'NE people must be involved to achieve Look East policy goals'

Involvement of the people of the northeastern region and a strong political will in the form of a robust policy are some of the approaches necessary to achieve the goals of the country's 'Look East' policy, says a new book.
Although there is no easy approach to achieve such goals which need time and efforts, more than a decade has lapsed since the northeast was given a special place in the 'Look East' policy, but there seems to be lack of political will to implement the same says the book "India's Look East Policy And The Northeast".
Published by Sage, the book is written by Thongkholal Haokip, Assistant Professor of political science at Presidency University, Kolkata.

The northeastern states had been exposed to international trade during the pre-colonial and colonial period. It had negligible impact on the local economy as tea plantation was developed into enclave production without having any linkage with the hinterland.
In the post-independence period, the exploitative nature of the British colonial rule continued in the region with just a change in the stakeholders from British to Indian capitalists, the book says.
The main component of the 'Look East' policy is to bring development in the northeastern region through the expansion of regional trade linkage with the economies of its eastern neighbours.
India's northeast has more geographical proximity and contact with other countries than the Indian mainland. It is connected to mainland by a mere 21-km-long landmass called 'Siliguri corridor' which is less than two per cent of the 5000 km combined perimeter formed by the seven northeastern states, while the remaining borders China, Myanmar, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Nepal.