Look East

India’s humanitarian gestures towards Myanmar can result in lasting friendship

Nandita Haksar

India shares a 1,643-kilometre-long international border with Myanmar. The demarcation of this border was made by the British colonial rulers in a totally arbitrary manner with the international border running through villages and homes of tribal communities living in the area. The absurdity of the border is illustrated in Longwa village of Nagaland where the home of the chief of the village has been divided across the border.

The Indo-Myanmar border disrupted the lives of the communities in Northeast India, particularly the Chin-Kuki-Zo and Nagas and has directly affected the people living along the border in the Indian states of Nagaland, Manipur and Mizoram, and to a lesser extent Arunachal Pradesh.

This is the area which has been politically most sensitive as it is largely ignored in public discourse and the media leading to their isolation and growing alienation. This is true for both sides of the border where there have been insurgencies and rebellions, many of them challenging the agreements which led the integration of their communities into Myanmar and India.

Some of these grievances were addressed by India’s Look East Policy which was later called the Act East policy and the consequent Free Movement Regime (FMR) established in 2018 allowing cross-border movement up to 16 km without a visa. For people living at the border there was a one-year border pass. The FMR also facilitates local border trade, and for the Burmese there was access to education and health facilities. This meant that the life on the border was being normalised and there was hope that the region would finally have peace and progress.

However, in February 2021 the Myanmar military junta declared a coup, banned independent media and put the members of the opposition party, the National League for Democracy (NLD) into prison. The leader of the opposition, 80-year-old Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, is languishing in a jail in Nay Pyi Taw.

The people of Myanmar stood up in every corner of their country to resist the brutal army rule, leading to the uprising called the Spring Revolution. This time the armed groups of the ethnic minorities such as the Chin, Kachin and Wa too joined forces with the majority community, the Burmans, liberated almost 50 per cent of the country.

This civil war has been described as one of the most violent conflicts in contemporary times and has led to the displacement of at least 3.5 million people. Added to this death and devastation was the 7.7 earthquake earlier this year which led to deepening the humanitarian crisis.

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