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The disruption of old trade routes by colonial rulers, the Partition of 1947 and India’s import substitution economy deprived northeast India of its natural markets. Of late, there has been much talk about the potentials of India’s Look East policy in transforming the region. The inclusion of the northeastern region as an important component of this policy in 2003 is dubbed as the new paradigm of development in the Northeast. The policy envisages the region not as the periphery of India, but as the centre of a thriving and integrated economic space. Thus, many people see it as an excellent opportunity to integrate not only with mainland Indian economy but also with its neighbouring countries in the east and even beyond. In contrast, others view this policy as an extension of India’s imperialism in a new form in that the Northeast will only provide a bridge between the rest of India and East and Southeast Asia. The main argument of such critics is that India is more concerned with the eastern neighbours and not its northeast. The article, while recognizing ‘borders’ as crucial in attempting to address the problems of the Northeast, assesses the prospects of ‘Looking East’ through this region and the challenges posed to it by post-colonial territoriality and other domestic problems. The integration of the Northeast economy with the neighbouring countries is basically implemented through the security-centric border management, wherein the opening of borders is limited to border trade points and fencing the rest of the erstwhile open borders. This increasing restrictive regulation and bureaucratic formalities on movement of people and goods across borders distort the traditional cross-border economic dependence and erode social ties with ethnic kins on the other side of the border. The article also explores the possible community–geography trade-offs in such borderlands.

This brief article critically reviews various recent essays and publications on the Kuki–Naga conflict of the 1990s. The conflict has resulted in uprooting hundreds of villages, with the loss of more than a thousand lives, destruction of valuable properties and internal displacement. While British colonial policies of governance in Northeast India and the rise of ethnic nationalism among Kukis and Nagas in the post-independence period have been identified as major root causes of the Kuki–Naga conflict, the literature remains inconclusive and this article argues that today competing claims and perceived threats regarding land and territory appear to be the major cause of continuing tensions.

The Look East policy has emerged as an important foreign policy initiative of India in the post-Cold War period. It was launched in 1991 by the Narasimha Rao government with the aim of developing political contacts, increasing economic integration and forging security cooperation with countries of Southeast Asia. The policy marked a shift in India’s perspective of the world, with the strategic and economic importance of Southeast Asia to India’s national interests being recognised. The second phase, which began in 2003, extends the coverage of the Look East policy from Australia to East Asia, with Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) as its core. The new phase thus marks a shift in focus from trade to wider economic and security cooperation, political partnerships, physical connectivity through road and rail links. In this article, the evolution of India’s Look East policy and its recent approach are analysed.

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