Manipur is caught between Act East and BRI

Kongbrailatpam Rajeshwar Sharma *

Geographically, Manipur, sandwiched between India and Myanmar, lies at the tapering end of the Eastern Himalayan range that stretches up to the Andaman Nicobar islands. It has been serving as a land corridor between the Brahmaputra valley in the west and the Irrawaddy valley in the east since 200 BC.

This land corridor happened to be one of the ancient Silk routes. It is said that Chinese silk traders and others from the Far East used to pass through Manipur on their way to Afghanistan. In his book History of Burma, GE Harvey referred to this line, “Two (routes) were along the Irrawady and Salween rivers; the third, down the Chindwin river and through Manipur, took the caravans a three months’ journey to Afghanistan where the silks of China were exchanged for the gold of Europe”.

Manipur had been one of the important places along the ancient Silk Roads. It is still as important as it used to be in the second century BC. The ancient Silk Road that passed through Manipur rises like Phoenix in its new avatar–India-Myanmar-Thailand Trilateral Highway or IMT Highway, to reclaim its ancient position and importance.

The Act East Policy of the BJP Government has further emphasized the need to speed up the progress of the infrastructural projects in the North East so that the people, particularly the North East people, can have access to the Southeast Asian markets for their products.

However these infrastructural projects have negative impacts on Manipur. As highways in Manipur are like hens that lay the golden eggs, the seventeen-month old violence in Manipur is as much about the scramble for controlling the Trilateral Highway that passes through the State as it is about the illegal immigrants that have been coming from across the border in Myanmar and the westward extension of the Golden Triangle.

In 1991, with the announcement of the Look East Policy by the then Prime Minister, PV Narasimha Rao , there was a shift in India’s foreign policy “which has been at the front and centre of challenging China’s global designs.”

Primarily Look East Policy of India was to “forge new bonds with South East Asia” as India cannot afford to be surrounded by hostile or unfriendly neighbors. However, without peace and infrastructural development such as roads, highways and railways in Manipur and other North Eastern States, it was realized that India cannot reach out to the Southeast Asian countries.

In 2014, when Narendra Modi became the Prime Minister, connectivity in the North East was as poor as it was in 1991 even though there has been a major policy change in India’s Southeast Asia vision. In order to “signal determination to deliver on infrastructural projects in India’s near east”, the phrase ‘Look East’ was renamed as ‘Act East’ in 2014 by the Prime Minister.

Moreover the plan to Act East strategically was necessitated to counterbalance China’s BRI and the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor. BRI or Belt and Road Initiative of China, which is often referred to as New Silk Road, was announced on 7th September 2013 by the Chinese President, Xi Jinping at Astana University, Kazakhstan, while he was delivering a speech to the students.

It is a collection of huge investment and development initiatives that would bring about infrastructural development such as roads, railways and ports, ostensibly to connect East Asia with Europe, Latin America, Africa and South East Asia. But to the United States, “BRI could be a Trojan Horse for China-led regional development and military expansion.”

It is an ambitious global infrastructure project that China has ever taken up. BRI, initially known as “One Belt, One Road”, includes a network of highways, railways, gas-pipelines and “streamlined border-crossings.”

China-Myanmar-Economic Corridor or CMEC is a part of the Belt and Road Initiative of China to connect Yunnan province with Rakhine State of Myanmar. It comprises various sectors such as infrastructural development, manufacturing and agriculture.

A Memorandum of Understanding was signed on 9th September 2018 between China and Myanmar to formalize CMEC. With the signing of the fifteen-point MoU, the economic cooperation between the two countries was further consolidated but it brought much chagrin to India.

The Sino-Myanmar Oil and Gas Pipelines Project is further enhanced with the inclusion of projects that would construct a deep-sea port at Kyaukphyu on Myanmar’s western coast, and a transport corridor connecting Kunming and Kyaukphyu.

CMEC’s transport projects also include a high-speed railway line that would connect Myanmar’s second largest city, Mandalay with Kunming in landlocked Yunnan province of China. In its second phase of the transport project, the highspeed railway line would further extend to Kyaukphyu.

To counterbalance CMEC projects in Myanmar, India had to take up several measures to keep Myanmar friendly towards India. Among them, Free Movement Regime or FMR was a significant measure to increase the volume of trade between the two countries along the 16-kilomtre long Indo-Myanmar border particularly at Moreh in Manipur.

FMR also allowed the people from both sides of the border to move freely across the border without visa. Here lies the catch. As a result of FMR, the volume of the incessant influx of people into Manipur, particularly from the Chin State of Myanmar, increased.

Subsequently it has created a sea-change in the demographic landscape of Manipur. They have been crossing over to Manipur without being monitored or registered. What is disturbing is that majority of them are alleged to have sneaked into the “Electoral rolls”. The bloody unrest in Myanmar after the military coup in February 2021 has turned the situation from bad to worse.

Even though the Free Movement Regime was withdrawn, it is still unclear whether the illegal immigrants or “refugees”, who have melded into Manipur, are identified for deportation. The big question is “Who will bell the cat?” The Government seems to have lost its vision in the cacophony of political noises.

Like empty shells that lie across the beaches, laws are lying on the shelves of the Government without being applied. No Minister seems to have realized that the laws are the sources of their power to bring about good governance and peace.

As for instance, Foreigners Act 1946 gives the power to the Central Government to make provision to prohibit or restrict the entry of foreigners (Illegal immigrants) into India. If the Central Government has the political will to end the seventeen-month old violence in Manipur, there are adequate provisions of laws that empower both the Central Government and the State Government to apply the full forces of laws to those who violate them.