indian leaders, has to be ‘integral to any regional process pertaining to the Asia-Pacific . . . India's belonging to the Asia-Pacific community is a geographical fact and a political reality’ (Vajpayee, Reference Vajpayee2002).

Indira Gandhi (1966–77): Council for Asia

Despite the manifold imperatives for an active and creative Southeast Asia policy,Footnote ⁴ India stayed aloof from the region. India's reluctance to join Asian regional groupings, whether economic or security-oriented, lay in its principled objections to blocs of any kind; but India's ‘unimaginative adherence to this principle raised dogma above national interest’ (Tharoor, Reference Tharoor1982: 199–200, 202). As a result, India stayed doggedly out of every conceivable regional conference or undertaking.Footnote ⁵ During her prime ministership, Indira Gandhi was not guided by any realistic assessments of the impulses of regional cooperation and ‘an interactive antipathy to “bloc” arguments’. Her reluctance to evolve a policy resulted only in India's ‘effective exclusion from meaningful South East Asian conclaves and co-operative economic or political arrangements’ (Tharoor, Reference Tharoor1982: 101). India viewed the ASEAN as a surrogate Western alliance and spurned overtures to become a founding member at its inception (in 1967 when the ASEAN was set up) and as a dialog partner (in 1980) because of the Cold War, Vietnam, and suspicions of US sponsorship.

The only idea on regionalism that India contributed since Nehru's demise and the end of the Cold War was the one made in January 1967 during the visit of Foreign Minister M.C. Chagla to Jakarta for the establishment of an Asian common market or an Asian development council on the lines of the one established in Europe. However, Chagla's proposal for a ‘Council of Asia’ elicited no favorable response (Datta-Ray, Reference Datta-Ray2009: 141). Southeast Asian leaders took no notice of hints that Chagla and Indira Gandhi continued to drop, not even when she told the Lok Sabha that a Council for Asia would promote ‘economic, technical and other ties with neighbouring Southeast Asian countries’ and that India had ‘a vital interest’ in the relationship (cited in Datta-Ray, Reference Datta-Ray2009: 177). The brevity of Chagla's tenure and the indifference of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, coupled with the inertia of the Ministry of External Affairs past policy of non-involvement in the region and the lack of a structured Indian plan and follow-up, ended those attempts and Chagla's proposal for a Council of Asia for development purposes was shelved by default after his departure (Tharoor, Reference Tharoor1982: 200; Datta-Ray, Reference Datta-Ray2009: 177).

Janata Dal (1977–80)

Under the Janata Dal (1977–80) interlude, Indian diplomacy was unable to rid itself of the residual diplomatic baggage of the past 30 years. Indian policy-makers remained bereft of a regional frame and instead spoke of improving relations on the basis of ‘beneficial bilateralism’. In the 1980s, India's support for the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia and the support of the Heng Samrin regime damaged relations with many of the key nations of Southeast Asia. Thus, the geopolitics of the Cold War, coupled with India's economic isolationism and adoption of an inward-looking model of industrial development, weakened India's interface with much of Asia (Baru, Reference Baru2007: 224).

P.V Narasimha Rao (1991–96): the Look East Policy

The ‘Look East Policy’ (Jaffrelot, Reference Jaffrelot2003; Naidu, Reference Naidu2004; Chatterjee, Reference Chatterjee2007; Sikri, Reference Sikri2009), launched in 1992, reversed decades of neglect of Southeast Asia. It was premised on emerging and shared strategic, defence, economic, cultural, and socio-economic convergences between India and Southeast Asia. The policy was motivated by the launch of economic reform and liberalization, the slow pace of regional cooperation and trade liberalization in South Asia, the rise of China, the economic success of Southeast Asian nations, and strong desire for greater integration with the world as India was the only major country in the world which had yet to become a member of a regional free trade club. With the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the gradual incorporation of Eastern Europe into the Western European economy, India had lost two of its privileged market links.

The Look East Policy was more than an external economic policy or a political slogan. It constituted ‘a strategic shift’ in India's vision of the world and its place in the global economy. It was also a manifestation of its belief that developments in East Asia are of direct consequence to India's security and development (Saran, Reference Saran2006). The Asia-Pacific was to be ‘the springboard for our leap into the global market place’.Footnote ⁶

Since the adoption of its Look East Policy, India has forged closer institutional links with the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN). Thus, in January 1992 India became a sectoral dialog partner for tourism, commerce, investment, and science and technology, full dialog partner in December 1995, a member of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) in July 1996, and with annual ‘ASEAN plus One’ summit-level dialog since December 2002.

Atal Behari Vajpayee (1998–2004)

Asian Economic Community

Since the turn of the century, India has been participating proactively in the visions of Asian integration. In September 2003, Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha stated that with ASEAN engaged in negotiating free trade arrangements with India, China, Japan, and South Korea, ‘we stand today on the threshold of an Asian economic community for the first time’ (Sinha, Reference Sinha2003b). A month later, at the India-ASEAN Summit in Bali, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee proposed a more inclusive version of the Asian Economic Community:

Vajpayee's proposal for the establishment of an Asian Economic Community was subsequently endorsed in October 2004 by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who termed it as constituting an ‘arc of advantage’, which would act as an anchor of stability, prosperity, and closer economic integration.

India's espousal of the vision is of an Asian Economic Community with ASEAN, South Korea, Japan, China, and India as the ‘five pillars which may form the initial core to drive Asia's emergence as the center of gravity of the global economy’. This idea is built on the ‘fundamental realization of the new dynamics in Asia and existing synergies’ (Singh, Reference Singh2005). The dynamics of globalization and the growing economic potential of Asia, India feels, justify the resurrection of that vision of Pan-Asian regionalism (Mukherjee, Reference Mukherjee2007a). The conviction behind India's vision of an Asian Economic Community is that ‘the key to ensuring long-term security and stable equilibrium in Asia lies in the collective ability of Asian countries to build mutual economic stakes in one another’.Footnote ¹² The ‘long-term vision of cooperative networking of a larger Asian economic community’ would also have positive implications for security as well (Raghunath, Reference Raghunath and Rasgotra2007). India's proposal of establishing an Asian Economic Community is a long-term, distant goal. It will take ‘a great deal of time, energy and perseverance to translate this vision into reality’.Footnote ¹³

India's proposal for the establishment of an Asian Economic Community stresses the cultural affinity, but more importantly the positive economic advantages of Indian membership. A recent study by a think tank of the Ministry of External Affairs argued that economic integration in JACIK (Japan, ASEAN, China, India and Korea) had the potential of generating welfare gains of up to $210 billion. India brings to the East Asian Economic Community not only a dynamic economy of over US$700 billion growing at 7–8% per annum and even faster growing and sizeable middle class (over 300 million), a large domestic market but also complementary capabilities in software and services that complements theirs in hardware and manufacturing (Kumar, Reference Kumar2005: 15–19). However, some Asian countries tend to feel that the political argument (a rising India as a counterbalance to China) is more compelling than the economic one.

East Asian Summit

The East Asia Summit (EAS) marked the beginning of India's economic and political integration into the emerging regional architecture in Asia and support to community building in the region (Mohan, Reference Mohan, Sisodia and Datta2008: 114). The inaugural East Asia Summit (EAS) (December 2005) rebuffed China's efforts to restrict the EAS to core states when Japan along with Singapore and Indonesia actively supported Indian participation and decided to include Australia and New Zealand as well. ASEAN's decision to invite India was the result of India's continued economic performance, its improved ties with Pakistan and China, the improvement of Indo-US relations under the Bush Administration, and the larger perception of a more purposeful Indian diplomacy (Mohan, Reference Mohan, Sisodia and Krishnappa2009: 39). Part of the motivation for an expanded EAS membership was to balance Chinese influence within the organization and to accommodate US concerns that it was not to be included in the EAS process (Gill and Green, Reference Gill, Green, Green and Gill2009: 9). ASEAN placed itself in the driver's seat and gained exclusive rights to host future summits.

India regarded the East Asian Summit as ‘the beginning’ of a process that brings together countries with increasing inter-linkages and growing interdependence. It was expected that the summit would articulate ‘a collective long-term vision’ for shaping the future regional architecture and promoting community-building.Footnote ¹⁴ India hopes that the EAS would launch the process towards the possible creation of an EAC. It expressed its willingness to work closely with China towards the progressive realization of such an East Asian Community and eventually a larger Asian Economic Community (Saran, Reference Saran2006).

That India was generally seen as a part of South, and not East, Asia did not really matter since it was now growing at a fast pace. Some scholars however consider East Asia to be an ‘anti-region’ seeking to prevent the emergence of a regional community in ‘an East Asian East Asia, that is an East Asia without the Caucasians and an East Asia without the Indian sub-continent’ (Breslin, Reference Breslin and Dent2008: 149). A ‘positive Japanese role in Southeast Asia and ASEAN centrality would appear to be dependent on containing China within a larger regional entity in which Indian membership is vital’ (Camroux, Reference Camroux and Dieter2007: 21).

Regional cooperation in South Asia

Much of Nehru's diplomacy was oriented towards Asia to the neglect of South Asia where India consciously did not encourage multilateralism in the region and preferred bilateralism in its dealings with its immediate neighbors. New Delhi had generally advocated a broad-based regional, not sub-regional, organization in South Asia lest it create apprehensions amongst its smaller neighbors that India would like to extend its domination over them.

India's strategy has been to assume the role of a ‘policy-maker’ in the areas vital to its concerns (fostering regional economic cooperation, initiation and expansion of people-to-people contacts, evolving regional consensus and coordination on important global strategic-economic issues, exclusion of bilateral conflicts from SAARC agenda, insulating regional affairs from undesirable and divisive extra-regional influences) and to respond positively as a ‘policy-taker’ to the initiatives taken by others in the areas perceived as compatible to its interests (Muni, Reference Muni, Hettne, Inotai and Sunkel2000: 116).

Despite a common civilizational heritage, shared history, and potentially integrative eco-systems, member states of SAARC have still been unable to meaningfully and effectively cooperate in fostering greater economic development in trade, industry, and investment. South Asian economies are competitive rather than complementary and dependent to a large extent on the same product categories. Intra-regional trade in South Asia is abysmally low even after 25 years, viz. about 5% of its global trade, largely because of competitive export baskets, high rate of tariff and non-tariff barriers, lack of adequate transport and information links, and political differences and a lack of willingness to create trade complementarities (Dash, Reference Dash1996: 202, 204). Intra-SAARC investment is only 1% of its total investment.

In a major change from the past, Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha in January 2003 called for a movement for the establishment of a South Asian Union: ‘We will be interested in negotiating a new agreement, which will create a South Asian Union . . . the SAU will not merely be an economic entity. It will acquire a political dimension in the same manner that the European Union has come to acquire a political and strategic dimension.’ Sinha (Reference Sinha2003b) said, India was not suggesting ‘an end to SAARC, but an upgradation’ into a South Asian Union. Sinha reiterated this idea on subsequent occasions:

In January 2004, Indian Prime Minister Vajpayee urged more economic integration and movement toward a common currency. Some detractors accused India of being naïve in its approach given the complex and convoluted politics in the neighborhood.

India believes in the functionalist logic that greater economic cooperation will lead to a ‘spillover effect’, foster greater mutual trust and goodwill, thereby eventually dampening political differences and bolstering regional cooperation. India has been willing to apply the ‘China model’, that is use the enhancement of trade and deepening of economic linkages as a tool for pacification.

It is only recently that India has begun to offer unilateral concessions to other member states of SAARC. The unilateral announcement by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in 2007 to allow zero-duty access to the Indian market for imports from Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, and Sri Lanka and further reduce the sensitive list in respect of these countries was viewed as a very positive development. The assumption of ‘asymmetric responsibilities’ by India has also been the most important factor in strengthening intra-regional cooperation and helped transform SAARC from ‘a declaratory phase to an implementation phase’. India has been the largest contributor to several key initiatives: US $189.89 million for the SAARC Development Fund; US $229.11 million out of a total cost of US $308.91 million for the South Asia University. (Tharoor, Reference Tharoor2010) After two decades, SAARC witnessed its first enlargement in 2007 (Afghanistan) and more observers than members (nine)Footnote ¹⁵ attended the last summit. Despite Indian hopes that with increasing economic interdependence heading in the future towards ‘a SAARC Customs Union or even a single SAARC currency no longer appears to be completely unrealistic’ (Tharoor, Reference Tharoor2010), there is however no denying the fact that South Asia does remain one of the least integrated regions in the world.

Domestic politics and regional cooperation

The interaction of the domestic actors’ (both political and societal actors) preferences within the context of their domestic institutional structures determines when expansion of regional cooperation is possible and what its terms will be (Dash, Reference Dash2008: 4). Indian industry, which had only been marginally involved in international business, has focused attention on shaping the environment in which foreign economic policies are formulated since the 1990s. With economic liberalization, two business organizations – the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) and the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) – have begun to play an important role in foreign economic policy because of trade liberalization, which has created pressures to compete, and as Indian companies began to invest overseas (Baru, Reference Baru2009: 268–69).

The Indian government, especially the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), have appreciated the beneficial potential of initiatives fostering regional cooperation. Many new initiatives in regional economic cooperation have come from the MEA. In regard to BIMSTEC (Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation), IBSA (India, Brazil, and South Africa), and IOC-ARC (Indian Ocean Rim Association for Regional Cooperation), the MEA is the ‘lead coordinator’ on each of these, marshalling cooperation with other agencies, state and non-official (Rana, Reference Rana, Bayne and Woolcock2007: 209). However, domestic lobbies and local politicians in some parts of India have been critical of proposals such as BBNI (Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, India) trade grouping, where local vested interests in Bengal have been lobbying against freer trade with Nepal and Bangladesh. Despite official Indian enthusiasm for ideas such as BIMSTEC and IOR-ARC, the domestic business community had been lukewarm because of their dislike of a more liberal trade and investment regime when liberalization began in the 1990s (Baru, Reference Baru and Baru2006: 70). A key problem has been that the commitment to regional integration needs to percolate down to other parts of the government, especially at the operational level.

The existence of significant market potential for economic gains from market exchange within a region is a critical facilitating condition for the support of business groups towards deeper regional economic cooperation. FICCI and CII have taken some initiatives in organizing conferences and seminars over SAARC and South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA) issues apart from publishing several monographs and research papers on SAFTA and the South Asian economy, but while these discussions remain useful in establishing some ‘talking points’, the efforts of Indian business groups towards SAFTA can be characterized as ‘half-hearted and inconsistent’. The lack of strong support from business groups provides little incentive for political actors to move forward in achieving free trade objectives in South Asia (Dash, Reference Dash2008: 165).

Coalition governments in India have pursued regional cooperative arrangements since they offered positive global and regional externalities by providing some access to foreign and regional markets, capital investment, technology transfers, and foreign aid, which can help the ruling coalitions to maintain or even broaden their domestic support base (Dash, Reference Dash2008: 165). Weak liberalizing coalitions have tended to be more accommodative of the demands and interests of their political opponents to ensure their political survival. As a result, India's weak liberalizing coalitions since the 1990s have generally ‘remained tentative about regional cooperative postures, although they have not demonstrated the same degree of antipathy toward regional cooperation policies as the nationalist-fundamentalist coalitions’ (Dash, Reference Dash2008: 166). Private and state monopoly enterprises, which generally perceive a threat from the competition of regional counterparts, resist lowering trade barriers. There has been frequent pressure by sectoral interests and civil society groups where they perceived adverse effects of FTAs, e.g. tea growers in the case of the FTA with Sri Lanka and palm oil cultivators in case of the FTA with ASEAN. More recently, civil society groups have fiercely opposed the negotiations on Trade and Investment Agreement between India and the European Union since they fear that provisions sought by the EU in different areas would require changes that would substantially reduce India's room for maneuver in economic policy and, ultimately, in its development strategy. Non-governmental organizations have been apprehensive about any potential provision that could restrain access to affordable medicines. Despite all this criticism, the Prime Minister's Office is providing a consistent strong political push for the conclusion of FTAs for broader geo-political reasons, even where the relative gains seem to be less than their partner(s).

The China factor

China has always been a major factor behind both the perceptions and the evolution of India's ideas of Asian regionalism. India sees South Asia as its home turf and perceives itself to be a legitimate player in Asia-wide organizations. China, on the other hand, considers itself to be an active participant in all distinct sub-regions, but maintains that India belongs only to South Asia (Banerjee, Reference Banerjee2008). The sense of ‘a Sino-Indian rivalry has dominated the perception of Indian initiatives for transregional cooperation’ (Mohan, Reference Mohan2003: 157).

Some of Beijing's region-building attempts have been aimed at the strategic exclusion of external players such as India from the various newly created regional institutions such as the East Asian Summit (Kavalski, Reference Kavalski2009: 89). Beijing has displayed a strong preference to pursue limited cooperation within the more manageable ASEAN plus Three (APT) and has sought to marginalize the East Asian Summit in favor of the APT (Moore, Reference Moore and Dieter2007: 49). Japan, with the help of Singapore and Indonesia, succeeded in having India invited to the East Asian Summit because it was apprehensive that the summit would provide a convenient mechanism for a rising China, not only to exclude the United States from the region, but also to isolate Japan.

Indian analysts maintain that Chinese objections to Indian membership of regional organizations such as the Asia Europe Meeting (ASEM) and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) has been largely political and strategic in nature (Kapur, Reference Kapur2009: 358; Nanda, Reference Nanda2003: 33). China was unwilling to let India join the SCO as an Observer in June 2005 as it was concerned about a possible dilution of its influence, not least because of India's status as a major regional power and its close relationship with Russia. China insisted that Pakistan join at the same time (Radyuhin, Reference Radyuhin2005).

India was not very keen for China to become a full member of SAARC. Its efforts to keep China out of the subcontinent did not work as Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nepal supported China's candidature. As a result, India acquiesced to China's entry as an Observer in 2005. India responded by bringing in Japan and the United States (Jain, Reference Jain2007). Some Indian scholars argued that there seems to be ‘a mutual softening of attitudes’ between India and China; China lowered its reservations on India's entry into the East Asia Summit and in SCO (as an Observer) in 2005, and India has reciprocated by not resisting China's entry as a SAARC Observer (Muni and Jetly, Reference Muni and Rajshree2008: 21).

Several Asian countries have welcomed Indian participation and involvement in various Asian and Asian-Pacific regional organizations in order to balance expanding Chinese influence. A positive Japanese role in Southeast Asia as well as ASEAN centrality seems to be dependent on containing China with a larger regional entity in which Indian membership is crucial (Camroux, Reference Camroux and Dieter2007: 21). The support that India finds in several Asian capitals such as Japan and Singapore reflects ‘modifications of the regionalization processes where India is now factored in and, on the level of regionalism, an attempt to balance Chinese influence’ (Camroux, Reference Camroux and Dieter2007: 24). However, India has not been willing to join any efforts to contain China. India was cautiously supportive of Japan's proposal in 2007 for the creation of an ‘Arc of Freedom and Prosperity’ and greater political cooperation between the major democracies of the Asia-Pacific. However, when this prompted Chinese accusations of a policy of containment, the Indian government did not respond to it and it was subsequently shelved with the change in Japanese leadership.

All sub-regional initiatives of India have consciously excluded China. India's greater linkages with the countries of the Bay of Bengal region, in fact, are aimed at countering the growing influence of China in these countries (Chatterjee, Reference Chatterjee2007: 75). Thus, India has been reluctant to support China's Kunming Initiative envisaging greater economic cooperation between eastern India, southwest China, Myanmar and Bangladesh because it has been wary of wary of possible Chinese penetration into a particularly strategic space (Racine, Reference Racine and Thomann2010: 312; Ranganathan, Reference Ranganathan2001). While avoiding economic integration with China, India is ‘pushing ahead with its own ideas for regional economic cooperation without Chinese presence’ (Mohan, Reference Mohan2003).

India, United States, and Asian regionalism

During the Cold War, India regarded ASEAN to be a reincarnation of SEATO and a mechanism to serve US interests in Southeast Asia. Since the end of the Cold War, there is growing convergence of interests in many areas between India and the United States, including Asia. Despite closer Indo-US ties, India will retain its independence and retain its autonomy and will not play a junior partner in US strategic objectives in East Asia or join any containment strategy of China. India's strategy towards East Asia has undergone a major transformation since the 1990s and, according to Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee, is based on two fundamental principles: ‘First, the maintenance of an equitable strategic balance and prevention of regional rivalries from destabilizing the region . . . Second and more importantly, India would like to engage all players both bilaterally and collectively through institutions like the ASEAN Regional Forum’ (Mukherjee, Reference Mukherjee, Sisodia and Naidu2005). India is keen that the United States remains as the main stabilizer in Asia. The reality is that whereas the United States desires ‘a unipolar world and a multipolar Asia; China desires a multipolar world and a unipolar Asia; India and ASEAN would like a multipolar world and a multipolar Asia . . . Neither ASEAN nor India wishes to join an alliance with the US against China’ (Gupta, Reference Gupta, Sinha and Mohta2007: 377).

Leadership

In the early decades of its independence, India sought to play a leadership role in international organizations despite its economic insularity and autarchic policies because it felt that it had ‘a special responsibility’ as a result of its size, potential, geographical location, and as the first postwar country to receive national independence and practice non-alignment. However, Nehru's advocacy that ‘there are no leaders and no followers’ (Nehru, Reference Nehru1958: 300) did not impress delegates at the Asia Relations Conference as some smaller neighbors feared domination of the region by the two Asian giants. After its defeat in the India-China War (1962), India neither had the credentials nor the desire to play a leadership role in Asia; it was of marginal geopolitical and economic importance to the Asia-Pacific.

Despite an exponential increase in India's involvement in Asian multilateral processes, India has no intention of playing a leadership role in Asia since it feels that it does not have the requisite economic and strategic clout to take strong initiatives in regional integration.

India has historically preferred that ASEAN take the lead. New Delhi considers ASEAN to be ‘a very safe driver who was in the driver's seat and who would lead us to our destination’Footnote ¹⁶ and that ASEAN is ‘the core around which the process of economic integration of the Asia-Pacific region should be built’.Footnote ¹⁷ There is a clear recognition in India that ‘a closer understanding with ASEAN would make it possible for India to become an integral part of the dynamic Asia-Pacific region in the long run’ (Sridharan, Reference Sridharan1996: 237).

India has abandoned its ‘traditional bluster about leading Asia’ and stresses ‘pragmatic cooperation rather than ideological posturing’. In fact, India's ‘positive relations with all the major powers and ASEAN's own sense of new vulnerabilities has made New Delhi an attractive partner. As they recognized that the rise of India is a reality, ASEAN had little difficulty in inducting India into the East Asian Summit . . . A rising India generates options that did not exist before’ (Mohan, Reference Mohan, Sisodia and Krishnappa2009: 43).

Leadership, as a former Indian foreign minister put it, ‘is not assured. Leadership is a role which evolves.’Footnote ¹⁸ Leadership is ‘essentially related to the idea of community-building; it is relational and dependent on willing followership; leaders do not act alone’ (Nabers, Reference Nabers and Flemes2010: 68; Gupta Reference Gupta, Sinha and Mohta2007: 357). India has been dependent on the goodwill of others. Thus, it was ‘a Singapore initiative, very strongly pressed, that led to the decision in 1995 to grant India full dialogue partner status; again in 1996 in the context of ARF, in 2001 in the context of the first ASEAN-India Summit which was held in 2002 and finally, the extremely important role it played in ensuring Indian participation in the first East Asian Summit’ (Gupta, Reference Gupta, Sinha and Mohta2007: 379). Therefore, unlike in the past from the late 1940s to the mid-1950s, India does not seek ‘a leadership role’ in Asia. India will ‘consciously defer to the ASEAN sentiments, rather than make an attempt to get ahead of them’ (Gupta, Reference Gupta, Sinha and Mohta2007: 379; Ray and Chakrabarti, Reference Ray, Chakrabarti and Ray2007: 434).

Norms and regionalism

The norms which guided India's approach towards regionalism in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War were sovereignty and non-interference. Over a period of time, India has come to support the norms that constitute the ‘ASEAN Way’: loose informalism, lack of institutionalization, decisions by consensus, etc. A new found similarity of views between India and ASEAN is evident in recent years on issues such as human rights and democratization.

Old and new ideas of regionalism

Many of the factors that drive Asian cooperation and inter-dependence today, such as globalization and trade liberalization, had not emerged in Nehru's lifetime. As a result, India's pioneering efforts under Nehru to integrate the whole of Asia into a cooperative framework under the Asian Relations Conference was not fruitful in the absence of any compelling interests or sentiments requiring organized regional cooperation (Mohan and Voll, Reference Mohan, Voll and Wuelbers2008: 74). In fact, regional cooperation is considered imperative for India's continued growth and prosperity.

Nehru's proposal for an ‘Eastern Federation’ with India and China at its core seems somewhat similar to the idea of establishing an East Asian Community that is currently being debated in the East Asian Summit.

About the author

Rajendra K. Jain is Jean Monnet Chair and Professor of European Studies at the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University and Adjunct Principal Research Fellow, Monash European and EU Studies Center, Monash University, Melbourne. He was formerly President of the European Union Studies Association – Asia-Pacific (EUSA-Asia Pacific) (2009–10) and Visiting Professor at the Maison des Sciences de l'Homme, Paris and the Asia-Europe Institute, University of Malaya. He has published a number of books and has most recently published India and the European Union: Building a Strategic Partnership (2007).