The Hindu Business Line : Myanmar — Gateway to S-E Asia

Rather than joining a Western chorus of condemnation of Myanmar, India would do well to cooperate with Asian powers to encourage Yangon to move towards a more representative government. With New Delhi engaging Yangon economically and diplomatically, relations have vastly improved. Myanmar may have much to offer India, especially the North-East States, says G. PARTHASARATHY.

India's determination to follow an independent policy on issues of its national security was clearly manifest during the President, Mr A. P. J. Abdul Kalam's state visit to Myanmar within a week of the US President, Mr George Bush coming to India. While the US and India now have an unprecedented measure of understanding on developing a stable balance of power in Asia, their approaches to relations with Myanmar have been radically different.

While the US has sought to isolate and condemn the military rulers of Myanmar and used sanctions on exports from that country as part of its coercive diplomacy (that has failed over the past 18 years), India has joined hands with South-East Asian countries to seek to quietly persuade Myanmar's rulers to progressively move towards more representative government.

The Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, told the Myanmar President, Gen Than Shwe, in 2004 that he acknowledged that while the "transition to democracy was complex" it nevertheless "offered the best possibilities of addressing problems both of political stability as well as economic development." Mr Kalam's approach, while in Myanmar, was similarly nuanced.

STRATEGIC CONVERGENCE

In a scholarly analysis in his book on India and South East Asia, one of our foremost experts on the region, Mr Sudhir Devare, a former Secretary in the External Affairs Ministry, has devoted an entire chapter, "Myanmar: A Challenging Frontier," to the crucial role of Myanmar in India's quest for "strategic convergence" with its South-East Asian partners.

Myanmar shares a 1600-km border with four of our insurgency-prone North-East States — Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur and Mizoram. Mr Devare describes how, as a result of astute Indian diplomacy, the Myanmar army has cooperated with India to fight Indian insurgent groups such as the ULFA, the NSCN (K) and the PLA in 1995, 2000, 2001 and 2004.

Attempting to isolate Myanmar had disastrous consequences for internal security in the North-East States between 1988 and 1993. Narcotics smuggling and cross-border insurgencies increased rapidly. Moreover, China moved into the vacuum created by external ostracism and established strong economic and military ties with Myanmar. Things changed for the better after New Delhi undertook a process of extensive economic, diplomatic and regional engagement with Myanmar. India has provided assistance to Myanmar in such areas as telecommunications, Information Technology, higher education and in setting up a Remote Sensing and Data Processing Centre.

ENGAGING MYANMAR

India has emerged as Myanmar's largest export market primarily because Myanmar has the potential to meet India's ever growing requirements for pulses and beans. But the border trade that Myanmar has with India lags far behind its border trade with China, primarily because of the restrictions we have imposed on such trade. The bureaucracy in Udyog Bhavan and North Block that has no understanding of the ground realities at the borders would do well to visit China and study its border trade practices.

More imaginative border trade practices can lead to the requirements of the North-East States for agricultural products such as rice being met by imports from Myanmar.

With Myanmar becoming a member of ASEAN (Association of South-East Asian Nations), New Delhi's earlier fears of the country becoming a satellite of China have eased. Myanmar is, in fact, set to become the "land bridge" linking India with the economically dynamic economies of its ASEAN partners. India has shown interest in developing transport corridors through Myanmar to Thailand, in a move that will give Indian exports and tourists access by land to South-East Asia and help in the economic development of the North-East States.

After constructing a road linking the township of Tamu on the Manipur border to the railhead in Kalemyo, India is now discussing the prospects of linking this road network through the ancient Myanmar Kingdom of Pagan to Mae Sot in Thailand. India has extended credit to modernise the Myanmar Railways and supplied rails and rolling stock apart from assisting in upgrading the Yangon-Mandalay section. What is being envisaged is a trans-Asian rail network that would link Hanoi with New Delhi.

ROAD-WATER HIGHWAY

More important, with Bangladesh determined to deny transit facilities for the North-East States the construction of an inter-nodal road-water highway through Myanmar to the Bay of Bengal is under consideration. This project will provide Mizoram and the North-East States access to the sea, bypassing Bangladesh.

New Delhi's efforts to make Myanmar a key hub for its "Look East" policies has been strengthened with the formation of the BIMSTEC Grouping bringing together littoral and hinterland states of the Bay of Bengal to promote regional cooperation in trade, transportation, communications, counter-terrorism and energy. The BIMSTEC Grouping brings together Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, Bhutan and Nepal, from SAARC, and Myanmar and Thailand, from ASEAN, in a common endeavour to establish a free trade area by 2016. This strategy of expanding bilateral and regional cooperation has ensured that while Myanmar continues to maintain close relations with China, it is not exclusively dependant on Beijing. What is being thus being sought through such diplomacy is the establishment of a viable balance of power in South-East Asia.

Over the past two years, the Petroleum Ministry had been working on an impracticable proposal of building a pipeline through Bangladesh to transport gas to India from an offshore project off the Rakhine Coast of Myanmar, in which both ONGC and GAIL have equity stakes. This proposal was manifestly ill-conceived as Myanmar has deep misgivings of Bangladesh soil being used to promote Muslim separatism in its Rakhine Province.

Further, Bangladesh was placing impossible demands on India on extraneous issues such as trade concessions as a precondition for participating in the project. With India dithering on how it would transport the much-needed natural gas, Myanmar entered into an agreement that would enable it to supply this gas for which Indian companies had invested money, to China.

GAS FROM MYANMAR

Mr Kalam's visit has resulted in a Myanmar now expressing its readiness to consider alternative Indian proposals for transportation and utilisation of the offshore gas to India. The new Petroleum Minister, Mr Murli Deora, would be well advised to move expeditiously in transporting this gas to Tripura through a Myanmar-India corridor that bypasses Bangladesh.

With the North-East States experiencing power shortages, New Delhi would also do well to expeditiously implement the proposal for the Tamanthi hydro-electric project on the Chindwin river in Myanmar, barely 40 km from the Nagaland border, that can provide 1200 MW for Nagaland and Manipur.

It would be pertinent to remember that no military government, whether in Pakistan, Indonesia or Myanmar, relinquishes power suddenly. The SPDC Government in Myanmar has constituted a "National Convention" to draft a new constitution for the country.

Rather than joining a Western chorus of condemnation of Myanmar, India would be well advised, as Mr Sudhir Devare suggests, to cooperate with Asian powers such as China, Japan, South Korea and members of ASEAN, to encourage moves towards more a representative government in Myanmar.

(The author is a former High Commissioner to Pakistan.)

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