In the past few years, there has been much talk about the ?look east? policy bringing about a transformation of north-east India, which is often projected as our gateway to south-east Asia. Rajiv Sikri, secretary-east in the external affairs ministry, told a forum in Guwahati last year that the policy ?envisages the North-east region not as the periphery of India, but as the centre of a thriving and integrated economic space linking two dynamic regions with a network of highways, railways, pipelines, transmission lines crisscrossing the region?. His hope, he said, is that it would be possible some day to drive from Calcutta via Dhaka, or from Guwahati, to Yangon and Bangkok in three or four days, and that trains and buses would carry ?millions of tourists, pilgrims, workers and businessmen in both directions?.

The look east policy is making impressive headway. But there is a danger that it may get delinked from the vision of north-east India as a gateway. This should not be surprising. After all, historically, mainland India?s ties with south-east Asia were primarily maritime and not continental. Even today, it is cheaper and easier to trade with south-east Asia by sea rather than by land.

India is now a summit level partner of the Association of South East Asian Nations. Only China, Japan and Korea enjoy formal diplomatic relations with Asean at that level. Trade between India and Asean countries is expanding fast. India has already signed free-trade area agreements with Thailand and Singapore. By 2011, there will be a free-trade area with Brunei, Indonesia and Malaysia and by 2016, with the remaining Asean countries, that is, the Philippines, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam. Aside from Asean, bilateral trade between India and China is also improving. At last year?s third Asean-India summit, the prime minister, Manmohan Singh, came out with a bold vision of an Asian economic community ? to include Asean, China, Japan, Korea and India.

North-east India has not quite been playing the role of a gateway in all this, nor is it about to. True, there has been some excitement about a few things. For example, the Asean-India car rally, the inauguration of a Bangkok-Guwahati air service (even though Indian Airlines?s commitment to this twice-a-week service has been fickle), the new international status of the Guwahati airport, the inauguration of an India-built road in Myanmar and the recent clearance by the home ministry of the proposal to reopen the Stilwell Road.

No one doubts that closer relations with south-east Asia will open up significant possibilities for north-east India. Apart from ambitious talk of highways linking the region with the dynamic economies of south-east Asia and Yunnan, more modest scenarios have north-east India supplying hydro-electric power to its cross-border Asian neighbours, and pipelines moving gas and petroleum products across this transnational region. The changing geography of global tourism might make opening our eastern doors to tourists from the Asia-Pacific region an attractive proposition.

Economic gains dominate most scenarios. But there are potential non-economic gains as well. Developing north-east India?s tourism industry, for instance, could involve building cultural centres and museums to showcase and celebrate the cultures of the region?s many ethnic communities. This could attract tourists and, at the same time, respond to the urge for recognition that animate the region?s many movements for ethnic assertion.

But benefits of the sort that have been talked about won?t just trickle down as effects of development expenditures by government departments and market forces. The concept of turning the North-east into a gateway will have to be the focus of a grand project involving the government, civil society, as well as corporate and multilateral actors. Projects with clear backward and forward linkages will have to be designed and their social and environmental impact carefully assessed. This will require substantial investments. It is not just money that is needed. There has to be investment of political and intellectual energy as well. These are serious challenges, and choices have to be made in domestic and foreign policy for the North-east to fulfil its potential as a gateway.

The participation of the people of the region in this process is crucial. It is striking that the provincial government of China?s Yunnan province and institutions such as the Yunnan Academy of Social Sciences play a far more active role in China?s efforts to build bridges with south and south-east Asia than their counterparts in north-east India. There is quite a bit of irony in this since China?s political system is centralized and authoritarian while ours is democratic and federal. Yet, without such participation it will be very hard to deal with certain policy challenges such as the tension between the openness of a gateway and the restrictions on land ownership and labour movement that prevail in large parts of north-east India.

The security prism through which official India views the North-east remains a major hurdle. It is na?ve to think, for instance, that ethnic festivals held under the watchful eyes of gun-toting soldiers ? as was the case with the Hornbill festival in Nagaland last year ? can ever become big tourist draws. Dong in Arunachal Pradesh is advertised in tourist brochures as the place where one can see India?s first sunrise. But the Indian armed forces don?t let ordinary civilians go and enjoy it. The number of tourists who visit the region after working around obstacles such as the rules under the Restrictive Area Permits and the Inner Line Permits remains pitifully small.

Counter-insurgency operations, a visible army presence that is not exactly tourism-friendly, and security-driven restrictions will continue as long as insurgency remains and India?s relations with some of our neighbours remain adversarial or rancorous. Yet India is not the only country having to reconcile security concerns with the demands of a globalizing economy. Globally, border-crossings are no longer thought of primarily as sites for security checks. Ensuring the security of transportation and cargo needs better border management, better governance inside the country as well as in the countries of the neighbourhood, deepening relations with our neighbours and developing multi-lateral institutions of governance.

Realistic considerations ? including the goal of limiting China?s influence in Myanmar ? have pushed India closer to Myanmar?s military rulers. While it might pay in the short term, it is clear that so long as the situation in Myanmar remains fluid and the sanctions of the United States of America and the European Union continue, the level of Indian interaction with Myanmar will remain shallow.

India?s relations with China are also an important part of the puzzle. While relations are improving, many in India are sceptical about Chinese plans to build roads and ports in Myanmar which will give China a strong presence all along our eastern border. The vision of Sino-Indian cooperation in building transportation infrastructure in the region, as envisaged in the Kunming Initiative and the Bangladesh, China, India and Myanmar Forum, seems unlikely to come to fruition any time soon.

There is no alternative to confronting the domestic and foreign policy choices and to debating them with the vision of the North-east as a gateway firmly in mind. Otherwise the gateway metaphor will soon begin to sound like a clich? and another addition to the list of broken promises to the North-east.

If the look east policy is limited to a maritime orientation and does not develop a robust continental thrust ? with north-east India as a gateway ? it will be disastrous not only for the region but for India?s diplomatic ambitions as well.