Geographical Unlocking: From Regional to Global Imagination

Introduction:

This essay attempts to inaugurate a novel concept: geographical unlocking. This could be defined as the freeing or unchaining of certain geographical spaces from a prior methodological gaze. An example of such a prior methodological gaze could be the category “Northeast India” which forever dooms the seven states east of Siliguri to be understood as a peripheral cartographic point, to be viewed always in reference to another, more deprovincialized (global), location like Delhi or Kolkata.

Postcolonial historian Dipesh Chakraborty famously argued for the methodological provincializing of Europe, by (re)viewing History as a story of translation as much as a story of transition. In doing so, (post)colonial nations are expected to gain a more “equal” standing vis-à-vis the hegemonic discourse (Europe). Conversely, this paper argues for the methodological de-provincialization of “sub-national” spaces (like Northeast India) from a strictly regional identity to a more “global” identity, no less than the nation-state (here, India) itself.

Today, the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) is being hosted by the UK in Glasgow, often considered a regional city of Scotland. This gradual deprovincialization of the Scottish city to a global status may be replicated for Guwahati, the largest city of the Northeast with proximity to and connectivity with other upcoming Asian economies like Thailand, Myanmar, Laos.

The current essay hypothesizes that the deprovincialization of NE India in the gaze of the Indian policymaker would only yield positive economic and diplomatic returns for the region as well as India, given India’s growing role in the Indo-Pacific.

Geographical Unlocking:

A map is not only a cartographic artefact, but also a psychological one. Over time, certain psychological images or archetypes solidify, leading to a kind of bad faith on the part of the map- reader or strategic observer as to the true nature of geography beneath the layers of political borders drawn on paper. Such solidification becomes acute in cases whereby the reader is a state. Bureaucratic inertia, demands of the deep state, and entanglement in realpolitik often leads to a kind of geographical path dependence, and hence a ‘lock-in’. The state fails to (1) imagine alternative (strategically more advantageous) ways of viewing the globe, and (2) account for non-cartographic experiences of geography.

This article sets about unlocking precisely such ‘lock-in’. First and foremost, it seeks to unlock Northeast India from an exclusively South Asian identity, and urges its transcendence to Southeast Asia, as a proud ambassador of the Indic in the East. Secondly, it seeks to unlock the Northeast from an "interior" and exclusively "highland" identity, locating it instead in the larger Bay of Bengal littoral. And thirdly, it seeks to unlock geographic thinking itself from the stranglehold of a strictly cartographic or spatial logic, and include the concepts of place and experience in strategic geography. In doing so, it addresses a fundamental debate on the disciplinary status of geography: whether the Humanistic aspect ought to outweigh the positivistic. An implicit assumption is that, to better navigate the security complex of Bay of Bengal, the seven sister states of Northeast India (NE) must be treated as a single pericoastal province.

A report published last year by the Hudson Institute, USA, was curiously titled "Crisis from Kolkata to Kabul: COVID-19’s Impact on South Asia". Curious because the seven states of NE were all conspicuously absent from this otherwise extensive report, presumably left to fend for themselves in a post-pandemic world. Perhaps, the world's mental map of South Asia still has Kolkata as its easternmost fringe. NE can fit itself somewhere between the South and the Southeast. Authored by Ambassador Hussain Haqqani and Dr. Aparna Pande, it adopts a paternalistic attitude towards India by stressing India's need for support of the US and other democracies as it balances growing Chinese strategic clout in South Asia. In an international state of nature, where lives of regimes are often "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short", Indian doves (and hawks) may see such reports as signals of a much-needed helping hand from an ally. But this is where much caution is due. The US in particular and the West in general have shared a unique historical dynamic with China, from the time of Marco Polo through the Opium Wars and the Korean War. Any assumption that India would be able to cosmetically fit itself into that equation would be naive. India has its own reasons to be cautious of and counter Chinese belligerence in the region, not the least of which is the fact that China's road to the Indian Ocean passes through India's Northeast. In the churning that is due to take place over the next decade, as part of a new Great Game, India has a choice to make: It can choose to remain boxed in South Asia, comfortable in its identity as the largest country of the region (and this is what both China and the US would want), or assume a greater role as a global power. If it were to choose the latter, it must realize that its road to great power status goes through the NE, and NE alone: a region which over centuries, has been the most crucial melting pot of cultures and civilizations from both sides of the Himalayas, and both wings of the Indian Ocean.

In balancing Chinese influence, the countries of East Asia today look towards India as a trustworthy alternative, especially in the aftermath of the South China Sea disputes. Against this geopolitical background and the rise of BIMSTEC, Southeast Asia is the most welcoming ground for India to extend its transregional influence and identity. For that to happen, NE must first be encouraged to assume a Southeast Asian identity, not as culturally distinct from the Indic civilization, but as a proud ambassador of the Indic in the Far East. The destiny of India is thus tied to the destiny of NE. The former's ascent to the globe is contingent on the latter’s long- overdue extension into Southeast Asia.

During his 2014 visit to India, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, Xi Jinping, made it clear that China viewed India as little more than the largest country in South Asia. Boxing India into South Asia reflects China’s view that India is really not in the same league. In his speech, President Xi stated,

“China is the largest neighbour in South Asia and India is the largest country in South Asia. China looks forward to working with India to contribute more to the economic development of the region. For the3 billion people along both sides of the Himalayan mountains, they can share peace, friendship, stability and prosperity”.

Keeping India boxed in South Asia is in China's best interests. In its long march to the coast, China certainly wants to project itself as a self-sufficient hegemon. Hence, the hubris in an article recently published in the Global Times, titled "Will Aussie, India coordinate to confront China?"

India can and must outgrow South Asia if it is sincere in its stated intention of regaining the so- called "vishwaguru" status which the current dispensation prides on. And to do so, first and foremost, it must extend eastwards, from South Asia towards Southeast Asia; into the neighbourhood with which it shares closest civilizational ties. The road to Southeast Asia, however, passes through India’s Northeast, which for centuries, has straddled the worlds of both, South and Southeast Asia. This seemingly hybrid, amphibious identity has often led the region to be identified with tags such as "remote", "unique", "oriental", "buffer". Among several factors, geography has perhaps played the most significant factor in giving NE such an identity. First of all, it is physically closer to locations in East Asia than major Indian cities like Delhi and Mumbai. And it shares the same climatic and agrarian features with South East Asia, be it the humidity, the rice, the bamboo or the tea. Since the earliest times, the river valleys to the east of Assam, have been the primary route of migration from Southern China and Southeast Asia. The most prominent example of migrants from the east were the Tai Ahoms who, originally from the Yunnan province of Southern China, brought advanced agricultural and military technologies with them, established a kingdom that lasted 600 years, and successfully defended Assam from Mughal aggression in multiple wars fought over centuries. These historic routes between the Northeast and Southern China were, in the modern times, frequented by the armies of Imperial Japan, China, Britain and the United States, especially during the wars of the 1940s. An example of such a historic route is the Stilwell Road constructed by Allied (mainly American) soldiers, during World War II. After years of decay and disrepair, now, as part of India's Act East policy, efforts are on to revive international transport on the road. Of the 1,726 km road, 1,033 km is in Myanmar, 632 km is in China, and the rest is in India.

One of the reasons why it has taken more than half a century to revive this project is security concerns of the Indian state. Insurgents of NE have maintained sanctuaries inside Myanmar since the late 1960s. The most prominent among these groups are NSCN (K) and ULFA. (It is interesting to note that NSCN cadres consist of Nagas from both India and Myanmar). From there, they have often launch raids into Nagaland, Assam and Manipur and then retreated safely across the international border. In the past, state authorities of Myanmar were busy mitigating insurgencies in other parts of the country, and therefore denied the existence of the insurgent camps along the border with India. But with Myanmar's economic and diplomatic isolation by the West since 2017, following the Rohingya crisis, things have begun to change. India and China were two of the few countries that chose not to condemn Myanmar on diplomatic for a. Consequently, Myanmar has been looking towards India for economic and military collaboration. To this end, as a positive gesture, only last month, Myanmar handed over to India 22 insurgents belonging to different militant groups of NE. India now has China to compete with in Myanmar. The Southern part of China has had civilizational exchanges with Myanmar for millennia. In the modern era, the 1980s and 90s first saw increasing Chinese economic and military dominance in the country to fill the vacuum caused by the Western sanctions against the military junta. Today, the same circumstances seem to repeat themselves around the Rohingya issue. China is back in the vacuum, this time promoting its trillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Its aim is to establish a corridor connecting landlocked southwest China with the Indian Ocean. From China's landlocked perspective, then, the area surrounding the Bay of Bengal is of enormous strategic importance vis-à-vis commercial and military interests. For China, the strategic utility of navigable sea routes is far more than that for India which, with a 7500 km coastline and easier access to some major trading routes, has historically included the coastal cities alone in its littoral map. The pericoastal zones like Southern Northeast India (Tripura and Mizoram are hardly 50 km and 100 km from the sea) are not considered significant from a naval point of view and relegated to the interior. Such "locked-in" thinking is a relic of the British imperial gaze. Britain, a seafaring nation, stepped on to Indian and Chinese shores with a view to penetrating into the hinterlands. So, on its way to sell opium into and buy tea out of China, Northeast India was viewed as an interior passage. However, today, in a drastically changed geopolitical context, Indian strategic thinking desperately needs to shake off this imperial logic and take cognizance of the crucial role NE India plays in the geostrategic equation of the Indian Ocean. Successful implementation of this novel approach would enable India to strike a delicate balance between its security concerns and economic interests.

In terms of promoting its economic interests, lately, India has proactively leveraged NE's locational advantage by engaging in a few landmark projects in the field of infrastructure and connectivity. An example is the India-Myanmar-Thailand Trilateral Highway, under construction as part of India's Act East Policy. This road will connect Moreh in the NE Indian state of Manipur with Mae Sot in Thailand, via Myanmar. There are also proposals for extending the highway up to Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. This 3,200 km route from India is being called the East-West Economic Corridor. India and ASEAN plan the extension because this connectivity promises to annually generate "an estimated USD70 billion in incremental GDP and USD 20 million in incremental aggregate employment by 2025". India has offered USD 1 billion line-of-credit for the India-ASEAN connectivity projects. The road is expected to boost trade and commerce in the ASEAN-India Free Trade Area. The India-Myanmar- Thailand highway, alone, is expected to significantly boost trade in the ASEAN-India Free Trade Area as well as with other parts of Southeast Asia. India is also an integral part of the Asian Highway Network (AH), also known as the Great Asian Highway, which is a cooperative project among Asian and European countries, and the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP). It aims to improve the highway systems in Asia. This project is of great significance to NE primarily because on completion, it would place the NE right at the centre of Asia, with AH1 and AH2 intersecting in central Assam.

This, however, would not be the first time in history that the NE finds itself at the global crossroads. By the early 1800s, between the Burmese invasion of Assam and Opium Wars, NE India was already at the heart of the Europe-China trade route. It was also at this juncture that the tea industry in Assam was set up by the British as an alternative site for tea cultivation following the East India Company's loss of monopoly over trade in Chinese tea. An acknowledgement of these global inflections shaping NE India's history and present is long overdue. It is time NE India regains its former significance in the global political economy. That would be yet another form of unlocking.

Against this background, a country that, contrary to China, has been overtly urging India to play a larger role in the Indo-Pacific is Japan. Historically, the Japanese rarely saw India as part of Asia. But wary of a hostile and assertive China, Japan has now reviewed and rephrased its standpoint, leaving little doubt as to its desire to see India balance Chinese power in the region. It is in this context that the term Indo-Pacific was popularized by Japan in the geopolitical circles. Although the term first appeared in January 2007 in an article by Gurpreet Khurana, titled "Security of Sea Lines: Prospects for India-Japan Cooperation", it was Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe who gave the term its current popularity by referring to the "Confluence of the Indian and Pacific Oceans" in his speech to the Indian Parliament in August 2007. Drawing inspiration from Swami Vivekananda's speech in Chicago and a book authored by the Mughal prince Dara Shikoh in 1655, he said,

"We are now at a point at which the Confluence of the Two Seas is coming into being. The Pacific and the Indian Oceans are now bringing about a dynamic coupling as seas of freedom and of prosperity. A "broader Asia" that broke away geographical boundaries is now beginning to take on a distinct form. Our two countries have the ability -- and the responsibility -- to ensure that it broadens yet further and to nurture and enrich these seas to become seas of clearest transparence. This is the message I wish to deliver directly today to the one billion people of India."

Now that we have made a case for the geographical unlocking of the Northeast, we may consider the limitations imposed on Geography by a strictly cartographic logic. On reading this article, one might perceive NE India to be an extraordinary space as it inhabits the worlds of both South and Southeast, with communities like the Nagas found on both sides of the India- Myanmar border and the culture itself being an amalgamation of the East and West. However, as lived space for the actual inhabitants of the Northeast, such a contrast is an ordinary fact of everyday life. Political borders might exist on the pages of an atlas, but except the fence or the Border Security Force personnel guarding the pass, state boundaries hardly matter. And this is one of the primary factors behind the Naga stalemate, the oldest-surviving secessionist movement in India.

Many Naga groups share a common belief of their ethnogenesis as a distinct people. According to this belief, the common ancestors of the Nagas originally lived together at a place called Mahkel (identified with the present-day Mao village of Makhel in Manipur, and, alternatively, believed to be near the Chindwin river in present-day Myanmar). As their population grew, they decided to split and spread outside Makhel. According to the Heraka faith, the Naga peoples took an oath pledging that they would come together again and live as a kingdom (see image below). So, the various Naga tribes, despite speaking different mutually unintelligible languages, today seek to “reestablish” that old Naga kingdom. Such narratives form the ideological core of statehood demands like that for Nagalim, carving out territories from India and Myanmar. Hence, to solve problems like the Naga stalemate, a cartographic understanding of geography would not suffice. People's experiential and psychological relationship with their habitat is equally important. The Naga stalemate today affects both, India's internal security and regional economic connectivity. Hence, solving it demands a humanistic approach to Geography.

At the heart of this issue lies the need to acknowledge a distinction between 'space' and 'place'. There is an entire academic field, Humanistic Geography, that deals with this distinction. The founder of the field Yi-Fu Tuan, in his 1977 magnum opus Space and Place, searched for the meaning of space and place. In the words of Tuan, the difference between ‘space’ and ‘place' lies in the degree to which human beings attribute meaning to an area. 'Space' may be defined as a location bereft of any social connections, meaning and value. On the contrary, 'place' may be defined as a location created by human experiences. In other words, 'place' is ‘space’ imbued with meaning and direction. It does not have observable boundaries and is a visible expression of a specific time period. For example, arts, monuments and architecture. Often, conflicts are caused not be encroachment, but incongruity of interpretation(s) by different parties. Therefore, besides studying the Northeast from an angle of statecraft and security, this paper also calls for knowing and experiencing NE as a "place" rather than merely a cartographic space.

Conclusion:

In the above section, I tried to offer arguments in favour the unlocking of a “region” from the periphery of a singular nation-state and bringing it out into the global imagination. The economic and diplomatic payoffs of such an exercise were demonstrated, while also highlighting the conceptual difference between cartographic space and lived place. An acknowledgement of this fine distinction would potentially be of great use to scholars of International Relations who constantly grapple with conflicts not only with the ontological status of territories, but also their epistemological framing in the imagination of peoples.