An estimated 4 million people have been displaced and pushed further into poverty in Myanmar since 2021.
The suffering of Myanmar’s people along with those in Bangladesh and Nepal knows no bounds.
The 'changed' Bangladesh is not really changed. It has turned more fanatical and economy has gone into shambles. In Nepal, the damage done cannot be rectified perhaps in next 10 years.
Thousands of civilians have died in the region since Covid19.
The coup in Myanmar also resulted thousands being held without trial. In Bangladesh, thousands have been rendered homeless and many killed.
What's India doing ? What the RIC - the combo of three eminent players Russia, India and China can do ?
After an earthquake struck in March this year, junta forces in Myanmar continued airstrikes, ignoring a supposed ceasefire.
Even emergency aid was blocked. A UN investigators said summary executions and the “systematic torture” of detainees, including burning of genitals, gang-rape, strangulation, beatings and electric shocks, were part of “a pattern of atrocities which is intensifying across the country”.
Among Indian states, a good number of ethnic people from Myanmar shifted to Mizoram and Manipur. In 2023, the ethnic clash in Manipur is also attributed to the fact that things were not properly handled when they were supposed to.
The India-Myanmar borderlands are home to communities divided by colonial-era boundaries.
But there is a big emotional chord working among Kuki-Zo people as well as Nagas.
These regions united by kinship, ethno-language, and faith.
Mizos in India and Chins in Myanmar share long-standing ties. Nagas tried for a Nagalim.
More than four-and-a-half years after Myanmar’s February 2021 coup, violence shows no sign of abating.
Over 83,000 people have fled into neighboring India, mostly to Mizoram.
Some of the data we have here is of around 2022-23. But they tell you the pattern and the dimension of security matters.
The central government is seeking assistance from state authorities in Mizoram, Nagaland, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh for cross checking certain information and analysing things effectively to put them in proper perspective.
In 2022, over 8,000 'intruders' Myanmar taking refuge in Mizoram-Myanmar border Champhai district were issued identity cards as 'Myanmar nationals in India' by the local district administration. An estimated 30,000 Myanmar people (2022) including a large number of children and school students have taken shelter in India's Christian dominated Mizoram state in the north east of India since February 2021 coup.
According to officials at the Disaster Management and Rehabilitation, Champhai district, profiling of 8,279 people have been completed (2022) while it is estimated that over 10,000 intruders from violence-hit South East Asian country reportedly took shelter in the district.
In Mizoram and parts of Manipur; the local solidarity has allowed refugees to survive, shrinking resources and fractured resistance politics increasingly determine who receive support.
One must try to understand how Myanmar crisis can actually reverberate into one of South Asia’s most at-risk frontiers.
The fragility of borderland is linked to humanitarianism.
Isolated, neglected, violence-wracked Myanmar suffers from all these ills.
An article in 'The Guardian' says - Myanmar holds up a mirror to a world of pain.
Viewed in this global context, the situation in Myanmar represents a test of the dwindling capacity of the UN-led system.
It’s a test the UN and other international system and global players are failing miserably. Some of it looks intentional.
And when it comes to China and Russia, and increasingly Donald Trump, the failure is obvious in more ways than one. As happens with several conflict zones across the globe; Myanmar is a largely un-observed, international disgrace.
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| Longwa: Nagaland bordering Myanmar |
Bangladesh, earlier a part of Pakistan from 1947-1971, gained its independence as a sovereign independent country in 1971 with the help of India. Sheikh Hasina did recognise that but those who toppled her and took over powers feel -- all of it came on a platter.
The ungratefulness is an element - the strategic experts have deliberately ignored from closer scrutiny. No; I am not talking about religion or so-called perceived Muslim mindset.
But we have to talk of the perception battle that New Delhi simply forgot to carry out since 1971.
In 2024, an over confident Sheikh Hasina-led Awami League came back to power.
More than 130 people died in what was a student protest against the quotas in government jobs.
The student protesters demanded jobs based on merit and not on quotas. These government job quotas were facing severe criticism for being archaic and prone to abuse, since the major beneficiaries were mainly the descendants of freedom fighters in Bangladesh -- that is the Awami League supporters.
But that's not it; these protests emerged at a critical juncture.
The opposition parties had boycotted the 2024 election. Bangladesh was already facing massive unemployment. The protests escalated even more with her remarks that labeled the protesters as Razakars and the crackdown by the police on these protests.
India shares the longest border with Bangladesh in its neighborhood - 4096.7 km long. It is guarded by the Border Security Force (BSF).
Perhaps the biggest concern for India in relation to the present crisis is the possibility of tensions in the north-eastern states of India in case of infiltration by the Bangladeshis.
Pradyot Bikram Manikya Deb Barma of Tipra Motha is speaking about "Thoko Bangladesh". He has his compulsion too.
"The Chittagong port is essential for economic survival .... not Tripura (alone) but whole of north east".
He is being pragmatic to a large extent; but he is also being more than a BJP kind of nationalist.
'Support' or role of China is always crucial in episodes and power struggles in Bangladesh, Nepal and Myanmar.
Beijing prefers its men. In Nepal, the ousted Prime Minister Oli was their man but the development there has surprised everyone.
Is US really meddling?
In Myanmar, Beijing's choice of strong army man rule to genuine democracy.
In all these South East Asia and South Asian countries -- security and its infrastructure, energy and mining investments are inter connected to power that be.
India did not mind limited strategic ties with Myanmar even under junta leader Min Aung Hlaing.
As chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), Malaysia insists a ceasefire must precede any vote.
Thailand and Cambodia are also keeping eyes.
ends
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