It is true that the Government of India has been investing a lot in developing the NE Region in recent times, especially in the development of roads and border areas, in line with its much touted Act East Policy. For the uninitiated, the Act East policy is an effort by the GoI to cultivate extensive economic and strategic relations with the Southeast Asia nations to bolster its standing as a regional power and a counterweight to the strategic influence of the People’s Republic of China. The Act East Policy, initially known as Look East Policy and launched in 1991 by the GoI, marked a strategic shift in India’s perspective of the world. It was developed and enacted during the government of Prime Minister Narsimha Rao (1991–1996) and rigorously pursued by the successive administrations of Atal Bihari Vajpayee (1998–2004) and Manmohan Singh (2004–2014). The success of the Look East Policy enthused Indian foreign ministry officials to develop the policy into more action-oriented, project- and outcome-based policy. After two decades, the Look East policy was rebranded as the Act East policy in 2014 by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government. Ever since the Indo-China War of 1962, China and India have been strategic competitors in South and East Asia.
The focus of the Look East Policy was to increase economic integration with the South East Asian countries and the area was just confined to the countries of ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations). However, the focus of the Act East Policy is both economic and security integration and the focus area increased to East Asia and the whole Asia-Pacific region as well. The Act East policy can be seen as a counterweight to China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), known within China as the One Belt One Road (OBOR), a global infrastructure development strategy adopted by the Chinese government in 2013 to invest in more than 150 countries and international organizations. As of January 2023, 151 countries were listed as having signed up to the BRI. The participating countries include almost 75% of the world’s population and account for more than half of the world’s GDP.
It is an open secret that the Act East Policy is an attempt to curb the impact of China in the ASEAN region. It also aims to promote economic cooperation, cultural ties, and develop a strategic relationship with countries in the Asia-Pacific region through continuous engagement at regional, bilateral, and multilateral levels. To achieve this, the GoI has been trying to increase the interaction of the North-Eastern Indian states with the neighboring countries. This is where Nagaland comes into the mix. Nagaland, and the whole NE Region for that matter, is important for India in her quest for power and geopolitical interests more than anything else. Nagaland is important for India because it shares an international boundary with Myanmar. Moreover, the Act East Policy cannot succeed without passing through the Naga areas of Myanmar.