India's Near East

Indias near east encompasses Bangladesh, Myanmar and the Indian states of the NortheastArunachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Assam, Nagaland, Manipur, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram. Celebrated as a theatre of geo-economic connectivity typified by Indias Act East policy, the region is key not only to Indias great-power rivalry with China, which first boiled over in the 1962 war, but to the idea(s) of India itself. It is also one of the most intricately partitioned lands anywhere on Earth. Rent by communal and class violence, the region has birthed extreme forms of religious and ethnic nationalisms and communist movements. The Indian states survival instinct and pursuit of regional hegemony have only accentuated such extremes.This book scripts a new history of Indias eastward-looking diplomacy and statecraft. Narrated against the backdrop of separatist resistance within Indias own northeastern states, as well as rivalry with Beijing and Islamabad in Yangon and Dhaka, it offers a simple but compelling argument. The aspirations of Act East mask an uncomfortable truth: India privileges political stability over economic opportunity in this region. In his chronicle of a states struggle to overcome war, displacement and interventionism, Avinash Paliwal lays bare the limits of independent Indias influence in its near east.