The Central government scrapping of the Free Movement Regime, FMR, across the 1643 km long India-Myanmar border as well its decision to fence this border to put into effect stricter border vigil have been making headlines in the northeastern states, Nagaland, Manipur and Mizoram in particular. Earlier still, the Central government also proposed a 100km wide belt along India’s international borders where no environment clearance would be necessary while taking up any infrastructural development. Let there be no doubt, all of these are interrelated and have the same goal of securing India’s border as their central concern. It is another matter that there are opinions which disagree that this is the best way to achieve these goals, and that alternative ways with less collateral damages should be looked for.
Let there also be no doubt that these moves have little to do with the demands for it by any of the state, including by sections of the population in Manipur, just as protest against it by others in states such as Mizoram and Nagaland will have equally scant effect in making the Central government change its posture. As the chairman of the well-respected Indian think tank, Politeia Research Foundation, Sanjay Pulipaka, has written in an opinion piece in The Hindu, at least with respect to India’s border with Myanmar, these moves are prompted by India’s unease at China’s influence penetrating deeper into Myanmar in the wake of the present turmoil the Myanmar is engulfed in.
This nagging apprehension became alarming for India after an alliance of three pro-Chinese ethnic armies, together known as “The Three Brotherhood Alliance”, stormed and took control of several major trading towns along the Myanmar-China border on October 27, 2023 in a landmark reversal for the Myanmar Junta now codenamed as 1027. The Three Brotherhood Alliance constitutes of the Arakan Army, AA, Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, MNDA, and Ta’ang National Liberation Army, TNLA, formed in June 2019.
Except for the Arakan Army which is from the south western Myanmar state of Rakhine, the latter two are based in the Shan state close to the Chinese border. Of these MNDA is of the Kokang community, who are ethnic Chinese speaking the Yunanese version of Mandrin, and the TNLA is of the Ta’ang (or Palaung) ethnic group who are also very close to the Chinese. As Myanmar expert and well-known veteran journalist and author, Bertil Lintner who recently visited Imphal for a lecture organised by the All Manipur Working Journalists Union, AMWJU, explained in his lecture, the Chinese are fishing in the troubled waters of Myanmar, playing a double game to make sure the Myanmar junta sees China’s cooperation vital in keeping the inferno in the country under control.
Many had earlier thought this problem was solely for the Myanmar junta to worry, and this is what is proving wrong. China’s influence growing in Myanmar first of all means all of China’s opponents, which at this juncture of history are primarily the USA and its allies in Western world also beginning to focus their attention to this conflict theatre. There are already indications that America is using its own proxies to put hurdles before China’s expanding influence in Myanmar. As another well-known Indian public intellectual and former foreign service officer, MK Bhadrakumar, has written in an article in The Deccan Herald, the latest most advanced American small arms are reaching many anti-Junta rebel groups, and these may actually have begun seeping into India too, in particular Manipur.
Under the circumstance, there can be no reason why India would not feel concerned. Not only does it consider China its regional adversary, but a bitter geopolitical conflict arena shaping up in its neighbourhood in Myanmar surely be legitimate cause for it to worry. The recent move for border fencing and cancellation of FMR must be seen against this light.
Is India overreacting, considering this would likely have a profound effect on its Act East Policy, besides disrupting familial ties between transborder communities. These could very well be the case, and the debates in the Indian intelligentsia currently is precisely about this. We are not justifying the Central government’s moves, but only trying to understand the logic driving these new policy statements, and that these logics are most likely fired by larger geopolitical anxieties than local political pressures from its border states.
The concern is also of the fate of India’s Kaladan Multi-Modal Transit Transport Project. The worry is India’s new outlook to its eastern border, other than the trouble in Myanmar will severely affect this project. This probably is true, but on second consideration, perhaps the Kaladan project’s importance has been overrated, and India’s policy makers know this, therefore their low priority given to it. As also highlighted in the same article by Pulipaka, the project was conceived as an alternate route connecting mainland India with the Northeast, which today is connected only by a narrow land corridor often referred to as the Chicken’s Neck or the Siliguri Corridor, wedge between Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal and most importantly China. India’s strategic concern is, if in the event of any escalation in hostility, China ends up cutting off this land route, the Northeast region would become detached altogether from mainland India. The Kaladan project was meant as an answer to this anxiety.
Otherwise, it is a route hardly likely to be preferred by merchants and transporters. A brief sketch of the route will illustrate this clearly. Goods are to be loaded on to ships at Kolkata and then shipped to Sittwe in the Rakhine state in Myanmar at a distance of 539km. Here the goods would be offloaded and transferred to smaller barges which can sail along the Kaladan river for 158km to Paletwa town on the edge of Rakhine and Chin state. Here the goods would again be offloaded to be reloaded onto trucks, which will then drive 110km through the Chin state and then enter Mizoram at Zorinpui crossing. Here again the goods would be offloaded to be reloaded onto Indian transport vehicles, as it is unlikely vehicles from either country would be allowed to ply on both sides of the border. Not only would the permit system be complicated, but it must also be remembered the two countries have different road norms. While it is right-hand-drive in Myanmar, it is left-hand-drive in India. Breaches traffic laws and even accidents of vehicles of one country in the other country would expectedly complicate matters even more. From Zorinpui to Aizawl it is another 325km and from Aizawl to Silchar in Assam is another 172km.
Considering the arduous nature of this route, it is anybody’s guess that few would prefer this route if the China and India refrain from hostilities and the Siliguri corridor remains serviceable. Again, if India improves its ties with Bangladesh – which is already happening after India friendly Awami League headed by Sheikh Hasina came to power and consolidated its position – the importance of Kaladan project will deplete even further, for then numerous alternative land routes, including rail lines, connecting mainland India and the Northeast through Bangladesh would become possible.
Editor, Imphal Review of Arts and Politics and author
