New Delhi: On the sidelines of the Mekong Ganga Cooperation (MGC) meeting in Bangkok Sunday, Union Minister of External Affairs S. Jaishankar spoke to his Myanmar counterpart, U. Than Swe, about the importance of expediting infrastructure and connectivity projects, such as the India-Myanmar-Thailand Trilateral Highway (IMT Highway).
The 1,400-kilometre IMT Highway falls in the BIMSTEC (Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation) region and is meant to link Moreh in Manipur with Mae Sot in Thailand.
The other initiative that needs to be expedited is the Kaladan Multimodal Transit Transport Project (KMTTP) that starts from West Bengal and charts an over 500-km course through the Bay of Bengal to Myanmar’s Sittwe Port.
The Rs 3,200-crore worth KMTTP, that was first approved in 2008 to boost trade and commerce between India and Myanmar, has faced inordinate delays and missed several deadlines, the latest being in 2021.
ThePrint had reported in April this year that infrastructure projects linking Myanmar are mainly stuck over delays in issuance of licences because of the political turmoil in the country as well as the security situation in its Rakhine and Chin states.
Both projects are part of India’s ‘Act East Policy’ that was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2014 as a successor to the older ‘Look East Policy’ that was originally conceived in 1991 as an economic initiative.
Communicating with ThePrint Tuesday about the state of affairs in Myanmar, Gautam Mukhopadhaya, former Indian ambassador to the nation, stated that the political and security situation in Myanmar is radically different from when India embarked on the IMT Highway project (in 2002) or the KMTTP.
“The (connectivity) projects were conceived when the military regime was in power in Myanmar, before the transition to democracy more than a decade ago. However, despite some scepticism (about the projects under the military regime, especially the KMTTP), they had general acceptability and support under the elected USDP (Union Solidarity and Development Party) and NLD (National League for Democracy) governments. Now, the country is facing a completely different order of security challenges,” Mukhopadhaya stated over email.
In 2010, decades-old military rule in Myanmar was replaced by a military-backed civilian government when the USDP claimed victory in the first elections in 20 years.
In February 2021, however, the Tatmadaw (Myanmar military) seized full control of the country again in a coup and arrested democratically elected civilian leaders from the NLD that was then in power.
The NLD had, in November 2020, won 396 of 476 seats in the Pyidaungsu Hluttaw, Myanmar’s bicameral legislature. Three months later, the NLD’s leaders were under arrest and the Tatmadaw returned to power in the nation.
Since then, a civil war is ongoing in the country between different ethnic armed organisations (EAOs), the democratic government in exile (National Unity Government) and the Tatmadaw.
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Act East Policy
According to a statement given by the Union ministry of external affairs in Parliament in December 2015, India’s ‘Act East Policy’ focuses on the “extended neighbourhood” in the Asia-Pacific region. Taking forward the erstwhile ‘Look East Policy’, the new initiative has expanded to include political, strategic and cultural engagements with the nations.
The statement mentioned India’s strategic partnerships with Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Japan, Republic of Korea (ROK), Australia, Singapore and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). The ASEAN is an inter-governmental organisation founded in 1967 and consists of 10 member states — Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Myanmar, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
ASEAN in 1993 set up the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), of which India is a member. The ARF consists of 27 states, including the 10 ASEAN nations, 10 Dialogue Partners including India, Australia, Canada, China and the European Union, and seven other countries including Bangladesh, Mongolia and Pakistan.
Apart from the ARF, India is also part of the East Asia Summit (EAS), an 18-member regional leaders-led forum. Founded in 2005, the EAS consists of the 10 ASEAN member states, along with India, China, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Russia, ROK and the US.
India has also actively engaged in this region through BIMSTEC and the Asia Cooperation Dialogue, an intergovernmental organisation established to promote cooperation in the Asian continent.
India is further a member of the Mekong Ganga Cooperation initiative and the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA), an international organisation consisting of 23 member countries bordering the Indian Ocean.
The Act East Policy has laid emphasis on India-ASEAN partnership and cooperation in India’s domestic agenda on infrastructure, manufacturing, trade, skills, urban renewal, Make in India, etc, according to the government statement.
Writing about India’s “eastward drive” in an article for Observer Research Foundation (ORF) in February 2020, the late K.V. Kesavan stated: “In the post-Cold War period, there was a strong rationale for India to cultivate closer relations with the countries of the region for mutual benefit.”
The article highlighted how India realised the economic potential of the ASEAN region and East Asia, and launched the ‘Look East Policy’ in 1991.
In an email to ThePrint Tuesday, Sampa Kundu, consultant at the ASEAN-India Centre at the Research and Information System for Developing Countries, pointed out that ASEAN chairman Joko Widodo had appreciated India’s Act East Policy and connectivity projects at the ASEAN Post-Ministerial Conference with India that was held in Jakarta earlier this month.
“The connectivity projects are in sync with ASEAN’s ‘Connecting Connectivities’ initiative. There are synergies between the master plan on ASEAN connectivity and the Act East Policy of India. Together, the projects will usher in a new phase in the ASEAN-India partnership,” Kundu wrote.
The Myanmar challenge
Kundu talked about the challenges that persist in India’s eastward connectivity projects.
“First, the internal situation of Myanmar has been critical, complex, and tense. One has to balance between the monks, the military, the Bamars (native ethnic group), and the ethnic minorities to implement a project inside Myanmar,” she stated.
Kundu further explained that “India mostly follows the pro-engagement and no-sanction policy with the (military-led) government of Myanmar — which has sometimes garnered criticism from the democratic leaders of the nation”.
“However, India is not in favour of bombarding democracy in other countries,” she added.
Kundu also pointed out that India has maintained informal relations with the National Unity Government and others in Myanmar that support the restoration of democracy.
“India supports ASEAN’s Five-Point Consensus on Myanmar, and is aware that undemocratic rule within Myanmar will have some ripple effect on its neighbourhood, including (India’s) North-East,” she stated.
According to media reports, in September 2021, the National Unity Government declared a “defensive war” against the Tatmadaw, which further led to various ethnic armed organisations (EAOs) across Myanmar to also fight the Tatmadaw.
Burma News International reported in April last year that the “Tatmadaw has sought support from Indian EAOs from the North-East, including the Zomi Revolutionary Army”.
Kundu told ThePrint that “unfortunately, according to reports, forces like the Zomi Revolutionary Army have been using (India’s) north-eastern territory for their illegal activities”.
She further pointed out that “armed groups in Myanmar’s Chin state and the Arakan Army (ethnic armed organisation in Rakhine state) play an instrumental role in giving the informal green light to some of the infrastructure projects because of their strong hold in the project areas”.
‘Three ways to complete projects’
According to Mukhopadhaya, there are three ways projects can be completed in a conflict scenario.
“Leave it to the Myanmar military to provide security for the project and execute it under their cover, or provide additional security with the consent of the government as we did in Afghanistan earlier (and invite the ire of the resistance forces),” he told ThePrint in his written communication.
“The second is to negotiate with both the contesting forces if necessary, informally,” he stated. “And lastly to work with militant groups or ethnic armed or resistance organisations. In my view, none of these will be easy under the current circumstances. But I do not have information from the ground to know how they (projects) are being implemented”.
While Jaishankar has raised the importance of expediting connectivity projects with his Myanmarese counterpart, China has reportedly been able to work with three EAOs in Myanmar — Arakan Army, Kokang Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army and Ta’ang National Liberation Army — which in July “vowed to protect” international investments in their regions, said to house several China-led initiatives.
China’s investment projects in the nation includes the Myanmar-China oil and gas pipeline.
“Public opinion has always been suspicious of the Chinese because of their perceived support for the military regime. But China has also always had ties with the militant groups or EAOs. Many of them cannot ignore the Chinese as they are landlocked and share borders with China. They may reach agreements with the Chinese under duress or in response to incentives by the Chinese government. The Chinese have worked with both such groups and the regime in Myanmar to protect their investments,” Mukhopadhaya told ThePrint.
On whether peace can be restored in Myanmar, Kundu said that any peace plan cannot be implemented by one country alone but has to be a collective consent-based action by all of Myanmar’s neighbours, including India, China, ASEAN, Japan, ROK and Bangladesh.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)