Discuss the strategic implications of India’s ‘Look East Policy’ transforming into ‘Act East Policy’.
How the answer moves
The flow snapshot — the routes in, the body, the counter-view and the routes out.
Route 1 1991 turn east forced by the Soviet collapse → 2014 renaming changed instruments, not direction → implications cut both ways
Route 2 Look East sought markets, Act East seeks position → the verb changed when the theatre widened from Southeast Asia to the Indo-Pacific → so the policy is now judged on delivery
eastern policy becomes Indo-Pacific policy → Bay of Bengal as shared security space → BIMSTEC past SAARC’s paralysis, Pakistan marginalised → Sittwe against Chinese ports → but acting needs ground India does not control → Raja Mohan on slow implementation, weak connectivity → Kaladan + trilateral highway stalled, June 2026 → corridors cross an unsettled Northeast
the reorientation itself is real, not rhetoric → what is contested is conversion: trade review open since 2023, and the 2026 regional survey puts distrust above trust in the four maritime states India courts most → reach outrunning delivery
Route 1 frame widened, delivery has yet to catch up
Route 2 the verb changed before the capacity did — Act East reads India’s interests correctly and still awaits the means to serve them
Model answer
Handwritten, in the form it would be written in the examination hall.
