From Mandalay to Ratnagiri via Yangon, the story of India and Myanmar is like a shared history-geography lesson. If the tortured histories of royal exile a hundred years ago gave way to mutual antipathy during the post-colonial dictatorship decades, the geo-strategic prize of Myanmar is at the turn of this century spawning a shadow war between Communist China and democratic India.Myanmarese Foreign Minister U Win Aung arrives in New Delhi at such a moment on January 19, having returned from a visit to Beijing with his boss, military dictator Than Shwe, barely ten days ago. And although China’s all-pervasive influence in Myanmar is at least four decades old, signs are that Yangon is seeking to balance that power-play by reaching out to India.This growing warmth between India and a military dictatorship on its eastern flank is fanning new interest not only in the South-East Asian chessboard, but also in faraway capitals like Washington. As India stirs to take on the Chinese dragon in its own backyard, whether by conducting an oceanographic survey on the Andamans Sea or by offering Yangon new projects in the health and education sectors, the battle for the mind of Myanmar seems well and truly joined.This is the first time that a Myanmarese foreign minister is making an independent visit to India since 1987. In response, New Delhi is readying the red carpet. Win Aung will be received by PM Vajpayee and Vice-President Shekhawat and hosted by External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha, besides travelling to Hyderabad and Kolkata.But a high-point in this great game of the East actually came in November last year, when after 23 years India reopened its consulate in Mandalay, the famed seat of the Burmese kings. It was from this city of the Glass Palace that King Thebaw was in 1885 banished to Ratnagiri. Hardly a few years before, the last Mughal king Bahadurshah Zafar had been exiled after the failed mutiny of 1857 to a patch of earth under the Rangoon sky.But Yangon’s decision to reopen Mandalay was located much beyond the common curse of history, in hardnosed politics : The only other countries that have missions in this major city are China and Bangladesh.‘‘India’s decision to end its self-imposed agony over the incarceration of Aung San Suu Kyi and throw in its pragmatic lot with Myanmar has helped the military establishment to balance China with India,’’ analysts here said.To underline its commitment, New Delhi recently decided to develop a port on the Arakan coast on the Bay of Bengal (the Chinese-built listening facility on the Coco Islands is not far away). Called the ‘Kaladan’ project, it includes an inland waterway that connects Mizoram’s Colodyne river that flows into Myanmar and a highway from the Mizoram border to a city called Kaletwa. The analysts pointed out that since Chinese president Jiang Zemin’s visit in 2001, Beijing has been keen to use the Irrawaddy river to build a network of highways and waterways ‘‘for access to the warm waters of the Bay of Bengal.’’ But Myanmar has so far not obliged.Meanwhile, New Delhi has committed itself to a hydro-electric project on the Chindwin river across Nagaland. While ONGC Videsh and Gail have decided to pick up 20 pc and 10 pc stakes respectively in the gas exploration blocks on the Rakhine coast. Significantly, for the first time ever, the Indian Navy sent three ships to make a friendly port call only last December.There’s more. New Delhi has now decided to focus on visible initiatives such as in the health and education sector. These include upgradation of hospitals and universities, including the setting up a physics lab and a bio-technology lab. Indian teachers and lecturers could go to Myanmar to teach post-graduate students, while the North-Eastern Hill University in Shillong and the University of Yangon are all set to cooperate further.
