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Retired General JJ Singh Speak at Look East Summit 2010 at Kolkata

Itanagar March 27: I deem it a matter of pride and privilege to be here amongst you all today to share my views on the Look East initiatives of India and hear from distinguished speakers on the subject. It is only befitting that this summit is being held at Kolkata – a city which has always been at the center-stage for all development initiatives for the North-Eastern States. As we complete almost twenty years of the Look East Policy, it is an opportune moment to reflect and introspect on the progress that we have achieved vis-à-vis our stated objectives and take stock of the benefits that have flown to the country in this while. As I represent the pristine State of Arunachal Pradesh, a strategic Frontier State whose engagement is critical for the success of the Look East Policy, I would like to focus on the relevance of Arunachal Pradesh in particular, and the North-East in general, for the success of the Look East Policy.

Theoretically, India can pursue a successful Look East Policy even without engaging the North-East as most of the volume of trade with South-East Asia, as of now, is through sea-routes. It seems that such an understanding or conviction was the precise reason that when India launched the Look East Policy in 1991, the important and critical role of the North-East was not fully recognized. And this also seems to be the precise reason that we have very little to include on the ‘Credits' as we sit down and draw up a Balance Sheet on the Look East Policy and its benefits for the North-East.

At this stage, let me put forth three basic assertions. Centuries of civilization have taught us that land connectivity is an imperative for seamless integration of economies and societies. While air and sea connectivity can cater for relatively minor proportions of movement of people and goods, it is the connectivity through roads and rails that makes bulk movement possible. Secondly, races which are ethnically and culturally similar will always find it easier to connect, communicate and trade as compared to disjoint cultural groups. And thirdly, for a developing country, basic economic analysis will tell us that any policy which is demand driven has a higher probability of being successful than one driven solely by supply.

I am sure therefore that you would agree that India has to Look East also through the North-East. The North Eastern Region Vision 2020 document has correctly identified that South-East Asia begins where North-East of India ends, and therefore it has to play the arrow-head role in further evolution of this policy. This part of the country has 98% of its land boundaries with International neighbors, and is connected to the rest of the country with a 22 km wide corridor in the vicinity of Siliguri. This region is not only land-locked, but also locked in a vicious cycle of low growth rate. But its 1640 km long border with Myanmar, the gateway to South-East Asia provides us with exciting opportunities to foster new relations, whether trade-related or otherwise with our neighbors in this part of the World. As the Vision 2020 document mentions, the 39 million people of this region have an ambitious vision – by 2020, they aspire to see their region emerge peaceful, strong, confident and ready to engage with the global economy.

The North-East comprises about 8% of the land-area and 3% of the population of the Country. It is a complex region, with many socio-culturally diverse ethnic groups who are generally speaking, physiologically and racially different from the Aryan races of North and the Dravidian races of the South. They share common origins with their neighbors of the South-East Asia and thus, this region has a distinct natural advantage in attempting integration of societies. These relations can not only be the edifice on which India builds its Look East Policy but can also be an opportunity to our brethren of the North-East in looking for a golden future by exploiting the roots of their glorious past.

The ministry of DoNER has rightly identified this as a potential area for inclusion under the Look East Policy and has been advocating exchange programmes between students of North-East India and South East Asia. At the same time, the proposal for teaching South-East Asian Languages in North-Eastern Universities and providing seats to students from SE Asia in prestigious Indian Institutes of Academic Excellence like the IITs and IIMs is being examined. The culturally similar backgrounds can also be used to develop a pan-regional Budhist circuit in Arunachal Pradesh or Sikkim by linking other Budhhist destinations like Nepal, Bhutan and Tibet Autonomous Region.

The people of North-East today have to transport many essential items of daily use from the main-land through a long route at immense transportation costs with a result that they become prohibitively expensive by the time they reach this part of the Country. However, many of these products like pulses, poultry items and grains can easily be procured from Bangladesh which will greatly reduce their sale price. Thailand and Myanmar can supply a variety of other products at much lower prices. Once we allow this, the enormous demand that will be generated in the North-East will ensure that the initiative becomes self-sustaining. Today, most of the goods from ASEAN countries flow into India through the much longer sea-route to Kolkata and other ports on the Eastern Coast. Once the land route through North-East opens, the sheer volume of trade, reduced transportation costs and much lower time overruns will ensure a fall in prices and the corresponding surge in demand in the rest of the country as well. We cannot make a policy successful by imposing it on people; it will be successful only when it is driven by demand. To generate this demand, North-East has to be the focal point of the Look East Policy.

This brings me to the equally important issue of connectivity. If we draw a circle with a radius of a 1000 km around Gauhati, it comprises many countries of South-East Asia, namely Bhutan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and some provinces of China. Interestingly, Delhi would lie outside that circle. So for ensuring connectivity, whether it is a hub-and-spoke air connectivity model or rail or road networks, Guwahati becomes an automatic choice. In our efforts towards improving connectivity, road connectivity should get the highest priority. The proposals for Asian Highway Link Road and connecting the rail networks of India and Myanmar at Dibrugarh railhead have to be taken up on highest priority. So is the proposal for the bus service from Gauhati to Yangon. While we have already developed a 160 kms highway linking Tamu in Manipur to Kaleywa in Myanmar. This road has now connected Tamu to Mandalay and is called the India-Myanmar friendship road. It has been financed entirely by the Ministry of External affairs and constructed by the Border roads organization. Now we need to focus on developing the historic Stilwell road which connected Ledo in Assam with Myitkina in Myanmar, and linked up with Yunnan province of China. Through this road, which lies partly in Arunachal Pradesh, we are just 650 km away from the Yunnan Border east of Bhamo in Kachin State. The Chinese borders being only about 15 hours of road journey away from our border will offer us tremendous opportunities of trade and cooperation. This 1600 km road will also offer a considerable distance advantage over the existing Mandalay highway. It will also bring in associated benefits like revival of formal border trade from the Pangsau Pass in Changlang District of Arunachal Pradesh. As timber (mainly teak) will be the major item of import through this Border Post, it will not only help revive many of the wood-based industries in Assam and Arunachal Pradesh which had to be shut down following the Apex Court's restrictions on timber operations in 1996.

Myanmar, which shares a border of 1640 km with us, and a sea board of 1930 km in the Bay of Bengal, will continue to be the lynch-pin for the success of our Look East Policy, because of its strategic location. India is the largest export market for Myanmar today. We cannot ignore connectivity potential of such dimensions. We need to realize that the changes taking place in the socio-economic scenario of our eastern neighbor are of a nature which can greatly facilitate trade relations between the two countries. With Myanmar becoming a full member of ASEAN in 1997, we have taken up projects like Kaladan multi-modal transport project, the ISRO Data processing center at Yangon and the high-speed data link project in 32 cities of Myanmar. This co-operation needs to be strengthened further based on mutual interests and benefits. However, given the geographical, security and political challenges of the region, this is not going to be an easy task. It would also be critical to address the challenges of border management especially with regard to cross-border migration, terrorism, drugs, arms supply and other forms of non-conventional security hazards whose threat level may increase with more open and increased movements across the Border.

Myanmar is also important for us from security point of view. Peace is a pre-requisite for development and my previous suggestions of demand driven and land-connectivity based approach cannot take off on ground unless we establish peace in the disturbed North-East of India. Look east can come in handy here as well. Many of the insurgent groups operating on the Indian take illegal shelter in Myanmar whenever our forces pursue them. This includes some of the terrorist groups operating in Arunachal Pradesh as well. While, we have had significant success in jointly working with Bhutan and Bangladesh in turning the heat on such groups, we need to do the same with Myanmar as well.

Including strategic co-operation in the Look East Policy will have to be a very tight rope-walk. The unambiguous message to the rest of the word before attempting any such integration is that this cooperation is for strengthening our internal security and for jointly fighting terrorist groups which operate across the borders and is not aimed against any third country.

One important potential area of cooperation under the Look East Policy which hitherto remains unexplored is energy security. Arunachal Pradesh is blessed to be drained by atleast eight major river basins and its mighty rivers have a potential of producing almost 56,000 MW of hydropower. About 34,800 MW of this capacity has been allotted to various power developers by the State Govt. and this output is likely to be realized by 2018. Feeding the excess power into a South-East Asian power grid and trading natural gas from countries like Myanmar in return would be an idea worth pondering on. We need to seek cooperation with Bangladesh to provide a corridor for the proposed Indo-Myanmar gas pipeline, access to Chittagong port and a land route through its territory in exchange of a determined wattage of hydro-power. We stand to earn valuable foreign exchange through such transactions which can be used to set up greenfield power projects in other parts of the country.

Our industry today is a mature and progressive industry and it is necessary that it should take a lead in pressing the government to forge new trade links and to strengthen the existing ones. It now has to give up its fear of competition and its reluctance to accept inclusion of new items under the Free Trade Agreement with ASEAN. We also have to push for the inclusion of Services in the India-ASEAN FTA as right now, only ‘goods', where South East Asia has a natural advantage are included in the Agreement. The entire gamut of services, where India has a competitive advantage has been left out.

In this important summit today, we have the privilege of the presence of national leaders, intelligentsia, opinion-makers and industry captains. The role of the academia is to conceptualize the idea of regional cooperation, that of the governments is to facilitate the process and that of industries and businesses is to implement this grand design on the basis of equality and mutual benefit. This is a challenging task but we can definitely make a beginning by first addressing issues which are within our control. For example, when one has to travel from one north-eastern state capital to another, what is the justification to come all the way to Kolkata and then re-enter north-east? Why don't we have a dedicated intra north-east airline connecting the state capitals? Several land customs stations are not being operationalised because some state govts are not able to provide adequate land, and in the case of a LCS at Pangsau pass where all required infrastructure has been established, border trade has yet to see the light of the day? We have to seriously address such issues.

A nation of one billion people cannot abdicate its responsibility towards the world community. We would like India to be counted among the leading nations of the world and work towards a more harmonious regional relationship with mutual confidence. Moreover, as very aptly brought out by Lord Powell at the IISS-Citi India Forum in Apr 2008, “India cannot confidently reach out to the wider world unless it first stabilises its immediate neighbourhood.” Hence, we owe it to the people of the region and our own citizens to take the lead for the creation of a peaceful regional environment. And, to conclude, we must work closely with other nations to meet new global challenges, and pursue the common goal of peace, stability, security and economic prosperity of our nation, the region and the world

The Look East Policy today is an economic and political inevitability. I recall our Hon'ble Finance Minister Sh. Pranab Mukherji's statement on 31st Oct. 2007 as the then External Affairs Minister of India – ‘as a part of our Look East Policy certain diplomatic and political structures and arrangements have been put in place in the last 15 years. These have shown positive results but not specifically for the North Eastern States. We will now focus more on the North Eastern States.'

Today, this summit will provide a platform for assessing our progress on these fronts and evolving policy guidelines for the future. We have now ‘looked' for almost twenty years – it is now time for more action, particularly for the North Eastern states. I am sure that the distinguished speakers here will share their thoughts, ignite some sparks and help us to introspect on the road-map for furthering our Look East Policy. I shall be glad if the proceedings of the summit are documented and shared with the Central and State governments and industry leaders, thus enabling them to take appropriate steps. With these words, I wish the organizers and the participants well, and the summit a grand success. Jai Arunachal. Jai Hind