Manipur crisis a setback for Act East policy

Manipur has been on the edge for over three months now with hundreds dead and thousands displaced after violence erupted in the state on May 3.

India’s ambitious plans to have physical connectivity with southeast Asia and beyond could be derailed due to the violent ethnic conflict that has engulfed Manipur in India’s northeast. Indeed, the entire northeast region is seen as a crucial gateway to east and southeast Asia and, therefore, is a vital component of the ‘Act East Policy’. Any instability there does not bode well for India’s long-term strategic interests. A prolonged upheaval in the region could well stymie India’s concerted efforts to forge deeper links and economic integration with countries to its east.

India’s Act East Policy

Manipur has been on the edge for over three months now with hundreds dead and thousands displaced after violence erupted in the state on May 3.  The state has a long and porous frontier with Myanmar, the only ASEAN country with which India shares land as well as a maritime border. The northeast lies at the heart of India's policy of ‘Act East’, a nomenclature that replaced the earlier ‘Look East’ policy in 2014, placing the 10-member ASEAN bloc at the core of this vision. The new coinage reflected the proactive approach that New Delhi sought to adopt nearly a decade ago to engage with countries of SE Asia and beyond. Coupling ‘Act East’ with its ‘Neighbourhood First’ mantra, New Delhi hopes to build robust partnerships with countries in its immediate periphery and even beyond.

India has a comprehensive strategic partnership with this regional grouping and considers it the core of its ‘Act East Policy’. Hoping to reap the benefits of connectivity, New Delhi sees it as an ‘Arc of Prosperity” for India and the ASEAN member states. ASEAN is also central to India’s Indo-Pacific vision, one which has gained tremendous importance for New Delhi in recent years as it seeks to counter an increasingly belligerent China. Some of the other regional groupings through which India has been pushing for closer ties and connectivity under the ‘Act East’ rubric are the seven-member BIMSTEC (Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation), Mekong Ganga Cooperation (MGC) mechanism and the Asia Cooperation Dialogue (ACD).

Connectivity to SE Asia would give the landlocked northeast alternative access and thus unlock its economic potential, bringing benefits to the region and the countries beyond. But India’s push for seamless land connectivity allowing cross-border movement of goods and people has been hampered by difficult terrain, insurgencies, ethnic divisions and an overall underdeveloped northeast region over the years. The Manipur strife has now further compounded the problem.

Union minister of state for external affairs Rajkumar Ranjan Singh told Parliament last year that the Act East policy, “which was originally conceived as an economic initiative, has gained political, strategic and cultural dimensions”. With ASEAN as its core, India is robustly engaging countries of South East Asia, East Asia, South Asia and Oceania, he declared. But today, there is a virtual civil war raging in Singh’s home state of Manipur, which has seen even his own house in Imphal being torched during the violence. The Kuki-Meitei ethnic clashes have had a fall-out in the neighbouring state of Mizoram as well. Overall, the situation appears extremely grim, not just for Manipur but for the entire northeast, already wracked by a fragile security situation due to various insurgencies over the decades.

Connectivity projects in jeopardy

The instability in Myanmar with whom four northeastern states — Mizoram, Manipur, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh — share a border has not helped either. And now with Manipur in the vortex of turmoil, the progress on connectivity projects could further slow down. For, in the absence of stability, how do you execute connectivity projects or even ensure smooth movement through existing routes?

The crucial land port of Moreh in Manipur, located on the Indo-Myanmar border and thus far considered the only feasible land route between the two countries, has already been hit by the ongoing violence. Located barely 4 km away from Myanmar's border town of Tamu, it has historically served as an important cross-border trading point. The border crossing has remained closed for trade and entry of Myanmar nationals since early 2021, ostensibly to check the spread of Covid19 but in reality, to check the influx of Chin refugees who began entering India in huge numbers following the takeover by the military junta in Myanmar. The situation is further complicated with the Meiteis and Nagas of Manipur alleging that the Chin refugees are being assisted by the Kukis to settle down in Manipur and fear this might change the state’s demographics and be detrimental to their interests.

Another regional connectivity project that could take a hit is the 1,400 km long trilateral highway project to link Moreh to Myanmar and onto Mae Sot in Thailand. Already stalled because of the situation in Myanmar, this project has been riddled with difficulties and slow progress. External affairs minister S Jaishankar has acknowledged that work on the trilateral highway project has been challenging owing to the law-and-order situation in Myanmar. Though 70 per cent of the work has now been completed on the project, this crucial connectivity may now not be operational even by 2025 — the latest target set for its completion. The ethnic violence that has consumed Manipur and threatens the peace and stability of the larger northeast will have a debilitating impact on India’s infrastructure-building efforts for connectivity and its thrust to ‘Act East’ if peace and stability do not return to the region soon.

Parul Chandra is a New Delhi-based senior journalist who writes on foreign affairs. Twitter: @ParulChandraP. Views are personal, and do not represent the stand of this publication.