Laukkai happens to be the capital of Myanmar’s restive Kokang region, an infamous hub of online scam operations and gambling dens which are run by the pro-military militia. A significant number of victims of cyber scam centres are common Chinese citizens. Besides this, the Chin National Front (CNF) has captured the town of Rihkhawdar, home to one of the two official border crossing points with India. Martial law has been declared in many towns of Shan, Chin, and Kachin States. Thousands of refugees from Myanmar, including security personnel, were reported to have fled to nearby Mizoram. The Government of Mizoram has been welcoming them since the beginning of the civil war in Myanmar in 2021, primarily on the grounds that the Mizos and the Chin-Kukis share common ethnic and cultural ties.

However, in a recent positive step to fence the Indo-Myanmar border, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs decided to scrap the Free Movement Regime (FMR) along the international border between India and Myanmar to ensure the country’s internal security and also to maintain the demographic structure of India’s North-Eastern states bordering Myanmar. Earlier, the Central Committee of the Young Mizo Association (YMA), the largest civil society organisation in Mizoram, had clearly said that it is opposed to any move to fence the Indo-Myanmar border and scrap the existing FMR along the international border by the Centre. Introduced in 1968, the FMR permitted people living on both sides of the international border to travel within 16 km into each other’s territory without a visa.

Within weeks of suspension of the FMR by the Central Government and the end of the visa-free border policy with Myanmar, the first batch of Myanmar nationals who entered India illegally while fleeing the military coup of 2021, were deported. Although no immediate details were made available on how many people have been deported, Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh clarified that all the necessary legal procedures were followed in deporting these people to their home country. India is not a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention. However, Manipur had given shelter and aid to those fleeing the crisis in Myanmar on humanitarian grounds with a systematic approach. Deportation of all those who entered India illegally from Myanmar is expected to continue in the days to come.

The FMR had been playing a crucial role in maintaining the historical-cultural bonds between the ethnic Mizo tribes living on either side of the border. Chief Minister Biren Singh had mentioned in September last year that he had urged the Ministry of Home Affairs to cancel the FMR along the India-Myanmar border and complete the process of its fencing. He also attributed the ongoing ethnic violence in the state to the FMR and said that fencing of the border is required as miscreants based in Myanmar were involved in the violence and as well as cross-border crime. Another important and positive development amidst all of these is that the ongoing internal feud in Myanmar is putting severe pressure on the insurgent outfits of North-East India taking shelter there, to either join the conflict or leave the country immediately.

The signing of the recent Peace Accord by Manipur’s UNLF, which had previously operated from bases inside Myanmar, can be understood in this context. India’s Myanmar policy assumes significant geopolitical and strategic importance, especially taking into account China’s eyes over Myanmar and its secret plans to convert it somehow into one of its satellite states. Myanmar is the only Southeast Asian country that shares a land border with North-East India. Hence, it is geopolitically important for India since it stands right at the centre of India’s South-East Asia geography. In fact, Myanmar is the only country that sits at the intersection of India’s “Neighbourhood First” Policy and as well as its “Act East” policy.

Without a doubt, therefore, Myanmar is the key player in the pursuance of India’s regional diplomacy in the Indo-Pacific region. India should therefore seriously engage with the ethnic armed organisations and other rebel groups in Chin State, Sagaing region, and Rakhine State since many of our important infrastructure, security and connectivity projects such as the Kaladan Multi-Modal Transit and Transport Project pass through them. The Military Junta is hugely unpopular in Myanmar even among the Bamars, the ruling majority ethnic group. So, if the armed resistance groups that control these regions are hostile towards India and do not have a working relationship with the Indian Government, it might then lead to serious repercussions in the long run. 

Also, it is common knowledge by now that the drug problem in the Northeast, especially Manipur, largely stems from Myanmar and neighbouring South-East Asia, encompassing the rainforest-covered mountains in Laos and Thailand. The properties of the soil in these areas range from silty to heavy and sandy clay to loam with a humid monsoon climate, characterised by periods of wet and dry and high rainfall seasons, all of which are extremely suitable for poppy cultivation. The poppy farming areas in the highlands of mainland South-East Asia (800m above the sea level, mostly in the Shan and Chin States of Myanmar, Laos, and Thailand) are reported to be the prime growing regions, without the requirements of irrigation, fertilisers, pesticides and insecticides.

The poppy cultivators of these regions mostly comprise people from the ethnic minorities residing in the highlands. In a vast majority of these areas, poppy is cultivated together with maize which helps to check the growth and spread of excessive weeds. The slash-and-burn method of cultivation is used extensively to clear the poppy fields after the harvesting season is over. The problem of immigration and militancy in Myanmar is intertwined with illegal opium cultivation and the drug trafficking business into India. Since 1948, the history of Myanmar’s opium-producing areas has been characterised by intermittent wars and violence. Insurgent groups were de facto in control of these remote, inaccessible hilly regions, maintaining a symbiotic relationship between drugs and militancy.

The proceeds of the drug business fuelled the insurgency, while the gun power of the insurgents protected the mighty drug empire, making it increasingly difficult to draw the fine line between insurgents and drug traffickers. Ethnic armies notably the United Wa State Army (UWSA), also referred to as the Myanmar National Solidarity Party (MNSP), created in 1989, after the collapse of the Communist Party of Burma, the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDA-Kokang Chinese), etc. have traditionally exercised control over the country’s drug producing areas. Since 1989, the Ceasefire Agreements negotiated between several of these groups and the Central Government, led to a temporary end of the insurgency in exchange for varying degrees of political autonomy and development assistance.

This considerably helped ease the situation in North-Eastern Myanmar, thereby facilitating the implementation of control measures in the opium-producing areas. The Progress of Border Areas and National Races Department established by the Government after the Ceasefire Agreements, was entrusted with the responsibility of economic and social development in the pacified areas. At first, however, the autonomy granted under these Agreements appeared to have stimulated production in the opium-growing areas. Eventually, however, the strategy adopted by the Government apparently began to bear fruit as the area under poppy cultivation registered a sharp reduction of 49% during 1996-1999. In 1999, the Government decided to completely eliminate poppy cultivation in the country within a period of 15 years.

The plan was scheduled to be implemented in the Shan State, the Kachin State, the Kayah State, and the Chin State through a succession of 5-year plans; but, continuous strife in the country between the Military Junta and the armed resistance forces has ensured that it remains almost a non-starter. As a part of the efforts to curb illicit opium cultivation, the Government of Myanmar and the Wa State authorities had also agreed to relocate large numbers of ethnic Wa, Akha, Lahu, and Chinese people from the hilly regions along the Sino-Myanmar border to flatten land in the Southernmost part of the Shan States, along the Thai border near Chiang Mai and Chang Rai. The process also saw a modest beginning. But it could not attain much success.

Myanmar’s financial constraints in the implementation of its socioeconomic development and drug elimination programmes resulted in the failure of a well-conceived strategy towards making the country drug-free. Although some limited bilateral assistance in the field of alternative development has been provided by China and Japan from time to time, this has not been enough. The United Nations International Drug Control Program (UNDCP) has also provided alternative development assistance to Myanmar, through a 5-year project in the Wa area, and as well as through two other smaller projects in the Northern Wa area (Nam Tit) and Kokang (Laukkai). With sanctions and criticisms of its human rights record since 1988, loans and grants to Myanmar from international financial institutions were frozen.

Bilateral and multilateral development assistance too, was also almost entirely stopped. Myanmar's joining the ASEAN in July 1997 did not have any significant economic impact. Moreover, the financial crisis in Asia could not create a climate conducive enough for foreign investment till at least the end of the 1990s. Pockets of prosperous trading activities, however, had begun developing since the early 2000s in the border areas of Myanmar, most notably along the border with China. The profits from drug smuggling (as well as from precious gems and timber) reinvested by some of the minority ethnic leaderships in infrastructure development also appeared to have become a significant complement to the limited financial allocations that the Central Government provided for the development of the Shan States.

It is difficult to say whether Myanmar’s dependence on drug production can be definitively broken without a quantitative jump in financial investments and qualitative infrastructural development. The sudden drop in Afghan opium production since 2001 severely impacted the global opiate markets by creating supply shortages and price surges. One of the main outlets for Afghanistan’s heroin outside of South-East Asia had been the European market, but, the history of drug control during the last 30-40 years provides evidence that opiate markets can rapidly shift from one source of illicit opiates to another. The vacuum created by the fall in the opium production levels of Afghanistan was quickly taken over by Myanmar, where traffickers found the potential to rapidly fill a part of the heroin supply gap.

This has resulted in higher levels of opium production in the Shan, Kachin, and Chin States of Myanmar over time, leading to additional obstacles on the road to achieving the objective of drug elimination from the country. The relations between India and Myanmar deteriorated after India openly supported Aung San Swu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD) and denounced the Military Junta, which had seized power in 1988. Myanmar’s Generals accused India of providing shelter to students from the country who had fled from there in the wake of an onslaught against supporters of the banned NLD. General Than Shwe even accused India of providing support to rebel groups like the Kachins and the Karens of Myanmar.

Hence, because of factors such as these, India-Myanmar relations were at their lowest during the late 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s. When Myanmar’s Military Junta refused to implement the election results of 1990 in which the NLD received an overwhelming majority, the entire international community including India, except China, denounced it. Myanmar holds immense geostrategic significance for India, especially with regard to the North-East with which it shares porous, international borders. It also shares a portion of its border with Bangladesh on the one hand and China on the other. The Northern borders of the country constitute the tri-junction of the Eastern frontiers of India, China, and Myanmar. Cooperation between India and Myanmar is extremely vital for fighting the drug menace in the North-East.

It was, therefore, only logical to mend our relations with Myanmar, which began under the leadership of former Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao. India’s then Foreign Secretary JN Dixit’s visit to Myanmar in early 1993 facilitated the process of improving the relations between both countries. Since then, the relations have improved considerably on various fronts, including smuggling and illegal trafficking of drugs. There are also several institutional arrangements in place for holding meetings between the civil and military officials of both countries. In 2004, the Myanmar Army carried out operations against the Khaplang group of the NSCN and destroyed its headquarters located in Myanmar’s territory. Since then, the armies of both countries began sharing intelligence on a regular basis.

However, after the coup that took place in Myanmar in February 2021, there was a sudden rise of insurgent activities in the northeast, particularly Manipur. The Military Junta has been battling a coalition of rebels of the Chin National Army (CNA) and civilian resistance fighters who formed what is known as the Chinland Defence Force (CDF). In September 2021, this anti-military coalition killed 12 Myanmar Government soldiers, which led to the escalation of violence in those areas along the border with India in the Northeast. The prevailing situation in Myanmar could also have forced the various insurgent groups of this region to shift bases and operate from mobile bases close to sensitive border states like Manipur and Mizoram.

There are several vulnerable portions of the India-Myanmar border in Manipur that have been facilitating the entry of insurgents and other anti-national elements into the state time and again. The non-existence of all-weather roads connecting the remote border villages of Manipur is a critical factor adversely impacting them on many fronts, especially in the area of education. In border villages like Behiang in Churachandpur district and its neighbouring areas, there are many cases of households having not returned after fleeing in order to avoid the crossfire between insurgents and the state security forces, and sometimes even among antagonistic insurgent groups. Many kutcha houses in these villages can be seen to be lying in dilapidated conditions mainly due to the absence of owners and non-maintenance.

From the national security perspective, it has now become all the more important to complete the process of fencing along this strategically located international border. Although the Assam Rifles have been deployed along the India-Myanmar border, what we need to accept is that it is humanly not possible for their personnel to guard every inch of the border because of the extremely inhospitable nature of the terrain. India shares more than 1,600 kilometres of international border with Myanmar, including around 400 kilometres in Manipur. Although it might not be possible to fence the entire border immediately, at least the vulnerable portions must be fenced for the time being. The situation is extremely critical, considering the hawkish eye of China looming large.

China is engaged with India in a competitive process of extending its influence in Myanmar through infrastructure development and capital investment. India is obviously conscious of its ties with Myanmar and there have even been joint military exercises between the two nations. But, Myanmar’s flip-flop in acting against the insurgents including smugglers and drug dealers is among the several reasons why insurgent activities still continue to thrive in the border regions of Manipur, Nagaland, and even Arunachal Pradesh. Could it be that Myanmar does not want to annoy China? The fact that Chinese entities, through outfits in Myanmar like the United Wa State Army, sell a huge quantity of weapons and ammunition to the insurgent outfits of the North-East.

Although over the past several years, ties between India and Myanmar have considerably improved and security irritants such as cross-border terrorism, narcotics trade and arms smuggling have figured most prominently in the official agenda of the two countries, but, given the nature of the deep-rooted cultural and economic interconnections, the need of the hour is for permanent and long-term solutions. In this regard, the Indian Government’s decision to erect a 1,643-km long border fence between India and Myanmar is laudable. Despite criticisms from various quarters, it would help arrest any spill-over effect of the conflict in Myanmar and prevent illegal trade of drugs, gold, betel nuts and timber, besides tackling Meitei, Naga, and Assam-based insurgents sheltered in Myanmar.  ­

References

1. United Nations Preliminary Joint Survey Team, 1992, Reprint, Report of the Preliminary Joint Survey Team on Opium Production and Consumption in the Union of Burma, Thai-Yunnan Project Newsletter, no. 18: 8-16. Canberra: Australian National University Research School of Pacific Studies; Originally published in 1964.
2. United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report 2000, New York, 2000.
3. US Department of State, Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, March 2001.

Image source: NatStrat