Promises of closer ties over the border to Myanmar are a long way from reality
FOR the past quarter of a century Indian policymakers have talked of a “Look East” policy. This involves boosting trade, investment and incomes in the landlocked north-east by engaging with nearby countries. The state of Manipur, on the border with Myanmar, hopes to be India’s gateway to South-East Asia. Residents of Imphal, its capital, say that old ethnic and cultural ties mean many in Manipur feel closer to their neighbours across the border than to distant and often hostile “mainland” Indians.
The state needs a lift. Old security problems have improved a bit, especially since Myanmar and India began co-operating against rebels from each side who were seeking sanctuary on the other. India’s Assam Rifles, a paramilitary force with sweeping powers and a reputation for arbitrary violence and arrest, are less visibly deployed these days across much of the state. But Manipur residents still complain that other armed bullies, ethnic rebel groups and state-backed militias known as “village defence forces” harass them. Bitter divisions persist between three ethnic groups: Meiteis in Manipur’s main valley, and Nagas and Kukis in the hills.
Opening up to trade could help boost the economy and help stability. India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, in Myanmar this week, is keen on building new infrastructure to speed the flow of goods. A tidy border town with Myanmar, Moreh, has been designated as a transport hub. A UN-backed effort to connect rail-freight networks in Asia, the Trans-Asian Railway, is to pass through the town on its way to Mandalay in Myanmar, nearly 500 kilometres (300 miles) to the south-east. An economics professor in the state capital says Imphal will, within five years, see a “giant leap” as new train, road, air and internet links arrive.
For starters, the state badly needs a better road to Myanmar. Driving the 100km from Imphal to Moreh takes five hours as the highway ascends from the rice paddies of the Imphal valley and twists spectacularly through the lush Chandel hills. The road is much as it was in 1942, when it was hastily built by the British, then the rulers of India and Myanmar, to help its soldiers flee advancing Japanese troops. Near the border with Myanmar it crosses a handsome, single-lane wooden bridge. The structure was intended by the British to be merely temporary.
Worse, all traffic must navigate five official checkpoints manned by the Assam Rifles. Lorry drivers have to unload entire stocks for inspection. Travellers are interrogated. Other barriers erected by village militias exist, it appears, merely to extort bribes. Few lorries ply the narrow road. Official border trade has more than doubled in recent years, but it remains sluggish. In Moreh a new “Traders’ Facility Centre” shows little sign of use. Indian rules permit only 40 items to enter nearly duty-free, among them reed brooms and betel nuts.
Informal trade looks brisker. Imphal’s market brims with cheap Chinese stuff, much of it smuggled through Myanmar. A resident complains that India’s north-east is now a “dumping ground” for cheap Chinese goods—but people seem to want them. Hotels have been built close to private hospitals to cater to medical tourists from over the border.
Moreh has a history as a meeting-place for the far-flung: Hindu and Jain temples stand near a mosque, a church, a Sikh gurdwara and even a synagogue of the Bnei Menashe, an ethnic group from the region that claims to be a lost tribe of Israel. But locals dominate the state’s trade today. That suits some businessmen who say only the Chinese would profit from a more open border. Banks lend only to the politically connected, they grumble, so Manipuris would lack credit to expand and compete with outsiders. Suspicion is understandable after a long history of isolation, conflict and misrule. But Manipur must summon up the courage to open its doors.
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