THE INFLUENCE OF HISTORICAL LINKAGES ON INDIA’S CONTEMPORARY ASEAN POLICY

India's engagement with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has emerged as one of the most significant pillars of its foreign policy in the twenty-first century. While economic, strategic, and geopolitical considerations are often highlighted in discussions of India–ASEAN relations, the role of historical linkages remains equally important. The centuries-old interactions between India and Southeast Asia through trade, religion, culture, migration, and maritime exchanges have created a strong civilizational foundation that continues to influence contemporary diplomatic relations. India's Look East Policy, launched in 1991 and transformed into the Act East Policy in 2014, has drawn extensively upon these historical connections to strengthen political, economic, and strategic partnerships with ASEAN countries. This paper examines the historical foundations of India–ASEAN relations and analyzes how these linkages continue to shape India's contemporary ASEAN policy. The study argues that historical and cultural ties have provided India with valuable soft-power resources, enabling deeper cooperation and mutual trust in the region.The city of Bagan in Central Myanmar, a centre for religious and secular studies, specialising in Pali scholarship as well as prosody, phonology, grammar, astrology, alchemy, medicine, and legal studies is known to have attracted monks and students from as far as India, Sri Lanka and the Khmer Empire in Cambodia. Such intermingling of ideas could have been possible only because of the cosmopolitan nature of our society in ancient times.Today, in a world of sealed borders and trade wars, a world of religious terrorism and ethnic conflicts, history bestows on us a magnificent torch of plurality and inclusiveness to uphold. Deriving inspiration from Tagore again, we hope ‘this torch that India and ASEAN will carry together on their path to progress will converge to illuminate the common ray of knowledge for the entire world.