| Publication |
2009.
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| Summary/Abstract |
Relations between India and Southeast Asia have deep historical
roots. For centuries, trade and human migration traversed the Bay of
Bengal and the Indian Ocean connected maritime Southeast Asia and
the Indian subcontinent in complex networks that were sustained by
commerce, culture, and community. As a consequence, large parts of
Southeast Asia came under profound Indian influences. British imperialism
strengthened these networks by bringing the subcontinent and
the territories to its east under the colonial sphere of influence, underpinned
largely by trade and commerce. In the 1940s, as India headed
towards political independence, Jawaharlal Nehru had looked to
Southeast Asia as a region whose history, fate, and destiny are somewhat
linked with India's. Great civilizations had once flourished in
these regions, but their destinies had been suppressed by long periods
of colonial rule. He believed that the world had been transformed by
the Second World War, and in the twilight of European imperialism
and the emergence of Asian nationalism, the peoples of India and
Southeast Asia would rediscover their own identities. As the first
Asian country to achieve independence from European colonial rule,
India was regarded by Southeast Asian nationalists, most of whom
had aspirations to follow in India's footsteps, as a natural leader of
an impending free and resurgent Asia.
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