India could help SE Asia: Analyst
India could help SE Asia: Analyst
JAKARTA (JP): Despite being located in a separate geographic region, India can play a positive role in maintaining peace and security in Southeast Asia, a visiting Indian academic said yesterday.
Professor of Southeast Asian Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, Baladas Ghoshal, acknowledged that relations between India and its neighbors in Southeast Asia, particularly members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), had declined during the past two decades.
"I did feel that India also did not do enough to cultivate this region, and similarly Southeast Asia did not respond very favorably at that point of time," he said of the 1970s and 1980s.
The conflicting claims to sovereignty over the Spratly islands and the diplomatic row between Singapore and the Philippines have recently threatened to destabilize the region.
Speaking at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Ghoshal said that in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s relations between India and Southeast Asia had been very close. The Bandung Conference in 1955 was one example of the mutual support which existed at that time, he said.
"I think the '70s and '80s was a period when India was a little bit aloof," he said.
According to Ghoshal, the neglect came about as a result of the world situation combined with domestic matters that prompted India to concentrate heavily on its internal security.
The situation is changing, he said.
Ghoshal said South and Southeast Asia were no longer two independent systems but were now "closely inter-linked."
"India's presence in forums like the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) would be a positive factor and contribute to a better understanding of cooperative security," he said.
The ARF combines the members of ASEAN -- Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand -- and the United States, Canada, Russia, China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, the European Union, Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and Laos.(mds)