INDIA’S ‘LOOK WEST’ POLICY

ABOUT:-

India adopted look west policy in 2005. However, the policy did not get much attention since 2005. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has the potential to transform our engagement with West Asia.
The foundation for PM successful outreach to West Asia was in fact laid by his predecessor when India invited the King of Saudi Arabia to be the chief guest at the Republic Day Parade, in 2006. This was followed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Riyadh and the India-Saudi defence cooperation agreement signed in 2014.

TRANSFORMATIONAL VISIT

 The Joint Statement between the United Arab Emirates and India is an important articulation of a significant shift in the Arab world’s view of India.

 It talks of historic ties of “commerce, culture and kinship”, drawing attention to the unique history of Arab interaction with Indian communities of the west coast, from Gujarat to Kerala.

 The joint statement, outlining closer government-to-government (G2G) relations, draws attention to the vibrant business-to-business (B2B) and people-to-people (P2P) relationships and commits the UAE to a sharp increase in its investment in India.

GULF COOPERATION COUNCIL (GCC) LOOKS WEST

The new strategic partnership outlined by the UAE and India is not just defined by India’s “Look West” policy but that it is equally defined by the GCC’s “Look East” policy.

Several factors have contributed to this fundamental shift in West Asian strategic thinking.

 First, the structural change in the global energy market with West Asian oil and gas increasingly heading to South and East Asian markets rather than to the Trans-Atlantic markets.

 Second, partly as a consequence of this change in flows and partly owing to the fiscal stress faced by the trans-Atlantic economies, West Asia is looking to India and other Asian powers to step in and offer security guarantees to the region. Many GCC states have welcomed defence cooperation agreements with India.

 Third, in the wake of the Arab Spring and the mess in Egypt and Iraq, the Gulf states find India and China to be more reliable interlocutors than many western states.

 Fourth, under pressure from radical and extremist political forces within West Asia, most states in the region have come to value the Indian principle of seeking and securing regional stability as an over-riding principle of regional security.

CONCLUSION

 “Look East” Policy succeeded because South-East Asia began to “look West” to India, seeking a balancer to China.

 “Look West” Policy will succeed because West Asia is “looking East” worried about the emerging strategic instability in its own neighbourhood and the structural shift in the global energy market.

 India-West Asia relations is the assertion of not just a “shared” past but of shared challenges in the present and a shared future.