The Office of International Affairs (OIA) of NEHU has organised a distinguished lecture series of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) on India’s Foreign Policy and its present challenges at the multi-convention hall of NEHU here today.
The lecture was delivered by renowned ambassador and veteran foreign policy expert Skand Ranjan Tayal.
Tayal spoke on “India’s options in the changing dynamic of Act East Policy ” and argued that India is able to expand its cooperative policy framework in the whole of South and South-East Asia.
Explaining India’s cooperative paradigm of policy making that evolved after the Cold War, Tayal cited the potential of India’s participation in ASEAN and BIMSTEC. While India is able to improve the volume of trade and is able to get the ASEAN nations to contribute to Atmanirbhar Bharat, mutual cooperation is still to reach a dynamic stage.
He further spoke of the increasing size of ASEAN’s economy to the world GDP and BIMSTEC’s role in promoting technological and economic cooperation needs to be further augmented.
Tayal surmised that in spite of India’s strong efforts at increasing volume of trade through lowering of tariff for imports, Free Trade Agreements with many countries within the formation, trade cannot achieve complex goals of regional security and stability.
Delivering the distinguished lecture, Ambassador Tayal called upon the academic fraternity to understand the importance of geostrategic positioning of India that enables and secures India’s national interests. This, he contended, is the pivot of decision making keeping in mind India’s security concerns with South Asian neighbours and then promoting mutual economic and technological interests.
India’s overall geopolitical positioning in many conflicts has been based on strategic ways of finding peace and then promoting national interests through cooperation.
He contended that India has to play a cautious mediating and neutralising role in conflicts like Ukraine, or nearer home in not allowing a formation like Asia Pacific Economic Concern (APEC) to align with a China and Pakistan axis. India’s role in Quad and ASEAN allow for not allowing India’s bête noire to occupy a more convenient position. India, therefore, is successful in turning bipolar to multipolar through its role in various formations like ASEAN and BIMSTEC. He cited India’s civilisational, spiritual and philosophical linkages with entire South Asia and South East Asia as the very basis of Act East policy.
The distinguished lecture was chaired by Vice-Chancellor Prof. Prabha Shankar Shukla, who in his remarks stated that NEHU can play a significant role in Act East Policy by bridging up demands for higher education and foreign policy concerns.
While NEHU can draw a fine balance between local and global in terms of implementation of UGC’s mandate on internationalisation of higher education by seats on a supernumerary basis to foreign students, it can also promote diplomacy through higher education that can have direct bearing in multilateral cooperative frameworks.
Prof. Shukla cited NEHU’s success story of the Government of Thailand asking for cooperation from Thai Universities with NEHU in frontier areas of various science, engineering and social sciences disciplines. That Act East policy can be best implemented by advancing the cause of research, teaching and joint collaborative ventures in solving important international issues and problems is spoken insightfully by Prof. Shukla.
The lecture generated a lot of interesting debates and discussions from the august audience. Leading the discussion, Prof. T T Haokip, who heads NEHU’s Department of Political Science pointed out the China problem and how China attempts to scuttle India’s efforts at promoting Act East Policy.
Reacting to this observation, Ambassador Tayal explained how India is able to get the best of the manufacturing giants in India and also India’s advantage in the software and communications sector.
In his comments, Prof. K Debbarma, the Dean of School of Social Sciences, NEHU advocated measures like students’ exchange, offer of medical and health facility, upholding of human rights and tackling of human trafficking as important steps to be adopted in the actual work of Act East Policy.
The lecture and the discussion evoked a huge interest as the hall was filled with young bright students and researchers. Officer-in-Charge Office of International Affairs, NEHU Prof. Prasenjit Biswas offered the vote of thanks for a very successful event to the entire academic fraternity of Shillong for making it a very successful event.
