NEW DELHI The tsunami's aftermath If any silver lining can ever be found in the tsunami's devastation, it could be the recognition of common destinies between South and Southeast Asia, joined as they are by one sea and much history of shared culture and commerce. Here in the heart of the densely populated plain of the Ganges, the oceans can seem a long way away. The Arabian Sea is a thousand kilometers distant from India's capital, and the Bay of Bengal is 1,200. So it perhaps not surprising that India's top bureaucrats and politicians have tended not to attach too much importance to the nation's 7,500- kilometer coastline and even to the Indian Ocean. That may explain why the government never found the money to participate in, let alone lead, any projects for tsunami warnings. The Bay of Bengal and the southeastern Coromandel coast facing the Andaman Sea had been particularly neglected in recent decades. In that period, Calcutta's importance declined dramatically relative to that of Mumbai. India's modest foreign trade looked increasingly westward, to Europe and the Gulf. Development of international ports was concentrated in Gujarat and Maharashtra. The backwardness of the long coastlines of Orissa and Andhra Pradesh contrasts with the rapid development of the western coasts. India's modest forays into beach tourism were in Goa and Kerala, both on the southwestern Malabar coast. The east coast and the Andaman Islands saw nothing comparable to these, let alone to the ways that Sri Lanka and Thailand exploited their sun, beaches and coral. India may like to assume that it is the natural hegemon of the Indian Ocean, but its neglect of its navy and its failure to provide a positive leadership role in regional cooperation meant that the Indian Ocean has been more of a vacuum, partly filled by the U.S. presence at Diego Garcia. Even more obvious has been India's failure to develop links with its immediate Southeast Asian neighbors, Indonesia and Thailand. It was not always thus. India's cultural influence has spread eastward more than westward. Buddhism spread by sea as well as land. Hinduism still flourishes as far east as Bali, and Indian-derived scripts now used in Thailand and Cambodia were even found in the Philippines until they were gradually displaced by Spain's Roman script. For centuries ships from India's eastern ports dominated shipping in Southeast Asia and provided a key link between East and West Asia. Britain's Indian empire began life at Madras and reached its apogee with the construction not of imperial, westward-oriented ex-Mughal New Delhi but of the commercial gateways Calcutta and Mumbai. But independent India's neglect of the sea was changing before the tsunami. Emerging from its quasi-isolationist shell, India was beginning to recognize that its possession of these two coasts gives it a central position in Asia of which it needs to take better advantage commercially and strategically. Spurred by China's moves into Southeast Asia and its links to Pakistan and Iran, and by its own rediscovery of commercial acumen, India was awakening to its seas. Just two months ago Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said that the coming years would "see the importance of safeguarding India's coastline, island territories, offshore assets and sea lanes of communication." The navy and coast guard are getting bigger budgets. India has begun anti-piracy cooperation with Malaysia and - doubtless to the irritation of China - is to have a joint naval exercise with Singapore. The city-state's dominant Chinese ethnicity has not blinded it to the need for closer ties with this closer-than-China giant, and especially with Tamil Nadu and its capital Madras, now a focal point of India's information-technology success. The tragedy has spurred India into a leadership role, as it joins the United States, Japan and Australia in a relief operation. This is a sign of the linkage that India now sees between its seas and its security as much from a strategic point of view as for disaster prevention and relief. It needs to act like a benign regional leader, not a bully to smaller countries. Meanwhile, the sufferings of Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Thailand will surely bring home to their governments the merit of treating India as a friendly neighbor rather than distant and estranged relative.