Indo-Myanmar relations and Northeast India: Peace, Security and Development
- Part 1 -

Subir Bhaumik *

*** A lecture delivered by Subir Bhaumik on the occasion of MOSAIC festival in Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, Dated January 22, 2016

Long consigned to the periphery of Indian geo-political imagination and viewed as a security liability for the Indian republic, the country's Northeast is now seen as the overland bridge to connect the Indian mainland with South-east Asia and possibly China. The present government seems to have upgraded this engagement from 'Look East' to 'Act East'. Its policy framework accounts for both security (linking up to South-east Asian countries worried over China's assertiveness) and economics (going for BCIM and K2K). But India's Northeast can only link up to South-east Asia by land through Myanmar. Which is why Myanmar, itself a battleground for influence between China, India, Japan, ASEAN and the West, holds the key to the success of India's "Act East' thrust.

Myanmar is in transition after the November parliament elections led to a NLD landslide and the military promised a peaceful transfer of power. But restoration of democracy remains a far cry because the military retains its grip on the national power structure -- three crucial ministries of Border Affairs, Defence and Home will remain with military and one-fourth of all members in both houses of the Myanmar parliament will be men in uniform. That almost surely cuts out the possibility of major amendments to the 2008 Constitution, which was meant to provide the military a way to hang on to power regardless of the electoral mandate.

I intend to provide a brief overview of India -Myanmar relations, touch on the various issues that influence it , look at how the Northeast figures -- and will figure -- in India's Myanmar policy and how developments in both the Northeast and Myanmar's border regions will impact on the country's ACT EAST policy . It will also look at the 'China factor' in India-Myanmar relations and how that will play out in years to come. A close focus on the trans-border insurgencies in Northeast and Upper Myanmar and Delhi will also help address the issues of peace and security while a look at the trans-regional processes like BCIM and K2K will help address issues of connectivity.

INDIA'S Myanmar policy in the post-colonial era has always been influenced by the 'China factor'. Addressing the Burma Council of World Affairs on 20 July 1950, Burmese scholar-diplomat U Tun Nyoe said: 'India's special interests in Burma cannot be denied owing to her geographical proximity. Her own security requires that no foreign power has a permanent interest in Burma.' In fact, way back in 1945, Jawaharlal Nehru had even talked of a 'South Asian Federation' that would include Afghanistan, Burma and Iran along with India (at that time undivided).

Immediately after independence, when Communist insurgency threatened to bring down Myanmar's federal government, India promptly extended military and financial help even before Myanmar had asked for it. Myanmar Prime Minister U Nu said: 'Why India gave us help is her concern, not ours. India was herself concerned with growing Communist guerrilla activity at home and a Chinese backed Communist insurrection spreading out of Burma to engulf the whole of India's Northeast was one of the worst case scenarios tormenting Indian intelligence in the early 1950s. Speaking at the UN General Assembly on 17 April 1953, V.K. Krishna Menon said: 'What hurt Burma would hurt India because of links of friendship, geography and history between the two countries.'

After the 1962 military coup in Burma, India-Burma relations deteriorated. India backed the cause of democracy in Burma and protested strongly against the heavy-handed treatment meted out to Indian settlers during New Win's nationalisation drive. But the fear of China and its support for the Burmese Communists drove General Ne Win back in to Indian arms. In 1968, the Burmese Communists unleashed a fierce offensive in the border regions to expand their liberated areas. By then the Naga and Mizo rebels had started using Burmese territory, both for locating bases and for reaching China for training.

While Ne Win needed Indian support to fight the China-backed Communists and other ethnic rebels, India need Burmese support to block the North Burma corridor used by its own rebels to access Chinese training and weapons. On 29 March 1969, at a banquet hosted by Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in Delhi Ne Win remarked: 'Though we (India and Burma) may not agree on every single point, we have similar responses to many problems, specially on some international issues [read China].'

The 'rebel factor' has emerged as one of the most significant issues in India-Burma relations. Between 1966 (when the first 'Naga Army' batch reached China for training through Burmese territory) to 1980 (when Beijing stopped arming and training the Northeast Indian rebels), China had trained several batches of Naga and Mizo rebels and a few dozen Manipuri rebel leaders led by Nameirakpam Bisheswar Singh. It provided sanctuary, weapons and training to an entire generation of Burmese Communist insurgents. But China stopped supporting the rebels of Northeast India and Burma in the early 1980s, ending the 'export of revolution' phase of Chinese foreign policy.

In the early 1950s, the Naga National Council (NNC) in India's Naga Hills came into contact with the Eastern Naga Regional Council (ENRC) that was active in Burma's Sagaing region which has some Naga-inhabited areas. The ENRC joined the NNC in propounding the concept of a 'Greater Naga Nation' in which Nagas of India and Burma would live together. The ENRC provided the NNC the first links to the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) and helped the Naga Army fighters reach China. As the Indian Army tightened its grip in the Naga Hills and East Pakistan was lost as a safe base area in 1971, the NNC turned to Burma's Sagaing region to set up some major bases.

When the NNC disintegrated after the 1975 Shillong Accord, its breakaway faction, the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN) shifted its main headquarters to the remote Tepak Mountains in Sagaing division. With S.S. Khaplang as their vice-president, the NSCN was firmly entrenched amongst the Hemi Nagas of western Burma. During a visit to the NSCN base area in 1987, this writer found that the Manipuri rebels as well as the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) had also set up bases around the NSCN headquarters. In 1985-86, these rebels faced two Burmese military offensives but managed to beat them back because the troops found logistics a nightmare in the inhospitable terrain of the Sagaing Mountains.

The MNF maintained a large number of bases in Burma's Chin Hills, further south of Sagaing, though their main headquarters were located in Bangladesh's Chittagong Hill Tracts. These bases were dismantled when the MNF signed an accord with the Indian government in 1986. But over the years, the Northeast Indian rebel presence in Burma has increased. Now, the NSCN (Khaplang faction), the ULFA and the Manipuri rebel groups maintain at least 27 camps in Burmese territory.

The NSCN's Muivah faction pulled out of Burma after the spat with Khaplang that led to the split in the NSCN in 1988. While Khaplang's fighters are based in the wild Tepak Mountains inside Sagaing division, the ULFA has few bases close to the Indian border. The Manipur Peoples Liberation Front (MPLF), a coalition of three leading Meitei rebel groups, has a number of bases around the town of Tamu and close to Molcham salient, while their main base area in Manipur's Sajit Tampak area is located right on the border with Burma.

These rebel bases in Burma serve three important purposes for the Northeast Indian insurgents: (a) They sheltered the rebel leadership after East Pakistan was lost as a safe base area. (b) They serve as a crucial link zone through which rebels could go to China for training and weapons. (c) They provide a safe training and regrouping zone where new recruits can be taught the art of guerrilla warfare and active guerrilla units can be shifted out to when under pressure in India.

To be continued...

* Subir Bhaumik is a veteran journalist and author on India's northeast. Both his books " Insurgent Crossfire: Northeast India" and "Troubled Periphery: Crisis of India's Northeast" have been well acclaimed. His next book " Agartala Doctrine: Proactive Northeast in Indian foreign policy" is being published by the Oxford University Press. Bhaumik is a former Queen Elizabeth House fellow of Oxford University, a Senior Fellow at East-West Centre (Washington) and an Eurasian fellow at Frankfurt University. He was BBC's bureau chief for East and Northeast India for 17 years and worked for Reuters, PTI and Ananda Bazar Group of Calcutta before that since 1980. Now he works as senior editor for the Dhaka-based bdnews24.com and doubles up as Consulting Editor for Myanmar's Mizzima Newsgroup. He writes Opinion pieces in leading Indian newspapers like Hindu, Telegraph, Times of India and Hindustan Times and also for Al Jazeera and BBC. He is also involved in full time research as Senior Fellow of the Calcutta-based Centre for Studies in International Relations & Development (CSIRD) and has written detailed policy papers for Observer Research Foundation, Calcutta Research Group and Singapore's ISAS