The North-east must fashion the Burma Road

At a recent discussion on Myanmar, where several senior Burmese civil society figures participated, a number of ‘real issues’ came up.  One was the puzzlement of those from that country about the so-called ‘Look East Policy’ and what it meant, specifically, for Myanmar, and how those from the North-east agreed about the LEP’s failure to do anything of substance for the region itself.

Another was the amusing way in which some former Indian Government officials had transformed themselves from speaking only for government and believing in what it does (what is called G to G: Government to Government) to becoming breathless advocates of a P to P (forgive the inappropriately sounding phrase) approach.  A third was the way in which speakers from the NER, especially those in office, made forceful pleas for ensuring that those from the region drove the approach, policy and conceptual framework for the new relationship with Myanmar and South East Asia,

As TP Khaund, the representative and adviser of the Mizoram Chief Minister, and a veteran administrator himself declared, it is those from the region who speak its languages, have traveled in the area and understand its people and those on the other side of the border with sensitivity, who are best equipped to take a pro-people policy of neighbourly relations forward. This cannot be done by mandarins from Delhi, especially a few retired ones who have breathlessly gone into pushing their ideas on the area.

There were other issues which came up and which need to be reflected upon.  Rajiv Bhatia, surely one of the finest foreign policy officers that India has produced who thinks about international and national issues with coherence and served with distinction as Ambassador to Myanmar, made other telling points: one was the umbilical link between reform and reconciliation, a point that President Obama himself made and which rings true from the experiences of South Africa, Indonesia, the Philippines and even pockets of the gravely troubled Middle East. The other substantial point is how Myanmar was going to deal with a federal polity, a concept that was banned from discussion for decades because it was seen as a precursor of all things evil including the possible fragmentation of the country.

One needs to understand this issue a bit more substantially for it informs the latter part of this column.  Myanmar’s major ethnic groups are minorities in their country but majorities in their homelands where their languages and traditions rule. Since 1962, when Gen. Ne Win took over in a military putsch that displaced the democratic U Nu, contemporary of Jawaharlal Nehru, the military had fought brutal, unending civil wars with the ethnic armies of the country, which only have calmed in the past decade and appear to be coming only now to some form of political accord, under President Thein Sein’s benevolent gaze.

The accounts of those conflicts are too chillingly similar to our own military’s encounters with the Nagas, Mizos and then Manipuris and to a degree those from Assam over a similar time frame. People displaced and killed, villages burned, women molested and raped, a long list of the disappeared.  After some time, a counter-story in our country emerges, from the other side, of manifest brutality and extortion, depredation and intimidation by armed non-state actors.  Yet, over the decades, good sense began to prevail in Delhi and among the armed groups: political dialogue slowly replaced the language of weapons, negotiations and agreements became the process of change and ceasefires (many not implemented effectively) the order of the day. Levels of peace began to grow even as insurgency-related violence began to slow, weakened by a commensurate growth in peoples aspirations, their lack of support for the militias and, indeed, their consequent fatigue with conflict and its many accompanying traumas,

This does not mean that violence is at an end but surely it is of no mean significance that no jawan had fallen to an insurgent bullet in Nagaland for over five years? Peace may not be in hand but a lessening of violence related to claims for sovereignty, that now faltering slogan, clearly is. This is the advantage that even a fractured democracy is able to give people and citizenry — it enables them the selection of candidates (not entirely of their preference but whom they can choose) to run affairs and with time better sense has prevailed in Delhi where it has become clear that the force of arms against fellow Indians must be replaced by the open hand of friendship, if not the embrace of agreement.

But in Myanmar, it’s a different story: having spent nearly half a century under a despotic military regime that has done its best to cut itself off from the world. During that time, battling to crush ethnic claims and combatants, the generals who still make up a majority of the reforming (not reformed) Myanmar’s new face would be very reluctant at heart to embrace a multi-ethnic federal polity. But this is the key to the country’s future and the difficulties are seen in even the unsure position of DASSK, as Daw Aung Sang Suu Kyi is also known, on the issue of the Rohingyas.

Most Burmese leaders deny there is such a community in their country. These unfortunates are denied citizenship. They are derided and dismissed as Bangladeshi and that they speak Bangla (indeed, many speak a form of the Chittagongi dialect).  Aung Sang Suu Kyi, at an engaging conversation with some of us in Delhi during her recent visit, emphatically declared that many of the Rohingyas were out of doubtful nationality since corrupt immigration officials had allowed to let them in. She has said this elsewhere as well.

To some of us, frankly, this appears to be far too simplistic and does not address the issue of ‘inconvenient’ minorities in homelands, a problem that is staring us in the face in Assam and other parts of the North-east.  Indeed, her remarks took me back to a conversation some years ago with some of the Myanmar political \groups in exile while they were based in Mizoram.  Two or three representatives of Arakan factions were also there.  When I asked the roomful of dissidents how they would plan to tackle the Rohingya problem, they all turned sheepishly to the other, half-smiled and almost together said that it would be resolved when democracy came to their country.

I still remember what I said to them at the time: ‘This means that your position is basically the same as the military and when and if democracy comes, it will not change and you will have the same problem all over again.”  Unfortunately, this has become a fact and a thorn in the flesh of the nascent democracy in our eastern neighbour.  How are the Burmese to handle this and other ethnic divides which continue to trouble them?

I believe there are good and bad examples to follow in the North-east.  One is not specifically referring to the Rohingya problem  but to the overall question of a federal relationship: In the NER, there is the fine example of Mizoram where a comprehensive dialogue between the Centre and the Mizo National Front meant that politically inclusive negotiations preceded an agreement where the civil society, especially the powerful Church, was involved.  A Chief Minister stood down to make way, during an interim period, for the leader of the insurgents to take office.  In one swift move, the armed fighter had become a prisoner of the Constitution and its servant and thereby a part of the democratic process. That Laldenga of the MNF was defeated by schisms within his own party even after winning at the hustings is another story, one that tells us not of the fragileness but the challenges, robustness and divisions of democratic politics in this country.

The Naga-Delhi talks appear to be at the same ‘final stage’ as the talks between ethnic groups and the Myanmar government with similar sticking points: will the ethnic army be disbanded and merged into the national army? What is the meaning of complete peace and cessation of conflict: does it bind future generations?  What are the Constitutional provisions that guarantee a special ‘unique’ place to the negotiating group? Will land demands/borders be respected?

The North-east is in a position to export good ideas and experiences to its neighbours, not just limited items of trade and headloads of tiny commodities at Moreh and Zokathar, Tamabil and the haats on the Meghalaya-Bangladesh border.

I write this from Thailand, which lies at the crossroads of many cultures and influences. The soft power of our music (rock bands and musicians such as Reuben Mashangva, the Shillong Chamber Choir, the Nagaland Singing Ambassadors, Lopu Majaw, Rudi Wallang), poets and authors as well as sports figures (football teams from Meghalaya, Manipur and Nagaland) can perform in Mandalay and Yangon, in Bagan and Neipidaw but also in Bangkok and Cheng Mai, Kaula Lumpur, Penang, Singapore and Jakarta. It’s the time for the real Look East Policy to come on the road, not a few car rallies organized by business associations, but one that is driven and designed by ideas and people from the region.

By the Brahmaputra / By Sanjoy Hazarika

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