Indian Economic Compulsions and The NE

Amar Yumnam *

India's recent heightened interest in Myanmar betrays a new perspective of looking towards her North Eastern Region and the countries in the East and the South East Asia. To this extent, it also demands a new appreciation of the issues confronting the region from the regional governments.

For more than a decade we have been pointing out that the government of India is committing a major blunder by looking at the issues of the region only from the perspective of the so-called national security. This has been followed at the cost of understanding the development needs of the region.

Further, there was no perceptible effort on the part of the "mainstream" to accept the existence of a North Eastern part of the country. This has only served to aggravate the identity issues and further alienate the regional population. The resultant effort to resolve all the issues arisen through only militaristic interventions only confounded the confusion.

Now there now appear signs of looking at the issues of the region through the economic eye as well, but very haltingly at that. We say haltingly because the security component of the new economic eye is very salient. It is this security component of which we feel very uncertain about.

As we all know, because of the very geo-political location of the region, it has witnessed flows of culture and people across the millennia. The remnants of these dynamics are still very strong. All across the international boundaries of the region, we still see inter-marriages and regular sharing of resources, events and rituals.

In this context, efforts have now been put in place to erect fencing across the international boundaries. The professed rationale for doing so is to serve the national security interests by controlling the free flow of people, particularly the insurgents.

We are not very sure at this juncture about the cultural impact this might have on the people living in the boundary villages as millennia – old relationships are going to be put to stop at one go; insurgency is only a recent phenomenon consequent upon the failure of government policies. The likely response to this of the people themselves is still uncertain.

Maybe they feel that the fence could be broken any time and would be broken as and when desired. The absolute lack of reach of the governance of the state in these areas has been such that the people feel that any intervention, including boundary fencing would be ineffective. In addition to these uncertainties, we also have another question.

There do not seem signs of strengthening the foundations and linkages with the national villages within while the across-the-boundary relationships are being stopped. If alternative linkages are not put in place in lieu of the relationships being stopped, the economic and the cultural consequences would be disastrous. Remember if it happens at all, it would be happening in areas already suffering from lack of advancement and opportunities for it.

Further, across the boundary the government of India is seriously attempting to strengthen the economic ties with Myanmar. The compulsions facing India to increasingly look towards the South East Asian countries for economic relationships has been known for quite some time.

For some time, the country thought this could be possible even by bypassing the region and regional interests, and possibly through the national ports in the country. The lack of feasibility of this and lack of economic rationale of such an approach have now been dawned on the national policy makers.

The policy makers have also realized the futility of depending on the perspective and involvement of the security forces only to address the development issues of the region and to strengthen the economic ties with the neighbouring countries in the East and the South East Asia.

It is now looking for early opportunities to do away with the security forces while addressing the economic interest of the country. It must be because of this that we observe a sense of urgency among the security forces while interacting with the Myanmarese authorities for coordination of short run attempts to permanently do away with the insurgents.

In all these, what we observe is the rise to pre-eminence of economic rationale over others in the national policy making process, even if it relates to the region. The onus is now on the regional governments to digest the implications of the new orientation in national policy-logic.

They now need to apply their best minds to mitigate the negative cultural implications of the border-fencing and generate positive economic outcomes. The strengthened economic ties would necessitate the establishment and location specific activity points in the region so that the positive fall-outs are maximised for the region.