As an earnest gesture of its intent to improve linkages between India’s North-East and Southeast Asia, India organized an India — ASEAN car rally in 2004, which started in Guwahati and ended in Indonesia’s Batam Island off Singapore after crossing Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia and Singapore. The event was greeted with much enthusiasm in all of India’s north-eastern states, with mini rallies held in all the seven sisters to great public acclaim. Though the initiative sparked hopes of ending the North-East’s isolation from the rest of India and their immediate neighbours to the east, it was not followed up with concrete policies and the implementation of many schemes outlined earlier remained inordinately slow. Projects to create a Delhi — Hanoi rail link and a trilateral highway linking India, Myanmar and Thailand have made little headway; had they done so, they could also have encouraged Bangladesh to join the bandwagon, instead of remaining a sole obstacle to India’s eastern connectivity. Given the continuing political sensitivities in Bangladesh over seeming to be giving in too much to India, it might be easier for Dhaka, too, to cooperate on issues of transit not as a purely bilateral matter but as part of an overall regional arrangement.
For once, the Government of India recognizes that it does not have all the answers: the Vision 2020 document makes it clear that private-sector investment is indispensable for the long-term economic development of the North-East. It does not go far enough, however, to assure the private sector that the government will create the infrastructure, or the conditions of security in the face of insurgency, to make their investments worthwhile. It remains an axiom that the private sector will move in only where the government has first established the basic platform for them to pursue their profits. This remains a huge challenge.
Nonetheless, India’s engagement with BIMSTEC is a key component of our ‘Look East’ policy. Indeed, BIMSTEC is a forum where New Delhi’s ‘Look East’ policy meets Bangkok’s ‘Look West’ policy. BIMSTEC is a unique link between South Asia and Southeast Asia. From the very beginning, it has been considered a powerful mechanism to promote opportunities for trade, investment and tourism between these two regions. Since its inception with just four members in 1997, the combined GDP of the BIMSTEC countries has almost tripled, reaching nearly $2 trillion. At present, connectivity among the members is far more than it was in 1997, and intra-BIMSTEC trade turnover and investment and people-to-people exchanges have multiplied. A free trade agreement within the BIMSTEC framework is being discussed.
If India takes advantage of the experiences and strengths of the member countries in a concerted way, it is possible to have a far-reaching impact on poverty reduction and on the overall development of the region. For this to happen, tremendous effort and investment will have to be made in the north-eastern states to benefit from the doors that are being opened. There needs to be greater focus on capacity building, especially in building up human resource capacity, by preparing the people of the seven sisters for the opportunities that will open up in the commerce, tourism and services sectors. As already suggested in Chapter Three, major new projects to rebuild the overland linkages between this region and neighbouring countries will help create the physical integration from which economic integration will flow.
The overlap between the internal and the international makes it also essential that we dovetail the development strategies of the northeastern region with the BIMSTEC initiative. Pursuance of the ‘Look East’ policy for over fifteen years has put in place certain diplomatic and political structures. There is now need to make these structures work for the north-eastern region. Diplomatic initiatives urgently need to be converted into commercial, touristic and investment opportunities. This will require greater coordination than we have seen so far between the Ministry of External Affairs and the Ministry of Development of North-Eastern Region, the Planning Commission, the assorted economic ministries and the seven state governments.
Bilateral relationships are also vital in strengthening our collective efforts. The increased momentum of the strengthening of India’s relations with countries like Bangladesh and Thailand will inevitably contribute to our effective cooperation within BIMSTEC as well. This is a mutually reinforcing process.
However, practical progress will require much more by way of the development of transportation and communication linkages and greater connectivity among the members. Tackling constraints and bottlenecks in transportation and communication identified by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) is essential. As part of the ‘Look East’ policy, India strongly supports the various initiatives taken to improve comprehensive physical connectivity between countries in the region. From our perspective, the most critical link would be to create road connectivity from the North-East of India through Myanmar into Southeast Asia. A trilateral highway project between India, Myanmar and Thailand is under construction. Thailand and India in fact have completed construction of the link roads on either side. Some portions of the internal road connectivity in Myanmar remain to be completed, and Myanmar has made requests for grants and funding to enable this project to proceed. Once this road is completed, it would conveniently link us with the Asian highway network and the new East-West highway project running from Vietnam through to Myanmar.
India is involved in a variety of cross-border development projects with Myanmar in diverse fields such as roads, railways, telecommunications, IT, science and technology and power. These initiatives are aimed at improving connectivity between north-eastern India and western Myanmar and are expected to give an impetus to the local economies as well as bilateral trade. Probably among the most important is the Kaladan Multimodal Transit Transport facility already mentioned, which envisages connectivity between Indian ports on the eastern seaboard and Sittwe port in Myanmar and then through riverine transport and by road to Mizoram, thereby providing an alternative route for transport of goods to India’s North-East. In fact, given the importance that the Government of India attaches to this project, New Delhi has decided to fund it completely. Several projects are on the anvil to provide road, rail and river transportation routes from the north-eastern states through Myanmar into Thailand and the rest of ASEAN. Once these are completed — which would require energy, political will and commitment from all BIMSTEC countries and most of all from India — one can truly turn the term ‘landlocked’ into ‘land-linked’.
In any case, ‘landlocked’ is a geographical concept whose applicability in the twenty-first century is contestable. In today’s IT age, land is not necessary for countries to be linked. That is why India must put more effort into enhancing digital connectivity with this region, starting with an optical fibre cable link between the towns of Moreh in Manipur and Mandalay in Myanmar.
Similarly, India’s excellent relations with Bhutan and its involvement in the development and growth of Bhutan’s economy also translate into direct benefits for the north-eastern states. Recent increases in the export of raw material and agricultural produce from this region to Bhutan have meant better opportunities for agriculturists and industries in the North-East. In fact, Jaigaon on the Indian side of the border across from Phuntsoling on the Bhutan side has grown and become prosperous with its position as the nodal point for trade with Bhutan. Mutually beneficial development of water resources between India and Bhutan has already been described earlier in this chapter, and most of the hydroelectric power that is being generated as a result is for the use of the eastern and north-eastern states of India.