Article

Negotiating Transnational Identities on Indo-Myanmar BorderThe Trade Factor

Sukanya Sharmasukanya@iitg.ernet.in

Abstract

The identity of the people in the Indo-Myanmar border in Northeast India is that they belong to the Indo-Mongoloid racial stock and speak languages belonging to the Tibeto-Burman group. Most of these groups trace their origin to some part of Southeast Asia. The historical routes both constrain and empower movements across borders and cultures. But traffic across borders has been controlled by the articulation of homelands or safe spaces assigned to a group of a particular identity. Inspite of political division, the ethnically and culturally similar people inhabiting both sides of the international border have maintained constant cross-border movements. It is a shared landscape divided politically. This people with lives on both sides of the international border often find themselves victimised for crimes against the state. For this people besides the territorial road, there is also an extraterritorial road to the other side of the political border. This is a reality which is the basis of their identity. This article proposes a framework for international trade between ‘local border points’ in the Indo-Myanmar border, where only the residents in immediately neighbouring provinces/states can cross borders and trade freely. It is a hope that this will negotiate the conversion of a common shared space to a transnational space in this globalised world.

Keywords

Identity, trade, Indo-Myanmar, border, transnational and territorial linkages

In the Jewish landscape, as it is represented in Yiddish literature, ‘the road’ snakes its way through the surrounding landscape and suggests two distinct ideas. The first is the ‘territorial’ road as the physical path that crosses the land where the Jews live. The second is the ‘extraterritorial’ eternal Jewish road of the Galut, and the road becomes a means to symbolise how ‘wandering’ marks the path of the Jews, marked by the path of the road. For the Jews the mythic road, as Galut intersected with the territorial, physical road, makes the Jews move through both historical and mytho-poetic time and space (Robertson 2003: 114). There is a juxtaposition of the mythic and the real road. But all landscapes, whether real or imagined, are representational. They all form part of the medium through which we make sense of things and through which meaning is produced and exchanged (Hall 1997: 180). We cannot privilege the ma-terial landscape as being somehow more important and meaningful than landscape depicted in works of art, on film, in novels or even in music. All these are important when we come to think about how people make sense of who they are and the social relations that structure their lives (Robertson 2003: 121). One

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© 2011 Indian Council of World Affairs (ICWA)

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of the most powerful arguments about identity rests on ideas connected with how we come to know ourselves and define others, and in particular how the process of marking oneself as having the same identity as one group of people also entails marking oneself as different from some others.

The identity of the people in the Indo-Myanmar border in Northeast India is that they belong to the Indo-Mongoloid racial stock and speak languages belonging to the Tibeto-Burman group. Most of these groups trace their origin to some part of Southeast Asia. The historical routes both constrain and empower movements across borders and cultures. But traffic across borders has been controlled by the articulation of homelands or safe spaces assigned to a group of a particular identity. The British in 1826 drew the boundary between India and Burma by signing the treaty of Yandaboo. All communities leaving on either side of the boundary were assigned the respective identities. These identities became more pro-found with the independence of India in 1947 and with the creation of Bangladesh in 1971. Today Northeast India is a triangular landmass, supposed to be landlocked. Ninety-eight per cent of Northeast India’s boundaries are international boundaries while it is connected to India by a narrow strip of land. This geopolitical location has given Northeast India an exclusive identity of its own. Contemporary literature defines majority of the Tibeto-Burman communities of Northeast India as ‘transnational’. For their physical–cultural difference with the majority of the communities of their safe space or homeland, their sense of being a people with historical roots and destinies outside time and space of the nation they are living in seems more legitimate to them and to the others.

The colonial rulers presented Northeast India as a frontier area, inhabited by wild tribes. Their reports talk about unfriendly thick forest, turbulent streams and lush green tea gardens. Large areas of the region were marked off as ‘unadministered’ or ‘excluded’ areas in the colonial map of India. Besides the inter-national boundary a line called the ‘Inner Line’ was drawn. The object of the ‘Inner Line’ was to define across this demarcating line, all tracts over which ‘semi-savage’ tribes wander, or in which they live. Such acts of control, maintaining coherent insides and outsides, are always tactical. A coherent inside comprising of the tea gardens, the ‘civilised’ citizens was created, while the coherent outside was the tract outside the line upon which ‘semi-savage’ tribes wander. This territorial division engineered in the nineteenth century created a social, cultural and most importantly a psychological divide in the minds of the people of the region and of the country. This colonial imagery of the region has travelled down with time. It created a cultural landscape where transnational identity formations germinated.

The Concern

‘The Home Ministry has sought a detailed report from the Manipur Government on the security aspect before introducing the Indo-Myanmar bus service’ (The Assam Tribune, 26 July 2007). This type of news reports expressing the Government of India’s concern about the security aspect in different matters in Northeast India is frequently seen. Economists have often cited it as one of the prime factors hampering industrial development of the region. But this concern is a century old concern like ‘the idea of building a road link and extending trading activities to Southeast Asia through the northeast of India’ (Sharma 2005). In the beginning of the nineteenth century, the extreme east, that is, the territories situated between British India and the Burmese territories, was a matter of concern for the British. It was feared that the inhabitants might at any moment join an invader from other side of the hill (Barpujari 1996: 20). It was also thought that the French might attack the British empire in this frontier. This is very similar to the

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Chinese threat which hangs over Northeast India today. The inhabitants of the region especially the hill dwellers were often engaged in skirmishes among themselves or with British subjects of the region. The feelings of the inhabitants were outraged by the encroachments on the so-called wastelands for tea plantations and reserved forests by the British. But they became intensely suspicious of British actions when even legitimate lands, like the Matak area, were grabbed as it was found to be suitable for growing tea. The British were aware of this unhappiness for which the security concern arose. The ‘Inner Line’ regulation was introduced in 1873 (Bose 1979: 102–03). The object of the ‘Inner Line’ was to define across this demarcating line, all tracts over which ‘semi-savage’ tribes wander, or in which they live. If any tea garden fell outside the line, the commissioner should consider how they could be treated; but the lieutenant governor could however stretch the point in favour of any old-established frontier gardens, and bring them inside the line (Government of Assam 1872–73).1 Thus, the Inner Line was the result of the concern for security of the tea gardens. The strength of the Frontier Constabulary was increased. During Ahom rule, only nine companies of police were used to keep vigil in the border areas, but under the British rule each company was raised to battalion strength.

Security, thus, was a problem then, and security is a problem now. But the concerns of a colonial power with their own agenda are legitimate. The matter of concern now is its continuance in post-colonial times. This concern does not acknowledge the cultural landscape with transnational identities.

The Cultural Landscape

The land in which we live both shapes us and we shape it physically by means of cultivation and building, and imaginatively by projecting on to it our aspirations and fantasies of wealth, refuge, well-being, awe, danger and consolation…land is transformed into landscape-strategies for organizing civilization and settlement. (Robertson and Richards 2003: 1)

Carl Sauer in 1925 opined that landscape shaping is by no means thought of as simply physical. It is an area made up of a distinct association of forms, both physical and cultural (as cited in Robertson and Richards 2003: 2).

Geographically Northeast India is described as the northwestern borderlands of Southeast Asia and the northeastern borderlands of South Asia (Schendel 2002: 647). The landscape from Northeast India to Vietnam is dotted with the wet rice cultivating fields and the shifting cultivator’s plots on the slopes of the steep hills. Landscape paintings and photographs depicting bamboo or wooden platform houses besides plots of wet rice cultivation with the cultivators having Mongolian physical features and wearing conical caps can be situated anywhere between Northeast India and Vietnam. I have the personal experi-ence of a graduate student from IIT Guwahati, giving a presentation on shifting cultivation in Northeast India, trying to pass off a photograph of a shifting cultivator from Indonesia slashing the jungle as an imagery from Nagaland. On the basis of the dress I said this is not a Naga cultivator, to which he replied that besides that there is no other mistake in the photograph. By this he invariably meant the cultural landscape.

In the list of 22 importable items from Myanmar, prepared by the Government of India, rice is not included. For centuries Manipuris, Nagas, Mizos and so many other groups in Northeast India have sustained on Myanmarese (Burmese) rice. Rice is not just a grain for this people. It has high symbolic

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value. Absence of this item has created a void in the cultural life of the inhabitants of the area. Today, it is still acquired through ‘informal trade’, a phrase used in lieu of smuggling. For security concerns and to preserve the identity of the safe space or homeland these regulations are made. But we cannot privilege the material landscape as being somehow more important and meaningful and ignore the cultural landscape.

It is also the region where two climatic zones meet, the monsoonal tropics and the tropical rain-forests zone. This geographical character of the region has led to the synthesis of two types of cultural traits, Southeast Asian and Indian. These are adaptability conditions indigenous to the region (Sharma 2007a: 1). This type of areas in area studies today are called ‘interstitial zones’ that function ‘almost like hybrid regions in their own right’ (as cited in Schendel 2002: 662). Northeast India can also be called an interstitial zone with a hybrid culture as a result of the convergence of different racial groups like the proto-Australoid, Australoids, Indo-Aryan and Indo-Mongolian, and different language groups like Indo-Aryan, Dravidian, Tibeto-Burman, Mon-Khmer, and so on and so forth. Amongst this the Indo-Mongoloids are the most recent migrants. Offshoots of the major Southeast Asian communities like the Tai’s, the Kachins inhabiting different parts of Northeast India are bound to have cultural affinities with their kins residing in Thailand, Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, etc. During community festivals, members of these communities still sneak into the neighbouring countries illegally. This can be interpreted as a right exercised by this people upon their cultural space which has been infringed upon by the political state.

Certain Issues

‘A promising way of developing a historically more complete and theoretically richer sense of the inter-connections between areas is to start from objects and people in transnational movement’ (Schendel 2002: 662).

In spite of political division, the ethnically and culturally similar people inhabiting both sides of the international border have maintained constant cross-border movements. It is a shared landscape divided politically. Daily, people from Moreh, in Manipur, cross over the border and go from one household to another in Myanmarese villages to sell kerosene, lungi and salt. Similarly, vendors from Myanmar come to Moreh bringing fish, cereals, flower plants, charcoal and rice. The major supply of rice in the Moreh sub-division comes from Myanmar.

There are some areas which are inaccessible from the Indian side because of their geographical location. One such village is Poi in Manipur. It is the last village on the Indian side of the international border and is located 152 km north of Imphal. During the rainy season, Poi remains cut off from India as there is no bridge over the river Chellou which has to be crossed to reach Poi from the Indian side. But from the Myanmarese side the connectivity is good. Myanmarese villagers bring chicken, buffaloes and pigs daily to exchange with salt and other necessities available at Poi.

Myanmarese citizens residing along the Indo-Myanmar border areas in Manipur often seek help from their Indian neighbours for the treatment of drug addicts. Drug addiction and spread of HIV virus are some problems common both on the Indian and the Myanmarese side. Curing the problem on one side of the border will never be effective because it can easily get polluted from the other side. There are students from Namphalong and Tamu of Myanmar coming to schools in Moreh to study. There are also

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teachers from Myanmar teaching in Moreh schools. In fact, some of the schools in Moreh have started teaching Myanmarese language. Political analysts of the region have often opined that there are many areas of cooperation of non-lethal nature like health and education. Myanmar has one of the highest incidence of HIV cases in Asia. Besides lacking expertise, the country is short of medicines and drugs. Perhaps India can help (Kuppuswamy 2000).

People in these transnational movements will seek to write their own landscape in their own image, in accordance with their own view of the way in which the world should be organised (Robertson and Richards 2003: 4). For the people of Moreh, Tamu and Namphalong, the vegetable vendor from Tamu, the school in Moreh, the fresh fish vendor from Namphalong or the AIDS counsellor from Imphal are images in their own landscape. Landscape projects and communicates this view to the remainder of society. The society accepts this view as natural and it travels down with time. But when the political states outlaw these flows, it nullifies the cultural landscape.

Steps are also being taken to fence the Indo-Myanmar border. People of the area are obviously not happy with it. They are worried that they may not be able to procure the Myanmarese rice, their staple food. Even if it is imported legally for them by the Government of India prices might go up. Can the government supply these people with these daily necessities regularly? Is transporting these things like fodder for their cattle, fresh fish and vegetables from rest of India logical when it is available next door? Do we need to nullify the cultural landscape? This cultural underpinning of society helps emotional integration and smoother evolution of a socio-political consensus which is vital for nation-building (Kharat 2007).

A Scheme

The idea to develop territorial links between India and Southeast Asia through Northeast India and Myanmar is novel. The objectives of the Look East Policy to liberate Northeast India from its economic imprisonment by promoting trade with Southeast Asia through Myanmar are more than a decade old. But the policy has not delivered any concrete economic gains to the Northeast Indian states. News about delegations from Thailand and Myanmar visiting Northeast India in search of avenues for trade is often seen in the newspapers. Road-building activities in some points of the border have also been intensified to link them with the roads on the Myanmarese side. The Moreh–Tamu road link already exists. Other connections from Mizoram, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh will also soon become a reality. With the territorial road, the authority of the political state will also become stronger in these areas. This presence of authority in this shared space will have its own implications.

For instance, Moreh in Manipur is a Second World War township, which developed into a trading hub because of certain favourable circumstances. Moreh was or still is a vibrant trading township. The volume of trade in the first quarter of 2006–07 (April–June) amounted to 2.91 million dollars. The aver-age annual volume of trade through Moreh is estimated at `250 million. However, the unofficial or illegal trade volume between the two countries lies around `15 billion. It was much higher in the 1990s decade. In January 1994 the first border trade agreement was signed between India and Myanmar. It was implemented in April 1995 with the opening of the Land Custom Station (LCS) in Moreh, Manipur, India and correspondingly with Tamu, Sagaing sub-division, Myanmar. The volume of trade in Moreh

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then was 300 truckloads of goods per day. This constituted of automobile parts, bicycle, ready-made garments, lungis, food products, etc. The list is unending. For a few years till 1998–99, a good average was maintained. But slowly it dwindled. Today in Myanmar Chinese goods are more in demand than Indian goods because of affordable price and importing from China is easier.

Barter or the exchange of goods was the most preferred mechanism of trade in Moreh. With the setting up of the LCS this became difficult. Majority of the import and export licence holders in Moreh are illiterate. They do not have much sense about import–export rules nor are they bothered about it. In the pre-LCS situation, one can contact an importer and exporter and import things, choose the goods from the list and import by spending only `2,000 per consignment as commission of hiring the import licence. In the pre-LCS days even with legal taxes, illegal taxes, extortion, etc., trade could go on because they had evolved a technique by which these extra charges were covered.

The expected buyer who is from Jalandhar, Mumbai or Cuttack come to Moreh or send their agents to survey the Myanmar market across the border. Then they negotiate with the direct licence holding import party (the brokers in the Border Security Force gates) at Moreh for further arrangements of the goods on behalf of them. This import or export party would then act as mediators between the Myanmarese party and the actual buyer party from India. They would fix the price in such a way that it covered the charges on transportation to be paid by the buyer which included illegal taxes, etc. The sale bill receipt was made in the form of import value + 4 per cent Central Sales Tax + minimum commission for handling the goods. During this negotiation it was considered very important that all the three parties, the one from Myanmar, the mediator from Moreh and the Indian bussinessman agree and are happy with the amount fixed for the commodity. A business firm from Mumbai might send its agent three months ahead with the order for the goods they want. The broker in Moreh will give a date when he or she must come for the goods may be again three months later. Exactly on the date when the agent arrives the goods will be ready in the price he or she wanted. There was no telephone connectivity or any other means by which these dates or timings could be communicated. But just on the ideals of faith and belief this mechanism operated.

The Myanmarese traders are also not willing to obey the Indian custom regulations because of the difference in currency. Moneylenders in Moreh exchanged `1 to 15–20 kyats unofficially while the official rate is 1 kyat that is equal to `7. Since the unofficial exchange rate of currency appears to benefit the Myanmarese traders they are not willing to transact business under the normal trade system with a letter of credit.

Myanmar’s traders no more find the market attractive. Items on the official list no more fulfil their needs. The Indian traders can legally import only the listed few items which are mustard seeds, pulses and beans, fresh vegetables, fruits, garlic, onion, chillies, spices, bamboo, tobacco, minor forest products, betel nuts and leaves, tomato, food items for local consumption, roasted sunflower seeds, reed broom, sesame, resin, coriander seeds, soya bean, katha and ginger. But before the trade was formalised, traders used to place demands to individual suppliers for any item they needed. Thus, items which were on demand were mostly brought to the market by the traders for which they could easily sell their goods.

With the attempt to formalise trade, the Government of India introduced a system which did not suit trading in Moreh. The traders have suffered. This might also happen to the schoolchildren, to the fresh fish and vegetable vendors and to the whole border community in general. For these people, besides the territorial road there is also an extraterritorial road to the other side of the political border. This is a reality which is the basis of their identity. To make sense of who they are with the presence of the political state

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getting stronger, they will have to negotiate their transnational identities. The cultural landscape which shaped their identity will be pushed to the oblivion. Can we afford that or does the state need that?

The state cannot replace this cultural landscape nor can they create it within their safe space. With a pragmatic approach can we initiate a regional integration concerning only the border communities and their villages? Regional integration has been defined as the joining of individual states within a region into a larger whole. But till now it is more to do with economics. This region is already a part of quite a few such integrations like the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral, Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC).Within these large initiatives, interest of the smaller groups are sidelined. Subversive activities as a result of infringement on their cultural landscape have the capacity to derail these larger initiatives. This integration on a much smaller scale concerning only the border communities between India and Myanmar can be a new initiative which will strengthen the region’s integration with the other regions of the world. It will prepare these communities to face globalisation which will come with the success of the larger initiatives.

The Smaller Initiative

The model of border trade developed in the Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS) concerning Cambodia–Laos–Myanmar–Vietnam can be adopted in developing border trade between Myanmar and Northeast India. This can be made exclusively between India and Myanmar. This type of regional trade agreements (RTAs) has been successful in a number of areas in the world. For example, Canada–United States Free Trade Agreement (FTA), Singapore–Korea (FTA) and Japan–Malaysia (FTA). For any RTA to be effective it should create a significant enough positive welfare effect on all the participating member countries and evenly distribute the gains from free trade. Also effectiveness of a policy for participating countries is a necessary condition to be satisfied. The Government of India will have to develop these policies for the RTA to work.

India and Myanmar have a trade agreement signed on 27 March 1970 which, inter alia, provides for according most favoured nation treatment to their mutual trade. But due to difficult political situations in Myanmar nothing much has been achieved on these lines. There are three approved LCSs on the Indo-Myanmar border. These are Moreh in Manipur, Champhai (Zokhawthar) in Mizoram and Nampong in Arunachal Pradesh. The corresponding stations in Myanmar are Moreh to Tamu, Champhai (Zokhawthar) to Rih and Nampong to Tenai.

Besides this, Myanmar and India have agreed to reactivate traditional trade across Nagaland through following five points:

India Myanmar1. Longwa (Mon District) Lahe Village (Sagaing Division)2. Pangsha (Tuensang District) Anyun Village (Sagaing Division)3. Mimi (Kiphire District) Layshi Village (Sagaing Division)4. Avangkhu (Phek District) Layshi Village (Sagaing Division)5. Molhe (Phek District) Somra Village (Sagaing Division)

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Besides this there are also other traditional trade routes. Some of these are still used by people and some have fallen into disuse. A few of these routes were converted to motorable roads during the Second World War. But after the war these roads were never maintained. After 1947 when this border became an international boundary movements were stopped.

Tamu, a town in Myanmar, is just 5 km from Moreh. India has already built a stretch of 169 km of road from Tamu to Kalewa. It is now known as the ‘friendship road’. By connecting the East-West Highway corridor that India is building from Gujarat to Northeast India with the ‘friendship road’ in Tamu through Moreh, India can establish a territorial link with Myanmar.

The LCS at Nampong in Changlang district of Arunachal Pradesh was inaugurated in March 2005. The distance from Nampong to Pangsau pass is 12 km. India has already built a highway to the Pangsau pass. From boundary pillar no. 173 on the Pangsau pass to Tenai, the nearest LCS on the Myanmar’s side, the distance is 161 km. The Myanmar government has recently established a market, the Pangsau Valley market very close to the border for facilitating cross-border trade. This indicates that the Myanmar’s authorities are also interested for starting trans-border trade through the Pangsau pass. Myitkyina, an important town in Upper Myanmar, is 341 km from the Pangsau pass.

Longwa village in the Mon district of Nagaland is divided into two halves by the boundary line between India and Myanmar. The Government of India has identified Longwa as one of the border points to be opened for trade. The adjacent trading point on the Myanmar’s side is Lahe village in the Sagaing division. Longwa is 42 km from Mon town. The distance from Sibasagar in Upper Assam to Mon town is 110 km. Sibasagar is 363 km from Guwahati city and is well connected by highway. The approximate distance from Guwahati to Longwa is 515 km or so. That is, it will take 12 to 14 hours to reach Lahe village in Myanmar by road from Guwahati. This route is possibly the shortest route to Myanmar from Guwahati which is the gateway to Northeast India. There is the scope to develop this road as an important passageway connecting Northeast India and Myanmar. It runs through a comparatively flat terrain. Connectivity with rest of India by air and railway already exists and these can be further developed. The distance to Dibrugarh, another important township in Upper Assam is approximately 222 km. Dibrugarh is well connected by air with rest of India. Thus, it has access to two airports, Guwahati and Dibrugarh. The nearest railway station is at Naginimora in Sibasagar district, which is 152 km from Longwa. By developing the infrastructure of the area, this route will be most convenient for passenger traffic to and from Myanmar. For Buddhist pilgrims visiting northern India from Myanmar or from North India to Myanmar, this route will be the shortest and the cheapest. This will also be convenient for the movement of goods as the transportation time and cost will be much lower than the other points mentioned earlier.

But besides these three major sectors some minor sectors can also be opened up for specific reasons. For example, the Avangkhung–Layshi connection mentioned in the foregoing list of sectors in Nagaland to be reactivated for traditional trade can be developed to a very profitable trading zone.

The Indo-Myanmar border point near Avangkhung village in Meluri sub-division under Phek district, Nagaland, is approximately 306 km from state capital Kohima and 378 km from Dimapur airport and railway station. The road from Kohima to Meluri is already declared as national highway and from Meluri to Phokhungri (EAC) post passing through Wazeho (marble and cement factory town), a distance of 64 km, is state highway. The road from Phokhungri to Avangkhung up to the Indo-Myanmar border point (18.5 km) is already approved and `8.28 crores has been sanctioned by the North East Council (NEC) and the construction is in progress. The Directorate of Industries and Commerce, Government of Nagaland, has constructed a marketing shed in the designated trade centre, 5 km from the Indo-Myanmar border to facilitate trading between Myanmar and the local people during the financial year 2003–04.

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But the most important fact about the area is that Meluri area in Phek district is designated as mineral belt by the Government of Nagaland. It has rich mineral resources such as limestone, marble, slate and copper–zinc–nickel. The Nagaland State Minerals Development Corporation has a cement factory (150 tonnes per day capacity) and Slate Tiles Factory at Vazeho. For bringing this cement to the Indian market, the Government of Nagaland has to pay high transportation cost which ultimately increases the price of the cement. On the Myanmar’s side also especially in the border areas of Sagaing division there is high demand for cement and the Myanmar’s authorities are interested in acquiring cement from the Meluri cement factory. For bringing cement from other parts of Myanmar, they have to pay high transportation cost. But the transportation cost from Meluri will be minimal for them. Road construction is already in progress on the Myanmar’s side with only about 4 km remaining to reach the border point. From the border point the road goes to Layshi, a major town in Myanmar in Sagaing division. Layshi is 16 km from the border point. From Layshi the road goes to Tamanthi, another major town which is about 65 km from Layshi. If the Government of India can facilitate the export of cement, marble, slate, etc., from Meluri to Myanmar by connecting the state highway from Meluri with the border road the Myanmar’s authorities are building from Layshi to the border, it will provide a big boost to the economy of this rich mineral belt. At present there is some amount of informal trade also going on in Avakhung (India) and Layshi (Myanmar). Items of trade are corrugated galvanised iron (CGI) sheets, medicines, fruits and vegetables, salt from India. From the Myanmar’s side the items are garments, fruits and vegetables, few electronic goods, shoes, perfumes, etc. (Sharma 2007b).

The Tiau River divides India and Myanmar in Mizoram. For making the Zokhawthar LCS operational, two bailey bridges are being built on the Tiau River. Otherwise also people can easily cross this river on foot. From the border people cross over to Rihdil on the Myanmar’s side. From Rihdil they can go up to Falam or Tidim and then to Kalemeo. Informal trade in a large scale is going on in this border. People cross over during any time of the day for buying commodities of daily use. Infrastructural developments are being made at Zokhawthar for facilitating trade between the two countries (Sharma 2007b).

But none of these areas have developed into major trading points even after certain infrastructural growth. The reasons are customs restrictions which are not trader friendly and also security reasons. In a brief prepared by the Terrorism and Internal Security Cluster of the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi, it was suggested that for developing cross-border trade in Northeast India a holistic approach should be devised which combines security, development, culture and foreign policy initiatives into a forward-looking time-bound programme of action. For border management in Northeast India it was suggested that:

1. The scope of Border Area Development Programme (BADP) should be enhanced and the connectivity of the borders with the hinterland should be improved.

2. Issuance of multi-purpose identity cards needs to be given high priority. 3. Cross-border linkages amongst population on both sides should be permitted but better regulated.4. Border trade between the populations on both sides should be encouraged and regulated. Border

haats/markets should be established.

Border area development programmes should be designed by the Government of India in collaboration with the local people and the security agencies operating in the area. Two areas which need immediate attention are education and health. The main focus should not be only formal education but education

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which would equip the villagers with knowledge about the market, about financial transactions, micro-credit, automobile repairing, for running hotels and restaurants, etc. Health issues must be given serious attention. Trading hubs have visitors from different parts of the world. There should be regular vaccination programmes for young and old, regular screening for identifying carriers of viruses like HIV AIDS, different flu viruses amongst visitors, etc. Governments of both India and Myanmar should invest for developing health and education infrastructure in these areas. Multi-purpose identity cards for border citizens only issued by the governments of both the countries would provide them the necessary security which they completely lack now.

The proposed initiative prepared on the lines of the Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS) border trade framework should begin by:

1. The signing of a Framework Agreement by Myanmar and India to Facilitate Cross-border Move-ment of Goods and Peoples in the Indo-Myanmar border. The agreement should cover all the relevant aspects of cross-border transport facilitation in one document, which must include:

single-stop/single-window customs inspection; cross-border movement of persons (that is, visas for persons engaged in transport operations); transit traffic regimes, including exemptions from physical customs inspection, bond deposit,

escort and agriculture and veterinary inspection; requirements those road vehicles will have to meet to be eligible for cross-border traffic; exchange of commercial traffic rights; and infrastructure, including road and bridge design standards, road signs and signals.

The agreement will apply to selected and mutually agreed upon routes and points of entry and exit in the signatory countries.

2. The other significant activity can be development of ‘economic corridors’ which refer to major hubs or centres of economic activities and exchanges in well-defined geographical areas, usually centred around transport routes or ‘transport corridors’ where infrastructure development and economic activities are integrated. One economic corridor can be assigned to each Indian border state and the corresponding Myanmarese state. For Arunachal Pradesh it can be Panchau pass, for Nagaland it can be Longwa, for Manipur it can be Moreh and for Mizoram it can be Zokhathawar.

The proposed framework advocates international trade between ‘local border points’ in the Indo-Myanmar border, where only the residents in immediately neighbouring provinces/states can cross borders and trade freely. If people of neighbouring countries can live together, sharing resources and opportunities, there will be regional peace, security, economic prosperity and development. A constant dialogue between the political space and the cultural landscape will develop and this will negotiate the conversion of a common shared space to a transnational space in this globalised world.

Conclusion

This small economic initiative might make it possible to build the ‘extraterrestrial’ mythical road and legitimise the use of the cultural space by the inhabitants of the region. The international boundary

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between the two nations created spaces popularly referred as borders or frontiers. As identities are wholly social constructions and cannot ‘exist’ outside of cultural representations that constitute rather than ex-press identity, this border or frontier tag got attached with the descriptions of individuals of the area. This is plasticity of identity, but subsequently, it is from the plasticity of identity that its political significance flows, for contestations over identity and subjectivity concerns the kinds of people we are becoming. This identity in the Indo-Myanmar border was formed in relation to ‘significant’ others that are the two nation-states India and Myanmar. They mediated to the subject, who are the inhabitants along the border, the values, meaning and symbols, the culture of the worlds he or she inhabited. The internalisation of social values and roles stabilises the individual and ensures that individual persons ‘fit’ the social structure by being stitched or ‘sutured’ into it. In the shared space along the border this internalisation has happened, but because of the existence of two social structures, one of the nation-state and the other of the shared space there is a doubt. Is the individual stitched or ‘sutured’ to the social structure of the nation-state or the shared space? It is a dilemma also for the inhabitants of the area and a tragedy that most of the time their loyalty is doubted by the nation-state. In such a situation the ‘mythical connections’ is being used to justify the use of the common shared space. It is used like a soft resource but we have seen this has not been beneficial. Modern nation-states do not agree or accommodate these spaces if they are outside the political boundaries.

With the nation-states making attempts to build new connectivities to the area, these doubts make the physical roads bumpy. The intersection of the extraterrestrial and the physical road seems to be impossible. Connectivities are being developed for economical reasons. Can we use economics itself to make the road smooth? The decentred or post-modern self involves the subject in shifting, fragmented and multiple identities. Persons are composed not of one but of several, sometimes contradictory, identities and identities shift according to how subjects are addressed or represented (Hall 1992: 277). The rest of the world identifies them either as Indians or Myanmarese in the shared space, but in their own vocabulary these words are not used. For the villagers of Poi they are not making a trip to Myanmar when they go to the market crossing Chellou River. During certain parts of the year that is the only option they have. The vegetable vendor from Tamu is not referred as Burmese or Myanmarese by the people of Moreh, or the school in Moreh is not referred as an Indian school. Same is the case with the fresh fish vendor from Namphalong or the AIDS counsellor from Imphal. This should not be confused with ethno-nationalism or secessionist tendencies. Rather they are the articulation of identities based on similarity of experience. While sharing certain common conditions of existence common signifiers develop. This defines their identity in the common shared space. With the conversion of this common shared space to a transnational space after the opening of trading points, after this is linked with transnational transport networks like the trans-Asian highway, trans-Asian railway, trans-Asian oil pipelines, etc., a new com-ponent will be added to their identity. With this new component the vegetable vendor from Tamu, the fish vendor from Namphalong or the villagers of Poi may not be able to continue their movements, because the presence of the state will be stronger. As a result, people in Champhai, Nampong, Moreh and other border towns will be forced to buy vegetables from Bihar, Uttar Pradesh or other parts of India brought in trucks. It will cost them more for the transportation cost and also the transportation taken will reduce its nutritive value. In the other sectors also like health and education the story is same. This is resented and there is always a longing to connect to the shared space or the cultural space which ultimately is traced to mythical connectivities. Thus, it is clear that people require the shared space mainly for eco-nomical reasons, but with economics social relationships also materialise. They require an identity which

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64 Sukanya Sharma

will not criminalise their movements in the shared space. As proposed earlier by issuing multi-purpose identity cards to the border residents both the nation-states, India and Myanmar, can give them this security. Maintaining the sanctity of these cards must be the duty of the communities. Both the nation-states might fear recognising this identity or cultural space which is created by economics but politically negotiating it will add a new chapter in the nation-building process of India and Myanmar.

Note

1. List of files consulted from the Assam State Archives: Government of Assam: (a) 1872–73 Assam Secretariat File No. 320 (Bengal Office) Regulation under Act XXXIII VC, Cap 3 for Eastern Frontier District; (b) 1868 Assam Commissioner’s Papers File No. 650 Sl No. 1 Sub: Journey of Mr Cooper from China to Calcutta via Sadiya; and (c) 1860 Commissioners Office File No 427 Sub: Correspondence regarding the roads and defence on the Abor Frontier. Government of Bengal: (a) 1849 Bengal Government Papers File No. 361 (of the Assam State Archives) Sl No. –1-6 Subject: Deputation of Mr Lum Ping Young for inducing Chinese merchants to visit Assam; (b) 1861 Bengal Government Papers Sl No. 1 File No. 369 (of the Assam State Archives) Sub: Route to China; (c) 1873 Government of Bengal File No. 325 (of the Assam State Archives) Papers-2 Sub: Relation with Certain Assam Tribes.

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(pp. 274–316). Cambridge: Polity Press.———. 1996. ‘Who needs identity?’ in S. Hall and P. Du Gay (eds), Questions of cultural identity (pp. 13–31).

London: SAGE Publications.Hall, S. (ed.). 1997. Representation—Cultural representation and signifying practices. London: SAGE Publications.Kharat, R. 2007. ‘Nation building process in Bhutan’, in J.P. Neelsen and D. Malik (eds), Crisis of state and nation

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from www.saag.orgNeelsen, John P. and Malik, Dipak (eds). 2007. Crisis of state and nation. New Delhi: Manohar.Robertson, I. and Richards, P. (eds). 2003. Studying cultural landscapes. London: Arnold.Schendel, W van. 2002. Geographies of knowing and geographies of ignorance: Jumping scale in Southeast Asia.

Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 20, 647–68.Sharma, S. 2005. Building roads to Myanmar. Economic and Political Weekly, 40(48), 26 November.———. 2007a. Celts, flakes and bifaces: The Garo Hills story. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports.———. 2007b. Roads, routes and trade in the Indo-Myanmar Border. Journal of North-East India Council for Social

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Sukanya Sharma is Assistant Professor, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati.

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