This is a companion essay to an interactive timeline that tracks cross-border dynamics between India’s Northeast and Myanmar. Read the timeline here.
India’s Northeast is increasingly integrating with the rest of India due to a concerted push over the last decade to build infrastructure, both soft and hard. New roads bring greater connectivity, market access – and potential hope for local advancements. Asian countries like Japan and South Korea have begun to invest in the seven sister states and have shown interest in recruiting international workforce from these states, many of which look to Asia as cousin cultures. The most recent census figures call attention to its highly literate and young workforce (81% for men, 75% for women[1]), concentrated in certain sectors like the hospitality industry. The region’s rich natural resources, and good human development indicators[2] make it the geographical lynchpin for India’s connectivity to Southeast and East Asia.
The region however, lags in economic growth, contributing only 2.8% to the country’s overall GDP, and the massive strides it made in human development have slowed down in recent years.[3] This is due in large part to three key impediments: (i) adverse environmental impacts and natural resource degradation; (ii) protracted insurgency in some areas; and (iii) lack of well-targeted and quality development efforts.
Academic and political analysis of the region, though, often disassociates the Northeast’s context from that of India’s immediate neighbours in the region, especially Myanmar. Yet Northeast India and Myanmar are part of a contiguous river basin populated by communities with long-standing pre-colonial ethnic, cultural and commercial linkages.
For example, given the historically mobile nature of people in the region, India’s policy priorities for the Northeast are closely intertwined with its foreign policy objectives in Myanmar – and the shifting on-ground realities there. Many existing domestic concerns in India’s northeast are part of a web of interlinked ethnic, political, economic and security issues that transcend national boundaries.
Taking the February 2021 coup in Myanmar as a starting point, Gateway House presents a timeline that attempts to highlight these cross-border dynamics between Myanmar and the four states on the Indo-Myanmar border: Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur, and Mizoram. In these states, the coup and the resulting breakdown of authority have aggravated local problems to do with population displacement, border security, competition for resources and ethnic tensions.
The timeline presents these along four broad and interconnected lines: development and economic interests; land rights and livelihoods; population displacement; local tensions and historical dynamics.
India’s development and economic interests in the region
India’s Act East Policy, announced in 2014, envisions connecting the Northeast with India’s eastern neighbours – Myanmar and Bangladesh – and further with Southeast and East Asia. In a decade of this policy, India’s economic development efforts have focused on addressing the connectivity gap in the landlocked Northeast. A bulk of these are closely intertwined with investments in Myanmar and the Kaladan Multi-Modal Transit Transport Project (KMTTP) in particular. With a total cost of $484 billion, the KMTTP is among India’s biggest developmental projects overseas[4] of which India has invested around $75 million to date.[5]
The project consists of five principal components:[6]
- A 539km shipping route between Kolkata and Sittwe in the Rakhine state in western Myanmar.
- Development of the Sittwe seaport.
- A 158km inland jetty river boat route from the Sittwe port to Paletwa, Myanmar via the Kaladan river.
- A 110km inland road from Paletwa in Myanmar to Zorinpui in Mizoram, right on the Indo-Myanmar border.[7]
- A 100km road route from Zorinpui to Lawngtlai, Mizoram, where supply chains could connect to the rest of India via Indian National Highway 54.[8]
The value of the Kaladan project is rooted in Indian domestic economic interests: supply chains to the landlocked northeast from the rest of India are costly. When completed and operational, the KMTTP will cut the time and cost of supply chains from Kolkata to Aizawl by half,[9] reducing the dependence on supply chains through the narrow Siliguri corridor in West Bengal. It is also an attempt to provide local economies of India’s Northeast with greater market access.
With escalation of conflict on the Myanmar side, which has at times included extended closure of formal border points[10], multiple components of the Kaladan project have been put on hold. The 110-km section of road between Paletwa and Zorinpui in Myanmar is the point on which the whole project hinges[11], but has proved to be the most precarious component: this territory has been the site of fierce fighting between government forces and resistance groups from Chin and Rakhine states since the coup. Similarly, the Sittwe port was inaugurated in May 2023, but any significant progress is threatened by the civil strife. The Rakhine-based Arakan Army controls more than half of Rakhine, and in January 2024, it also gained control over the townships around Paletwa in neighbouring Chin state.[12] In April 2024, the Indian government also withdrew staff from its consulate in Sittwe itself, citing insecurity in the area.[13]
Unfortunately, the consequence has been deleterious for Myanmar whose economy too is in decline, virtually crippled. By June 2024, the Myanmar kyat had fallen to 5,000:1 to the U.S. dollar, a historic low that was just 25% of its pre-COVID and pre-coup value in 2019. Between 2021 to 2024, the country’s currency reserves fell by $3 billion.[14]
Land rights and livelihoods
In 2010, the Northeast region had a population of more than 44 million, accounting for about 3.7% of India’s total, and 4.4% of the country’s rural population living below the poverty line. Agriculture continues to be the backbone of the economy, employing over 70% of the people.[15] Livelihoods options are often limited and still mainly focused on agriculture. In many cases, the prices for crops are lower than those for illicit cultivation.[16] Access to resources, in particular to land, is intertwined with questions of ethnicity and tribal identity.
The ethnic violence in Manipur is a case in point, which brought to a head several of these issues. The state’s primary inhabitants belong to three communities – Meiteis, Kukis and Nagas. Meiteis constitute about 64% of the population but occupy10% of the state’s area in the valley. The Kukis and the Nagas occupy Manipur’s southern and northern hills respectively. The hills constitute 90% of the state’s area, inhabited by 35% of its population.[17] The areas also vary in religious composition, with Kuki and Naga majority areas being mostly Christian, and Meitei majority areas being largely Hindu.
Kukis, designated as tribes under Indian law, have access to the hills and can acquire property and settle the land, but Meiteis cannot do so[18]. Most of the population growth in the state has taken place in the Imphal valley, adding pressure on its resources. This division of resources over the years has led to sharpening tensions and a starker hill/valley divide in Manipur.
Attempts have been made by Meitei lawmakers to alter this status quo, given their comfortable majority in the state legislature.[19]
More recently, their efforts include a demand for a Scheduled Tribe (ST) status in the Indian Constitution[20] which would grant the Meitis similar access to land, forest resources, and government jobs as the Kukis. While the immediate trigger for Manipur’s ethnic violence in May 2023 was a state high court decision recommending the inclusion of Meiteis as STs, adding fuel to the fire were also earlier instances of forced evictions and clearing of forest lands – which disproportionately impacted the hill communities.
The state government’s crackdown on poppy cultivation too, has disproportionately impacted hill communities. Of the 18,000 acres of poppy fields destroyed by the Manipur government since 2017, a majority was in the state’s hill districts.[21] Contiguous Myanmar, meanwhile, has found an economy in poppy cultivation and in December 2023, Myanmar overtook Afghanistan as the world’s top poppy producer,[22] [23] heightening concerns in India’s border states about the growing cross-border drug trade.
Population displacement numbers
Since the February 2021 military coup in Myanmar, over 69,000 refugees have taken shelter in India.[24] As of 2023, over 40,000 of these were in Mizoram, and over 8,200 were estimated to have entered Manipur.[25] These are generally members of the Kuki-Chin-Zo ethnic group from Myanmar’s Chin, Magway and Sagaing regions that border India, and share ethnic ties with communities in Mizoram, Nagaland and Manipur.
The response in India has varied from state to state, with Mizoram assuming the majority of the responsibility for locally integrating arriving displaced families.[26] In a way, the current coordination of local humanitarian response in Mizoram replicated a its response to the 2015 flooding in Chin state in Myanmar and in Manipur, resulting from heavy rains generated by Cyclone Komen, when Mizoram organised youth groups, charity organisations and civil society organisations to mobilise aid and relief work in the state.[27]
In Manipur, on the other hand, the influx of an estimated 8,000 refugees from the recent violence in Myanmar led to heightened tensions between local communities because those arriving identified more with the state’s minority Kuki population (14%), in contrast to Mizoram, where members of the predominantly Christian Zo ethnic groups with cross-border ties in Myanmar, are 85% of the state’s population. In wake of the violence that broke out in May 2023 in Manipur, and during a visit to Manipur on 1 June 2023,[28] Indian Home Minister Amit Shah proposed ending the India-Myanmar Free Movement Regime (FMR)[29] as the solution to Manipur’s security and political problems. An end to the FMR had long been a proposal of the Manipur Chief Minister Biren Singh to New Delhi, citing continuing concerns of cross-border illicit drug trade and criminal networks as justification.
Complicating these dynamics have been the dramatic floods and climate-impacts in the region in 2024. Starting June 2024, excessive rainfall and flash floods in Myanmar have affected over 1 million people across the country and led to the displacement of more than 110,000 people.[30] These impacts were further aggravated by Typhoon Yagi, which caused significant damage in southern and coastal Myanmar, including Rakhine.[31]
This, and the outbreak of violence in Bangladesh in June 2024, escalated India’s security concerns in the Northeast. After Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s ouster in August and the spread of violence from the capital of Dhaka to other parts of the country, India deployed additional teams of its Border Security Force along the Indo-Bangladesh border to curb irregular migration from Bangladesh.[32]
Local tensions and historical insurgency movements
Each of the four states that share a border with Myanmar – Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh – have grappled with insurgencies that have transcended national borders in their imagination and operation. The Naga National Council, which advocated for an independent Naga nation as early as the 1940s and 1950s, envisioned a territory consisting of parts of present-day India and Myanmar. The Khaplang faction of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN-K), an active faction of the Naga insurgency, continues to maintain a significant following and a headquarters with training camps in Myanmar.[33] Similarly, Chins from Myanmar joined the Mizo uprising between 1966 and 1988, as did Kukis from Manipur. Fighters of the Mizo National Front typically sought refuge among their ethnic kinfolk across the border in Myanmar and then-East Pakistan.
Consequently, the Indian government’s anti-insurgency operations have similarly crossed borders. India has worked with border countries like Bhutan and Bangladesh along with Myanmar to crack down on militant groups operating in the region. Most recently, in early 2019, the Indian army and the Myanmar military carried out joint operations targeting militant groups along the Indo-Myanmar border including the NSCN-K and ULFA-I.[34] Notably, ceasefire negotiations with insurgent groups, including various factions of the NSCN in Nagaland and ULFA in Manipur have continued since at least 2020.[35]
Parallel efforts have also included providing militants with incentives to surrender. Since 2018, the Indian government’s Scheme for Surrender-cum-Rehabilitation of Militants in the North-East has extended monetary benefits and provided vocational training to encourage insurgents to surrender and facilitate their rehabilitation and assimilation into the mainstream.[36]
The coup brought attention back to transboundary violence and the breakdown of authority in Myanmar’s border regions added to India’s security concerns. Throughout 2022 and 2023, Indian security and police forces conducted multiple operations against insurgent groups believed to have bases in Myanmar. In particular, after the outbreak of violence in Manipur, both the state government and Indian security agencies pointed to the possibility of armed insurgents exploiting the unrest in Manipur for their objectives.
The recent flare-up of violence in Manipur in August 2024, more than a year after its initial outbreak in May 2023, has also thrown cross-border arms flows into sharp focus. Attacks in Moirang and Koutruk in Manipur saw insurgent groups using drones, rockets and improvised explosive devices. A small but not insignificant amount of these is suspected to have been acquired from across the Indo-Myanmar order.[37] India’s National Investigation Agency (NIA) has linked multiple caches of arms and ammunition recovered over the past year to activities of Myanmar-based insurgent groups along the international border.[38]
Implications of Myanmar’s civil war for India’s local interests
Given the rapid and frequent shifts on the Myanmar side of India’s eastern border, India’s Myanmar policy has to account for changing realities on ground. For the most part, India has only had formal relations with the junta government in Naypyidaw (which often refers to itself as the State Administration Council or SAC) and does not recognise the National Unity Government (NUG).
However, Myanmar’s military has lost control of most of its Northwest, including border regions with India, which are now controlled by anti-junta forces. This means that the counterparts with whom India has had most direct diplomatic discussions, do not control the land along India’s border. This has consequences, such as on 12 April 2024 when India withdrew its diplomatic corps from Sittwe due to continued insecurity in the area.[39] This is notable given India’s massive investments in the Sittwe port as part of the KMTTP, along with the importance of the town of Paletwa as a key transit point in the overall project, a town that has also changed hands from the junta to rebel groups and seen fierce fighting.[40]
The Union government already recognises this to some degree, evidenced by a cross-border visit by India’s K. Vanlalvena, a Rajya Sabha member who led a delegation from Mizoram in February 2024 to meet with the Arakan Army near Paletwa in Chin State, with the stated purpose of inspecting parts of the KMTTP.[41] In truth, local officials in the northeast might be better positioned as negotiators for India, given the cultural and historic ties of northeastern communities to communities in Myanmar. Vanlalvena himself is a member of the Mizo National Front (MNF), the principal opposition party in Mizoram’s state legislature.
With an eye on India’s economic and security interests, it is now necessary for India to begin engaging more directly with the entities that control land along its borders until broader peace and governance is reestablished in Myanmar, the local communities who know the Northeast best, must play a key part.
Read the digital timeline here.
Purvi Patel was the International Affairs Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations and former Visiting Fellow, Gateway House.
Charuta Ghadyalpatil is a Research Assistant, Gateway House.
Interactive webpage by How India Lives.
This infographic was exclusively designed for Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations. You can read more exclusive content here
Support our work here.
For permission to republish, please contact outreach@gatewayhouse.in
©Copyright 2024 Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations. All rights reserved. Any unauthorised copying or reproduction is strictly prohibited.
References
[1] The latest census in India was conducted in 2011. The census scheduled for 2021 was suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic and has not been conducted since.
[2] For Human Development Index and Gender Inequality Index, see Ankur Bhardwaj, ‘HDI: How States Fare in Human Development,’ Centre for Economic and Data Analysis, Ashoka University, June 14, 2021, https://ceda.ashoka.edu.in/hdi-how-states-fare-in-human-development/; ‘HUMAN DEVELOPMENT INDEX ACROSS INDIAN STATES: IS THE GLASS STILL HALF EMPTY?,’ State Bank of India, March 2019, https://sbi.co.in/documents/13958/14472/Ecowrap_20190308.pdf
[3] ‘HUMAN DEVELOPMENT INDEX ACROSS INDIAN STATES: IS THE GLASS STILL HALF EMPTY?,’ State Bank of India, March 2019, https://sbi.co.in/documents/13958/14472/Ecowrap_20190308.pdf
[4] “Kaladan Multi-Modal Transit Transport Project,” Myanmar Port Authority, https://www.mpa.gov.mm/development_projects/kaladan-multi-modal-transit-transport-project/
[5] https://www.mea.gov.in/lok-sabha.htm?dtl/34853/QUESTION_NO1771_KALADAN_MULTI_MODAL_TRANSIT_TRANSPORT_PROJECT
[6] “Kaladan Multi-Modal Transit Transport Project”, Ministry of Development of Northeastern Region, https://mdoner.gov.in/kaladan-multi-modal-transit-transport-project-inland
[7] In 2022, n 2022, the Indian government signed a contract with IRCON International Limited, a public sector undertaking under the Indian Ministry of Railways, for the construction of the complete highway. A revised deadline was set to the end of 2023, but the project has been stalled due to fighting in Myanmar. See https://www.ircon.org/images/icons/Annual_Review_2021-22.pdf
[8] Progress on the highway in Mizoram has been stalled due to delays in land acquisition. See https://www.irrawaddy.com/news/burma/indias-kaladan-project-in-myanmar-faces-fresh-hurdles.html
[9] India Opens Myanmar Port with Wary Eye on China (voanews.com)
[10] Assam Rifles keeps Mizoram-Myanmar border gate closed even after election, locals unhappy | Guwahati News – Times of India (indiatimes.com)
[11] India-Myanmar Kaladan waterway to open in May. But ‘real gains’ only when 110-km road is completed (theprint.in)
[12] Arakan Army resistance force says it has taken control of a strategic township in western Myanmar | AP News; ‘Breaking Away: The Battle for Myanmar’s Rakhine State ,’ CrisisGroup, Aug 27, 2024, https://www.crisisgroup.org/asia/south-east-asia/myanmar/339-breaking-away-battle-myanmars-rakhine-state#:~:text=Since%20November%202023%2C%20the%20Arakan,borders%20with%20India%20and%20Bangladesh; David Scott Mathieson, ‘Regime collapse in Myanmar’s Rakhine ,’ Lowy, July 11, 2024, https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/regime-collapse-myanmar-s-rakhine; ‘Myanmar’s rapidly changing civil war, in maps and charts,’ The Economist, July 26, 2024, https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2024/07/26/myanmars-rapidly-changing-civil-war-in-maps-and-charts
[13] Myanmar Round Up: April 2024 | Vivekananda International Foundation (vifindia.org)
[14] https://asiatimes.com/2024/06/junta-waging-war-on-myanmars-doom-loop-economy/
[15] K. R. Dikshit & Jutta K. Dikshit, “Agriculture in North-East India: Past and Present,” in Northeast India: Land, People and Economy, https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-94-007-7055-3_16
[16] “Drug cartels in Manipur,” Imphal Free Press, Dec 28, 2022, https://www.ifp.co.in/editorial/drug-cartels-in-manipur
[17] According to the 2011 census, various Naga ethnic groups comprise 24%, and the Kuki tribes (part of the Chin-Kuki-Zo people) are 16% of the population.
[18] According to Indian law, non-tribal/non-indigenous communities cannot acquire property in areas demarcated as tribal land.
[19] This includes the Manipur (Village Authority in Hill Areas Act, 1956, the Manipur Land Revenue & Reform Act, 1960, and the Manipur (Hill Areas) District Councils Act, 1971.
[20] The beginnings of such a demand from Manipur’s Meitei organisations can be traced to 2011.
[21] Dhiren A. Sadokpam, “Looking at Manipur’s Ethnic Violence From the Perspective of Drug Trade and National Security,” The Wire, May 30, 2023, https://thewire.in/security/manipur-violence-poppy-national-security-golden-triangle
[22] Nicholas Yong, “Myanmar overtakes Afghanistan as top opium producer,” BBC, Dec 12, 2023, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-67688413
[23] Manipur: Fears grow over Indian state on brink of civil war (bbc.com)
[24] Myanmar Emergency – UNHCR Regional Update, 30 September 2024, https://data.unhcr.org/en/documents/details/112118
[25] Myanmar Emergency – UNHCR Regional Update, 1 May 2023, https://data.unhcr.org/en/documents/details/100612; Bikash Singh, “Registration of biometric data for over 5K illegal immigrants in Manipur from Myanmar completed: CM N Biren Singh,” The Economic Times, May 8, 2024, https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/india/registration-of-biometric-data-for-over-5k-illegal-immigrants-in-manipur-from-myanmar-completed-cm-n-biren-singh/articleshow/109953658.cms?from=mdr
[26] In a way, the current coordination of local humanitarian response in Mizoram replicated a response by Mizoram to the 2015 flooding in Chin state in Myanmar and in Manipur, resulting from heavy rains generated by Cyclone Komen. See https://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/mizoram-plans-for-aid-charity-events-for-flood-affected-ethnic-zo-communities-in-myanmar/.
[27] “Mizoram plans for aid, charity events for flood-affected ethnic Zo communities in Myanmar,” Indian Express, Aug 3, 2015, https://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/mizoram-plans-for-aid-charity-events-for-flood-affected-ethnic-zo-communities-in-myanmar/
[28] Snigdendhu Bhattacharya, “How the Myanmar Crisis Threatens to Destabilize India’s Manipur State,” The Diplomat, June 7, 2023, https://thediplomat.com/2023/06/how-the-myanmar-crisis-threatens-to-destabilize-indias-manipur-state/.
[29] The FMR was enacted in 1950 in an attempt to recognize historical cross-border ties and the continuing interconnectedness of border communities. This arrangement has not only allowed continuation of personal and familial ties, but also supported key routes for commerce and small business development for local communities. Under the FMR, every member of the hill tribes, who is either a citizen of India or a citizen of Myanmar, and who resides within 16 km on either side of the border, can cross the border on production of a border pass, usually valid for a year, and can stay for up to two weeks per visit. See https://www.idsa.in/idsacomments/Free-Movement-Regime-PDas-170123
[30] “FLASH UPDATE: No. 02 – Monsoonal Flooding, Myanmar – 7 August 2024,” The AHA Centre, https://ahacentre.org/flash-update/flash-update-no-02-monsoonal-flooding-myanmar-7-august-2024/
[31] “Myanmar: Floods – Jul 2024,” ReliefWeb, https://reliefweb.int/disaster/fl-2024-000104-mmr#overview
[32] Bangladesh has taken in a majority of the Rohingya fleeing persecution in Myanmar in successive waves since the 1990s. The latest exodus began in 2017. Today, Cox’s Bazaar in Bangladesh, close to the border with Myanmar, has the largest refugee camp in the world – the Kutupalong-Balukhali site – with nearly 1 million Rohingya. See Bangladesh Country Profile, UNHCR, https://data.unhcr.org/en/country/bgd; JRP – Joint Response Plan for Rohingya Humanitarian Crisis in Bangladesh – 2024, UNHCR, https://data.unhcr.org/en/documents/details/111224.
[33] “National Socialist Council of Nagaland – Khaplang,” South Asia Terrorism Portal, https://www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/india/states/nagaland/terrorist_outfits/nscn_k.htm
[34] Within India, the peace process with various armed groups has been protracted and drawn out, starting with the Shillong Accord in 1975 between the Indian government and leaders of the Naga national movement. Over the past decade, multiple ceasefire agreements were negotiated with armed groups in the Northeast, including two factions of the NSCN in 2015, the ULFA in 2019, and the UNLF in 2023. https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/defence/armies-of-india-myanmar-target-ne-militants-in-coordinated-operation/articleshow/69810618.cms
[35] Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India, “Major Initiatives and Peace Process in North Eastern Region,” January 2024, https://www.mha.gov.in/sites/default/files/2024-01/NE_MajorInitiativesPeaceProcess_22012024.pdf; The Hindu, “Understanding the peace pact with ULFA | Explained,” Jan 4, 2024, https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/understanding-the-peace-pact-with-ulfa-explained/article67703481.ece; The Hindu, “Centre extends ceasefire with insurgent group for ‘lasting peace’ in Nagaland,” Sept 5, 2024, https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/nagaland/centre-extends-ceasefire-with-insurgent-group-for-lasting-peace-in-nagaland/article68610250.ece.
[36] Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India, “Scheme for Surrender-cum-Rehabilitation of militants in North East,” https://www.mha.gov.in/sites/default/files/NE_Surrender_Cum_Rehabilitation_25022022.PDF
[37] Ananya Bhardwaj, “Kuki group claims Koutruk clash ‘not unprovoked’, Meitei insurgents ‘bombed own area using drones’,” The Print, Sept 16, 2024, https://theprint.in/india/kuki-group-claims-koutruk-clash-not-unprovoked-meitei-insurgents-bombed-own-area-using-drones/
[38] Karishma Hasnat, “10 chargesheeted by NIA in 2022 Mizoram arms & explosives case ‘linked to Myanmar-based insurgents’,” The Print, Aug 31, 2024, https://theprint.in/india/10-chargesheeted-by-nia-in-2022-mizoram-arms-explosives-case-linked-to-myanmar-based-insurgents/2247175/
[39] Cchavi Vashist, “Myanmar Round Up: April 2024,” Vivekananda International Foundation, May 10, 2024, https://www.vifindia.org/2024/may/10/Myanmar-Round-Up-april-24
[40] Northeastern View | Fresh influx of refugees into southern Mizoram reveals new complications in western Myanmar – Hindustan Times
[41] Is India Finally Waking Up to a New Reality in Western Myanmar? – The Diplomat