India-Myanmar Relations: Looking from the Border

The 21st century may or may not turn out to be the Asian Century. But Asia is likely to dominate the world economy thanks to a combination of economics and demographics. Developments of the past few years have shown that the Asian region has the potential to drive growth and development for a long time to come. At a time when the Western powers have suffered relative decline, new nations from Asia have been claiming a space and role in tune with their political, financial and demographic prowess. Both China and India have asserted their new role through policy pronouncements and active participation in the regional affairs like never before.

 Asia is criss-crossed with a large number of regional trade blocks and the constantly growing inter-regional and intra-regional dynamics have created a new momentum for dramatic change in the region. South East Asia, in particular, is witnessing economic and strategic re-alignments along new trajectories, providing greater opportunities to India for doing business, exerting its influence and promoting people to people engagements with its eastern neighbours.

The global power shifts towards Asia and the rise of India and China have prompted new synergies and mechanisms of co-operation among various regional groupings. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has unveiled his government’s strategy for re-orienting India’s ties with Myanmar and other South East Asian neighbours.

India’s “Act East Policy” is expected to not just bring greater engagements between India and Myanmar involving various state and non- state actors, but also usher in a new era of development for the Northeastern states of India through a network of pipelines, connectivity, communications and trade with South East Asia.

India’s growing engagement with South East Asia in general and Myanmar in particular has raised the stakes for the people of North-East India. The region has the potential to become India’s trade gateway to the ASEAN countries. The North East is expected to act as the strategic catalyst and a game changer. The Modi Government’s ‘Act East’ policy has formally recognized the strategic importance of the much-neglected North East. If this policy is implemented in right earnest, the North-East can exploit its potential as India’s strategic bridgehead and economic corridors to South East Asia. The signing of a peace agreement with the NSCN (IM) is expected to open a new horizon for the North Eastern States which have suffered from decades of neglect and indifference.

But there are key challenges as well. The joint projects and initiatives including the transportation and infrastructure projects require good understanding among the countries. Similarly, issues like border trade, drug trafficking and trans-border militancy require removal of restrictions of various kinds and streamlining border management. These are essentially policy challenges. These haven’t been sufficiently debated and discussed. Past experience suggests that many of the well-intentioned policies failed to yield the desired effect in the absence of sustained engagements with the North Eastern stakeholders. Even in the case of the Naga peace accord, serious reservations are being expressed in many quarters that the announcement has been made without taking the North Eastern governments and others.

Border trade, infrastructural development and a host of possibilities promise a bright future for the North East. However, connectivity projects will become connectivity corridors only when people-to-people engagements become vigorous and meaningful. People of Northeast India stand to benefit the most from the connectivity corridors and civil society engagements. This engagement will be of equal benefit to the people of Myanmar particularly those residing in the neighboring regions of India.  At a time when Myanmar is gradually consolidating its democracy and putting institutions in place, people in Myanmar look up to India for sharing its best practices.  

Proposed Programme

Exchange initiatives are potential drivers for opening up positive dialogue processes between India and Myanmar. As highlighted in the background section, India and Myanmar share concerns involving a number of closely related issues. It is imperative to create mechanisms and platforms to foster meaningful dialogue. The sharing of best practices in the field of governance, skill development and resource management is of immense use. An International Conference on India-Myanmar Border Dialogue will be organized on 28-29 September 2015 in Delhi at the Institute of Social Sciences.

India-Myanmar dialogue at the level of civil society is critically important for the success of India’s ‘Act East Policy’. Our visits to Myanmar and Manipur to explore areas of cooperation and to identify the stakeholders had an underlying message. There exist huge gaps between the government’s policy pronouncements and intent and the reality on the ground. Given the background of neglect and indifference, the various stakeholders have serious misgivings about any new initiative or policy.

As far as Prime Minister Modi’s ‘Act East Policy’ is concerned, it has no doubt created a sense of optimism. But in the absence of serious debates, there is little clarity in how and in which way the region will benefit. This is the overriding reason this project must begin with a serious discussion involving policy makers, academics, media and other stakeholders. What is needed is clarity and the roadmap of proposed change.

The project has to be taken to the region and to Myanmar at the second stage. But it has to be analysed threadbare in Delhi with the active participation of all the stakeholders. Some civil society and media representatives too will participate. Centres specializing in the North East too will participate. The main focus of this conference will be India’s Act East Policy and its implications for Northeast India and Myanmar, connectivity, trade and investment, role of media, education, sports, health, drugs etc.

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