Border management cannot ignore Myanmar situation

Luv Puri

Ex-member of UN Secy-General’s Good Offices on Myanmar

REPORTS coming from Myanmar routinely indicate the surrender of Tatmadaw soldiers from some part of the country. This suggests that, in the last three years, the Tatmadaw leadership has failed to suppress the armed resistance as coordinated and pinpointed attacks on the army across the country have surprised everyone. The tacit support coming from Western quarters is also proving to be a hindrance in this regard.

With a population of nearly 55 million, Myanmar, a land where the majority adhering to the Theravada Buddhist tradition coexists with ethnic and religious minorities, is no stranger to military rule. Except during 1948-58 and 2010-21, the military, known as Tatmadaw, has governed Myanmar with absolute control for 73 years of its republican journey. The February 1, 2021, coup brought an end to the hope that Myanmar’s path towards democracy would be irreversible. The military took recourse to Sections 417 and 418 of the 2008 Constitution, which permit a military takeover in the event of an emergency that threatens Myanmar’s sovereignty or could ‘disintegrate the Union’ or ‘national solidarity’.

At the same time, one has to make sense of the reports from conflict-ridden parts of Myanmar as the veracity of the information coming from such areas, even at the best of times, can be questionable. The Myanmar military’s Regional Operations Command in Laukkai reportedly surrendered to the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army a few days ago. Six Brigadier Generals from the Myanmar army reportedly surrendered after Chinese mediation in Laukkai, the capital of northern Shan State’s Kokang Self-Administered Zone, as depicted in publicly available pictures. While some of these developments are gaining significant global attention, the fact remains that simmering conflict has been a consistent theme. Almost one-quarter of Myanmar’s population hosts one or more ethnic armed organisations that have consistently challenged the authority of the central government since the creation of independent Myanmar. So it is these areas inhabited by ethnic minorities where the Tatmadaw’s writ is weakening the most and some of these areas adjoin the Indo-Myanmar border.

Broadly speaking, the Kuki, Chin and Mizo communities transcend the India-Myanmar border, maintaining ethnic and familial ties. In this context, there has been a constant flow of migrants from Myanmar's neighbouring areas into Manipur and Mizoram in the last three years, although it is not a given that only members of these communities have come as refugees.

A large number of them are soldiers deserting the Myanmar army, whose main ethnic base is the majority Burman community. For instance, a total of 416 Tatmadaw soldiers crossed over to India in the last two months and were later returned to Myanmar. Part of the erstwhile British India till 1937, Myanmar shares a 1,643 km-long border with India.

On January 2, the Union government announced that it would do away with the Free Movement Regime (FMR) along the Indo-Myanmar border in four northeastern states and this triggered contesting reactions among the region’s myriad communities and their leadership. Army Chief Gen Manoj Pande asserted on January 11 that India was considering strengthening the fencing along the border with Myanmar.

Under the FMR, every member of the hill tribes, who is either a citizen of India or Myanmar and is a resident of any area within 16 km on either side of the Indo-Myanmar border, can cross the border on production of a border pass (valid for one year) issued by the competent authority, and can stay up to two weeks per visit. The FMR came into existence in 2017, but it had already existed in various forms on the ground in some states. The reactions indicate that modern, rigid nation-state boundary sensibilities are in conflict with the centuries-old porous nature of this geography, with ties transcending the present national boundaries.

The announcements don’t honour the spirit of the 1991 Look East Policy or the Act East Policy (2017), which aims to promote trade between India and East Asia. One component of this strategy has been to leverage the civilisational ties that bind India’s North-East with East Asian countries. A series of infrastructural projects are in the final stages of completion, including the 1,400-km highway that begins at Moreh in Manipur, passes through Myanmar and ends at Mae Sot in Thailand. These projects are delayed, partly because of the situation in Myanmar.

Apart from the rising concern over the transnational smuggling of arms and drugs, fresh changes in the realm of border management come in the context of the 2023 Meitei-Kuki clashes in Manipur. These clashes resulted in the death of at least 175 people and several acts of sexual violence. The Meitei leadership that controls the political structure of Manipur alleges that a large number of Kukis have infiltrated from Myanmar into Manipur and caused fresh demographic changes, a charge disputed by the Kuki leadership.

While India’s approach of siding with the Tatmadaw in the 1990s was defended on account of pragmatic thinking, the situation has become tricky now. Gradually, the issue will become more complex for India as it may have to navigate through the maze of the conflict-ridden country in diplomacy as well as on the ground. It cannot completely ignore the resistance forces as they control vast swathes of territory through which some of its infrastructural road projects traverse. The fact that the Tatmadaw leadership is traditionally aligned with China is another factor that should be considered in the Indian calculus, keeping in mind China strengthening itself strategically in India’s neighbourhood.

Given the complexity of the situation in Myanmar, the diverse ethnic ecosystem in India’s North-East and the overall regional economic potential, a sound border management requires multi-stakeholder consultations. People living in the border areas and their leadership should be at the centre of these discussions and their fears and concerns should be allayed with urgency. Such consultations and consensus should precede public statements on border management.

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