[This peace, and the subsequent the reopening of road links, and the Trans-Asian Railway – which seeks to connect India to Myanmar – could be held up in the Naga inhabited areas because of disputes among the Naga, Kuki and Meitei ethnic groups over control of the hill tracts of Manipur. Forming a crucial link that would connect India to the economies of Southeast Asia and China ultimately depends on the calming of several ethnic battles.]
By
SAMRAT
 |
Epa
A boatman on Brahmaputra River, 43 miles fromGuwahati, Assam, in this June 27, 2008 file |
The last in a three-part series on peace quietly
breaking out in India’s Northeast.
For India’s Northeast to have a
bright future, the region will need to avoid a few minefields.
Most importantly, “a sustainable peace, including in the
Kachin state (in Myanmar), is essential for all this to happen,” wrote Thant
Myint-U, the author of “Where India Meets China,” in a message.
This peace, and the subsequent the reopening of road
links, and the Trans-Asian Railway – which seeks to connect India to Myanmar –
could be held up in the Naga inhabited areas because of disputes among the
Naga, Kuki and Meitei ethnic groups over control of the hill tracts of Manipur.
Forming a crucial link that would connect India to the economies of Southeast
Asia and China ultimately depends on the calming of several ethnic battles.
Roads through Manipur are frequently
blockaded for months over the issue. Elections for the Manipur state
assembly provided a break in the usual routine of ethnic animosities, but those
could erupt again at any time.
In addition, the larger region could find itself in
turmoil over environmental issues sparked by an attempt to build 168 big dams
here. Popular protest movements have already gathered steam over these dams,
which many people fear will lead to loss of their land and livelihoods. There
are also fears of earthquakes leading to dam ruptures in this region.
European Pressphoto
AgencyProtesters participate in a rally against the construction of mega dams
in the Assam-Arunachal Pradesh border region, Guwahati, Assam, July 14, 2010.
Answering local residents’ concerns about the dams is
essential to lasting peace, said Sanjib Baruah, a professor of political
studies at Bard College in New York and author of “India Against
Itself,’’ a book about conflict in the region.
Mr. Baruah recently spent several weeks in Assam, where
he traveled with hopes that “we may indeed be able to soon talk about
post-conflict/post ULFA Assam,” he said in a recent interview by e-mail. (ULFA,
the United Liberation Front of Assam, is the major insurgent group that has
been fighting for the state’s independence from India since 1979.) “But after
traveling to Lakhimpur-Dhemaji, seeing the anti-dam protests, and reading the
Assamese press, I am no longer sure,” he said.
“The hydropower dams under construction, or on the
drawing board in Arunachal Pradesh, appear to be an enormous source of anxiety
in Assam,” he said. Moreover, the hydropower is meant almost entirely for use
elsewhere, at least for the moment.
“The region is being groomed to play a familiar role:
that of a resource frontier – supplier of natural resources to fuel the engines
of economic growth elsewhere,” he said. It is a role that breeds insurgency and
anti-state protests.
“My tentative formulation is that the politics of
identity is slowly giving way to a politics of anxiety,” said Mr. Baruah.
Political parties and insurgent groups in the region have long championed rights
of particular ethnic groups. The protests against the dams, though, have united
ethnic and religious groups as they face shared fears.
“Delhi’s commitment to developing Arunachal’s hydropower
potential is huge – there are even strategic considerations,” he said. “There
is a notion among Indian decision-makers that we have to build dams in the
Siang before China does. They seem to believe that international law on water
is fairly solid, and that there is a ‘use it or lose it’ principle because of
which we have to beat China to it.”
He doesn’t see any easy way of all this sorting out.
Another fear about the recent weakening of local
insurgent groups is that Maoists, identified as India’s biggest internal
security threat by prime minister Manmohan Singh, will extend their operations
to Northeast India. “There are already indications that the Communist Party of
India-Maoist is trying to occupy the spaces vacated by the insurgent groups
that have lost traction,” said Ajai Sahni, the head of South Asia Terrorism
Portal, a security think tank in Delhi. “Demographic trends, including
significant increases in population, pressures of migration, and frictions
between divergent ethnic formations, add to the conflict potential of the
region. Environmental and resource challenges can exacerbate the situation
further.”
European Pressphoto
AgencySecurity personnel patrol insurgency affected areas of Thanga
constituency, Binsupur district on the eve of the Manipur State Assembly
elections, Jan. 27, 2012.
Almost every one of the seven states in the Northeast
has experienced a higher population growth than in India as a whole. Local
residents tend to blame migration from Bangladesh and Nepal, though large
families are common in the region. Good governance could prevent conflict, said
Mr. Sahni, but given the quality of governance the region has experienced,
there is reason to worry.
Indian officials have also expressed concerns that China
may be providing support for insurgent groups in the region. Paresh Barua, the
military chief of the ULFA, is said
to be under Chinese protection somewhere near Ruili on China’s border with
Myanmar.
The National Socialist Council of Nagaland’s Isak-Muivah
faction, the most powerful insurgent group in Northeast India, has also
re-established contact with China, Home Secretary G.K. Pillai said
in February.
China has denied all this, saying in a statement on Feb.
16 that it follows a policy of not interfering in the affairs of other
countries.
If the leader of the National Socialist Council of
Nagaland (Isak-Muivah), Th. Muivah, 76, dies or retires without a settlement
being reached, the group, which has rearmed during the 14 years since the
cease-fire, could go back to war under a new leadership, a Naga activist with
links to the group, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said in an interview
last month.
Across the border in Myanmar, cease-fires with the
ethnic armies are tenuous
where they exist. Any settlement would have to give political autonomy and
control over local resources to the ethnic groups. That is, if the Burman
majority don’t fall out among themselves.
Both India and China stand to gain greatly from peace
and progress in these parts. China’s relatively underdeveloped Yunnan province,
where about 40 percent of the population belongs to ethnic minorities, borders
Myanmar on one side. India’s relatively underdeveloped Northeast, with its
mainly tribal states, is on the other.
Trade between the two countries has been rising, and hit
an all time high of $73.9 billion in 2011. There is, however, a big trade
deficit of $27 billion in China’s favor.
The two giants of Asia will come closer as flights,
roads and rail links connect both to Myanmar. Whatever happens next will
determine the destinies of close to half the world’s population.
Earlier,
the author looked at the Northeast’s expanding
foreign ties, and young population’s desire for
prosperity and connectedness.
The writer is editor of the Mumbai edition of The Asian Age and author
of The Urban Jungle (Penguin, 2011). He can be found on Twitter as mrsamratx
@ The New York Times
