Historical and Geographical Dimensions of India’s Interaction with Southeast Asia

Etymology of the term, Southeast Asia

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Hist. Geog Dimensions India’s Interaction S E Asia
Irrigation S E Asian Agri-history 2005, Irrigation S E Asian Agri-history 2005, Hist. Geog Dimensions India’s Interaction S E Asia, Hist. Geog Dimensions India’s Interaction S E Asia

Etymology of the term, Southeast Asia
That India has had strong cultural influence upon Southeast Asia is vindicated by the frequent reference to the Southeast Asian region as Greater India, connoting the close ties between these two regions until the term Southeast Asia gained currency (Bhattacharyay
2012). In fact, the term Southeast Asia is comparatively of a recent origin carrying no compatibility with its glorious cultural past. This region had for long remained as a zone of confluence of the two cultural giants (India and China) and sustained various kingdoms based on ethno-linguistic considerations. This glorious chapter was, however, eclipsed with the penetration of Europeans into Southeast Asia from the beginning of 16th century. Having been primarily concerned with the economic benefits from their colonial enterprises, the colonial masters hardly evinced interest in standardizing the nomenclature of this potential region. It was their abject indifference that led to sprouting of multiple forms of toponyms denoting the same region. Though the term Southeast Asia was coined by JR. Logan in 1847, the travel accounts in 19
th century dampened the prospects of usage of this term and transgressed the facts of history and logic of geography. An Indian strategic analyst who has been an authority on Southeast

3 Asian studies, and strong proponent of Bay of Bengal Community, Prof. V. Suryanarayan, became critical of the division of the world into West Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia and East Asia, and termed this conception of area as an offshoot of our intellectual dependence on Western scholarship (Suryanarayan 2000). Surprisingly, it was not the scholarship but the warfare (World War II) that made Southeast Asia popular, thanks to the large scale publication of maps of Southeast Asia by National Geographic Society to meet the wartime demand for maps. For all the lopsidedness in region-forming process, Southeast Asia was made visible and the nomenclature was legitimized. The toponym, Southeast Asia, though in its binomial expression conforms to the logic of geography, does not have any semblance with the grandiosity of region’s history and culture and hence the etymology of Southeast Asia seems to be rhetoric (Yagama Reddy 2005).

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