The Durian Flavour: India-Asean ties underperform despite promise

India's first Ambassador to Asean, Gurjit Singh, offers an in-depth assessment of India's relationship with the grouping and why it has fallen short of its full potential

The Durian Flavour - India and Asean after a decade of the Act East Policy

by Gurjit Singh

Published by Rupa 

262 pages 

₹795

  The remarkable progress of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or Asean, often goes unnoticed because of the traditions of tolerance and secularism ingrained in these nations. Since its establishment in August 1967, Asean has become the world’s fifth-largest economy and is home to about 675 million people. Its most significant achievement lies in overcoming mutual suspicion, resolving regional conflicts, lifting millions of people out of poverty and building lasting peace and prosperity in the region.

 

Ambassador Gurjit Singh, a veteran diplomat and scholar, offers an in-depth assessment of Asean’s progress and shortcomings in his book, The Durian Flavour.  As India’s first Ambassador to Asean from 2012 to 2015, he saw the dynamically evolving region from close quarters. The pivotal role he played in advancing India’s engagement with Asean culminated in India launching “Act East Policy” (AEP) in 2014 under Prime Minster Narendra Modi, as a logical extension of India’s “Look East Policy” of 1992 under P V Narasimha Rao.

 

Next year marks a major milestone : The 60th anniversary of the establishment of Asean and 35th anniversary of its Dialogue Partnership with India . In that context, this book provides a timely assessment of success and missed opportunities in the bilateral relations. He uses the iconic regional Durian fruit as a metaphor to describe the relationship; its repulsive flavour may present an unstated symbol of contradictions, but when ripe one can enjoy it, he says.

 

Mr Singh laments that the strong historical ties defining the India-Asean relationship have fallen short of their full potential. Its rich heritage, borne out of its syncretic cultural links with India, is proudly owned by its people as their own. The tales of the Ramayan, Mahabharata, the Buddhist Jatakas are interwoven in their art forms, literature, cuisine, and much more. Contemporary Bollywood and Indian education, underpinned by people-to-people engagement, enhances India’s soft power. The mismatch in perceptions and objectives between the two sides is said to be the main reason for the below-par performance of closer cooperation. While India seeks a comprehensive relationship with Asean through AEP, including security, Asean prioritises trade and economic cooperation. Although, bilateral trade had been robust at $ 131 billion in 2023 and Asean’s cumulative foreign direct investment into India at $178 billion (from January 2000 to March 2025), the burgeoning trade deficit ($45 billion in 2023) is a disturbing trend for New Delhi. The Asean-India  Trade in Goods Agreement (AITIGA) concluded in 2010 is the sore point; India believes it is being used as a conduit for flooding its market with cheap Chinese goods disguised as Asean products through the misuse of Rules of Origin provisions. India’s suggestion for a review of AITIGA is being resisted by Asean, fearing that it would be downgraded in an attempt to balance trade. Also, Mr Singh writes, Asean was blamed for India justifiably walking out of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) in October 2019 for failing to work towards adequately addressing India specific concerns. Instead, the grouping seemed interested only in hedging India against the China behemoth for strategic reasons and markets.

 

However, this broad censure overlooks facts. India’s exports to the region has been growing, notwithstanding the trade deficit, and industry’s investments are increasing in its search for new opportunities there. The understanding that trade is not a zero-sum game and a country’s export potential is directly linked to its competitiveness and supply chain integration is missing in the analysis. Using cheaper imported raw materials and components (if domestically unavailable) can actually help make finished products for global markets. On RCEP, a pragmatic analysis as to whether staying out is in India’s interest at a time of growing protectionism would be useful. At the policy level, deep knowledge on global trade dynamics is imperative for making timely course corrections.

 

Further, the author is concerned about the waning of Asean’s centrality. Its inability to stand up to issues of core security concerns to the region is the main reason. China’s aggressive posturing in the South China Sea impinges on its centrality. Also, the emergence of alternative groups such as RCEP, the Indo-Pacific Framework for Prosperity, the Quadilateral Dialogue, Brics and so on diminishes its role. Given that the big powers are bound to be active in the Indo-Pacific region, Asean should strategically align with India’s consistent advocacy of a free, open, and rules-based Indo-Pacific, the author observes. The US’ unilateral tariffs are said to be having a debilitating effect on the region as it will unwittingly create conditions for China to fill the void and become an even more influential economic power in the region.

 

The author’s suggestion to set up a revised metrics for enhanced cooperation under AEP, with the inclusion of India’s low-cost digital technologies, Sustainable Development Goals, green transition and trilateral cooperation, is worth considering. It calls for adjustment, accommodation and acceptance of the bigger picture by both sides to foster an inclusive Global South and shape a fairer multipolar world order.

 

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The reviewer is a retired foreign service officer. dammuravi@gmail.com