Marking a historic visit to Myanmar, the first by an Indian Prime Minister in 25 years, Manmohan Singh held extensive talks with Myanmar President Thein Sein, drawing up a roadmap for future course of bilateral ties. After their talks, the two countries signed a series of agreements to boost energy supplies from resource-rich Myanmar to energy-hungry India, enhance trade and cross-border rail, shipping and road links that go beyond bilateralism to cover Thailand. It is somewhat surprising that the two close door neighbor living side by side, has seen so less of interaction over the last 50 to 60 years despite a shared history and certainly the prospect of a shared future. It’s never too late though and perhaps the Government of India must now pursue its highly talked about Look East Policy with more vigor and should we say urgency. In this regard, the visit of PM Manmohan Singh and the forward looking agenda inked with the political establishment in Myanmar is indeed a welcome move. Given that the world is converging to the once pariah State—the potential of Myanmar as a resource rich country—India if it is able to take the right steps on time, it should perhaps benefit much more as it has the advantage of sharing several miles of land boundary with Myanmar. With the opening of Myanmar to the outside world and growing interest of global powers including China to get a foothold there, India’s policy towards the Border States of Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur and Mizoram should also change i.e. beyond the security paradigm. Special emphasis must be given to these four States in the context of bilateral relation with Myanmar. It also makes sense for New Delhi to pursue not just development of the northeast region but also the resolution of some of the pending political problem including on the Naga issue. In fact the geo political space occupied by the northeast States especially in the context of its Look East Policy makes it even more necessary for India to gain the confidence of people in the region and to do that, their aspiration and grievances must be addressed.
As for the concern States including Nagaland, the challenge would be to be better prepared so that it can benefit from India’s Look East Policy and the new development taking place in Myanmar. One of the obvious things to do is to work out a political settlement with the Government of India at the earliest. The ceasefire and political talks is now more than fifteen years. The time to take a decision has come for the Nagas but our house seems still not in order. As far as the Nagas in Myanmar goes, the recent ceasefire and hopefully political dialogue will bring a settlement so that Naga people on both side of the international can benefit from the positive changes taking place around us. As far as development goes, there is huge potential to harness the opportunities that will come along. For instance, connectivity through Myanmar is going to be crucial for India’s Look East Policy and ties with the Southeast Asian countries. In such a scenario, Nagaland will be a vital bridge to crossover to Myanmar. We may need to invest in better and bigger roads to carry the load of trade and commerce. Our mindset, work culture, government system, law and order, infrastructure and everything else must improve if we want to be a good partner for others. All of us are aware that the four lane project for the existing stretch of National Highway 29 could not materialize because of ‘land owner problem’. Nagas perhaps do not have the foresight or concern for the common good. Now if everything goes on as planned (as an outcome of the PM’s visit to Myanmar), there is already the talk that driving to Thailand from India could be a reality by 2016. Obviously we are talking about a Trans Asian super highway and Nagaland ought to be a part of this. However the question is whether we are prepared to sacrifice our self interest for the common good—here bringing development and perhaps the world to our doorstep.
