Bangalore: Thank you for giving me this opportunity to speak today at UC-Berkeley, an institution that has been at the forefront of championing progressive ideas not just in the United States but also in the world at large. And, as we are here on the western shores of the US adjoining the Pacific Ocean, it is only natural to speak about India's expanding engagement with the Asia-Pacific region a region which as Secretary of State Clinton recently described, starts from the Indian sub-continent and stretches to the west coast of the US. It is a space that both our countries share and it is vital to our security and prosperity.
I am into three months of my assignment here and in that period I have found that there is an increased focus on India's role in Asia especially in the context of the extraordinary changes that are underway in the Asia-Pacific region. It is as if the rise and development of India creates a new awareness of its place in this area of the world. The tendency to divide the Asian continent into "convenient" blocs much of it a legacy of Cold-War thinking- is being supplanted by new perspectives. Where India was viewed predominantly within the context of South Asia there is now the realization that it is more than just a South Asian country. India is accurately perceived as being a stakeholder in the creation of an inclusive, participatory network of cooperative trade, economic development, security and stability. And, the India-US partnership synchronizes naturally with such a process.
India's engagement with the Asia-Pacific region is not new. It has been a continuous process that goes back over a millennium. From the fact that we are a vast nation, with a rich and diverse history, we have had very dynamic and extensive contacts with our eastern neighbours since the first century - contacts based on cultural exchange, trade and commerce and maritime interaction. The convergence thus created and the spiritual interaction between India and East and South East Asia has left an indelible mark on the region's art, architecture, language and culture. The spread of Hinduism and Buddhism, and Islam, and the flourishing trade across the "spice route" between India and the countries of South East and East Asia led to a cultural synthesis whose imprint can be seen even today and which has blended gracefully and without intrusiveness with the indigenous spirit and identity of these societies.
This interaction was however distorted beginning with the 18th century, dictated as it was by the needs of colonial powers and the waning of India's strength and capabilities during that period. At the onset of our existence as an independent, sovereign nation, we proclaimed our resolve to re-establish these linkages as one of the priority areas in India's foreign policy. Indeed our first Prime Minister, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, while speaking at the Asian Relations Conference in March 1947, even before our independence, said:
"We are of Asia and the peoples of Asia are nearer and closer to us than others. India is so situated that she is the pivot of Western, Southern and Southeast Asia. In the past her culture flowed to all these countries and they came to her in many ways. Those contacts are being renewed and the future is bound to see a closer union between India and Southeast Asia on the one side and Afghanistan, Iran and the Arab world on the west. To the furtherance of that close association of free countries, we must devote ourselves..."
Any look at the map would demonstrate the depth and meaning of these words. We see that India is both a continental and maritime nation with a territory of over 3 million sq kms, a land frontier of 15,000 kms, a coastline of 7,500 kms. It is a fundamental fact of geography that India is in the immediate neighbourhood of ASEAN. We share land and maritime borders with Myanmar, Indonesia and Thailand. India's Andaman and Nicobar Islands in the Bay of Bengal are closer to some ASEAN states than to the Indian mainland. We are a multi-regional nation in that geography has destined it thus. While this does not mean we intend to jettison our responsibilities as the largest nation in South Asia, we are ever conscious of the natural linkages that have bound us through history with the nations of South East and East Asia and which will shape our future.
