India's bid for enhanced regional role
Indian President Ram Nath Kovind's state visit to Myanmar (December 10-13) stood out among his other overseas forays in more ways than one. It brought out the full range of the strategic dimension of the ties between New Delhi and Naypyidaw that have slowly gathered in content over the years.
At a media briefing on the penultimate day of the visit, Ashok Malik, the Press Secretary to the President, succinctly summed up the nature of the visit by describing how it was different from the high-level visits abroad by Indian leaders. "When the President travels abroad for his state visits, there are five broad pillars which are usually covered. Political relations, security and defence relations, trade and connectivity, development and knowledge sharing, and of course, people-to-people and cultural ties… It is very rare that all five gets covered in one visit," but "the Myanmar visit…has covered all the aspects, from connectivity to political relations to of course the cultural aspect." Malik clearly indicated the most important objective of the Indian President's visit—to enhance New Delhi's role in a region where China is advancing slowly.
The visit has not only further consolidated India's relations with a country that acts as a key bridge to South East Asia but also New Delhi's outreach to the BIMSTEC region encompassing South and South East Asia. The one event that highlighted that Kovind's visit resonated across Myanmar's border is the handing over of 50 prefabricated houses in Rakhine province meant for the Rohingya refugees as and when they are repatriated from Bangladesh. India will deliver 200 such houses to Myanmar under a 25-million-dollar socio-economic development programme.
The joint statement issued after Kovind's visit reflected the convergence of views between India and Myanmar that the situation in Rakhine has humanitarian, developmental as well as security dimensions. India expressed its support for the agreements reached between Myanmar and Bangladesh for the repatriation of Rohingyas to Rakhine and underlined its readiness to continue to assist in addressing this complex issue. For its part, Myanmar welcomed the assistance being provided by India for infrastructure development under the aegis of the Rakhine State Development Programme, particularly in executing a pilot housing project, and the assistance extended by India for agricultural development and IT education in the province. More importantly, India expressed its willingness to consider scaling up its assistance for the Rakhine development programme once the current allocation of USD 25 million is fully committed.
The Rohingya issue is one on which New Delhi has treaded very carefully keeping in mind its robust relations with Bangladesh and Myanmar and their sensitivities to the extent possible. In fact, India has kept its ties with its two eastern neighbours in separate compartments, insulating one from the other. This has, of course, caused problems in Bangladesh especially because of India's refusal to go public with outright condemnation of the atrocities on Rohingyas.
India is fairly well invested in infrastructure development and human resources capacity-building including training for Myanmar judicial officers, military personnel and the police. India hopes to complete the ambitious Kaladan Multi-Modal Transit Transport project in Rakhine and both sides are preparing to appoint an operator for the Sittwe port in that province which would enable the port and the Paletwa Inland Water Transport infrastructure to be used commercially for the development of the surrounding areas. The two countries are hoping to complete by next year the trilateral highway in connecting India with Myanmar and Thailand—all members of the ASEAN and the BIMSTEC.
Another significant outcome of Kovind's visit was the agreement reached between India and Myanmar to start negotiations for concluding expeditiously a bilateral motor vehicles agreement that would enable passenger and cargo traffic to cross the border. This is aimed at complementing last year's landmark agreement to facilitate smooth cross-border movement of people between the two countries.
This agreement is already in force and the motor vehicles agreement will only give value addition to the slew of various infrastructure connectivity projects being executed by India. The two sides also expressed their willingness to operate a coordinated bus service between Mandalay in Myanmar and Imphal in Manipur (India) in order to enhance cross-border passenger link. India has also prepared a Detailed Project Report for the redevelopment of the Kalay airport in Myanmar.
The most crucial part of Kovind's visit was the focus on his discussion on defence and security relations with Myanmar's top leaders. Not much on this has come out in the public domain from either side, except just one sentence from Indian Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale at his media briefing which said, "We flagged some of the issues that we had and the State Counsellor (Aung San Suu Kyi) did mention to the (Indian) President that Myanmar takes our concerns in this regard as seriously as it takes its own concerns." This, according to international affairs analysts, is India's concerns over the Kyaukpyu port China is building in Myanmar. This is a port that will give China access to the Bay of Bengal to complement the Gwadar port Beijing has built in Pakistan that opens to the Arabian Sea. Besides, China is running the Hambantota port in Sri Lanka. The Indian establishment considers all these as China's efforts to throw the so-called "Ring of Pearls" around India. Interestingly, leading Indian newspaper The Times of India quoted unnamed Indian officials as saying that "they detected activities and construction in the (Kyaukpyu) port area that were not consistent with the stated intent of the project."
The question that is being asked is that with India having built the Sittwe port, Japan helping the construction of a special economic zone at the Thilawa port in Myanmar and a Japan-Thailand-Myanmar SEZ coming up in Dawei in south-eastern Myanmar, how much additional importance does the Kyaukpyu port hold for Myanmar's economic development? Myanmar, of course, has the right to leverage its strategic locations as far as its ties with India and China are concerned. The issue for New Delhi is to what extent Naypyidaw will address the former's sensitivities especially on the strategic front. One thing is clear: India is slowly but steadily building up its profile in Myanmar.
Pallab Bhattacharya is a special correspondent at The Daily Star.