ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the evolving dynamics and India’s current stand on subregional cooperation in Asia in the context of both economy and security with emphasis on Myanmar. It provides an elaborate landscape of India’s ongoing bilateral engagement with new Myanmar, and its heightened economic diplomacy to support all physical, economic, social and educational infrastructures toward restructuring the nation, which is devastated due to prolonged military regime and China’s extractivism. As India aims to gain regional power, it has simultaneously started to shift the narrative of its Northeast periphery as a ‘natural gateway’ toward achieving the goal of subregional economic integration. In this context, the chapter also argues about the shifting geopolitical theater towards Myanmar’s strategic Rakhine state, where a new regime of power and ‘interests’ of various stakeholders are aiming to explore the space for various economic projects. As Myanmar is also partnering with such new subregional dynamics for its own economic gains, the State has created a security perception by systematically targeting a particular community. The chapter therefore ends with a cautious note for the need of a democratization process in the approach of subregionalism where economic integration and gains can have a bottom-up approach and remains meaningful for the peripheries.
