As External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee swings through Indonesia and Singapore this week, he has reason to be satisfied with the new traction that India’s Look East policy has begun to acquire from tourism to trade to defence cooperation.

Until recently, New Delhi’s emphasis has been on simply “being there” and put an end to India’s prolonged isolation from Asia. With the exception of APEC (Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation organisation), India is now part of all the Asian regional mechanisms.

Aware of its own growing weight on the Asian stage, New Delhi senses the urgency of looking beyond mere membership of the regional forums towards shaping the structure and direction of Asian regionalism.

That demands a simultaneous expansion of the bases of support at home for the Look East policy, acceleration of cooperation with the region, and above all, a strategy to maximise India’s impact in Asia.

That Mukherjee chose to travel to Shillong in the North East and speak on the Look East policy before arriving in Southeast Asia suggests New Delhi is determined to bring new stake-holders into the engagement with Asia.

The effort to raise internal political consciousness on Asia should not be limited to the North East. It needs to encompass the entire eastern region of India. While the foreign minister of Singapore, George Yeo often reminds his audiences that Singapore was ruled from Kolkata until 1865, India’s mainstream East is yet to reclaim its historic connectivities with Southeast Asia.

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