When a journalist once asked Jawaharlal Nehru how he would stop the ‘contagion’ of military coups across India’s neighbourhood (read: India’s near east), Nehru remarked that the ‘contagion [of democracy]’ from India would spread towards the other South Asian states.
Since then, many things have happened, but India’s northeastern neighbourhood seems to be far ‘less connected in 2024 than it was in 1947’. And the illusion of democracy still seems far-fetched.
After a brief glimmer of democratic hope, the 2021 coup led by Tatmadaw put the country back in the hands of military generals and, later on, in full-time crisis mode. Since 2023, Manipur, a key northeastern state connecting Myanmar and Bangladesh, has witnessed the bloodiest ethnic conflict between the Meitei and Kuki communities.
In 2024, Bangladesh too witnessed the student-led popular protests and the subsequent overthrow of Sheikh Hasina’s autocratic regime, with some even referring to the event as the ‘second independence’ since 1971.
However, Avinash Paliwal, in his new book, India’s Near East, published in 2024, argues that each of these instances in India’s near east—a term Paliwal uses to reference India’s northeastern states (like Manipur) and two other countries sharing borders with them, namely: Bangladesh, and Myanmar—have a history.
Paliwal’s book shows how domestic interests came to interact with foreign policy interests in India’s policy towards the near east, promoting democracy, bolstering autocrats, arming rebels, waging wars, building ports, and granting loans.
The book is divided into three parts arranged along thematic and periodic logic: the period of solidarity during the process of decolonisation between 1947 and 1970, the period of security during India’s pursuit to resolve two-and-a-half-front security dilemma during the 1971 and 1990, and a period of connectivity from the ‘Look East’ policy to the ‘Act East’ policy between 1991 and 2024.
On each of these pages, we meet Nehru, Indira Gandhi, and B.K. Nehru, Zapu Phizo, Laldenga, Mujibur Rahman, Ziaur Rahman, Sheikh Hasina, U Nu, and Ne Win, among others, introduce us to the high politics of state-building and foreign policy making. But, more starkly, Paliwal allays contradictions in India’s policy towards the near east.
Early on, soon after India’s independence from colonial rule, Nehru, who championed the democratic constitutional project, introduced the draconian Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) in 1958 to resist and suppress the Naga rebellion led by Phizo in the northeastern states.
Military and civilian police forces were given extrajudicial powers to arrest, prosecute, torture, and, if need be, kill those suspected to be involved in insurgency movements. In this process, constitutional consociationalism became the first victim of the security state.
This one time, Nehru advised against the use of airpower over its own citizens. But, bizarrely enough, his concern, as Paliwal shows us, was ‘not the accruing human costs’ but the risks such an exercise posed to the aircraft. He added: ‘We cannot afford to have a Harvard struck down by snipers and possibly brought down.’ In the parliament, Nehru clarified: ‘Where there is violence, it has to be dealt with…’
More surprisingly, even villages were regrouped to sift out civilians from Naga militants, and ‘an irregular militia of Naga volunteers’ was created to fight Phizo. In doing so, the independent India, which championed decolonisation, took the colonial route to ‘divide and conquer’ Nagas from within. These practices further found their purpose across India’s northeast problem.
India’s northeastern problem was further alleviated after the 1962 Sino-Indian and 1965 India-Pakistan wars, where Pakistan and China began to covertly support the Naga and Mizo insurgent groups by supplying weapons and training them. However, such support reshaped India’s security environment around a ‘two-and-a-half-front threat’ scenario where India would have to deal with China, Pakistan, and the insurgent groups simultaneously.
Against this backdrop, India decided to become the first country to recognise the military regime led by Ne Win and to, later on, covertly support Mukti Bahini towards the independence of Bangladesh.
But, it was not just important to support and manage relations in Bangladesh and Myanmar; there was a need to reorganise India’s northeast. Despite the Bangladesh liberation, the northeast problem only worsened after 1971.
With Indira Gandhi at the helm, B.K. Nehru, her uncle, pushed forth the idea of the Northeast Council (NEC) and a common governorship (with B.K., himself, as that governor) across all northeastern states. When pressed about colonising the northeast, B.K. begrudgingly noted: ‘I am too lazy to want to be an Emperor; and if I wanted an Empire I would choose a less primitive one’.
Such paternalistic management tendencies came to define both India’s policies towards its northeast states as well as its foreign policy practices towards Bangladesh and Myanmar. Not surprisingly, such tendencies provided limited stability in India’s relationship with its near east—and the challenge continues to remain as rife as it was at the formation of these countries.
Paliwal’s book is a deeply researched new history of India’s near east. Through the broad reading of archival sources and conducting interviews, the author presents an intricately inter-woven narration of India’s relationship with Myanmar and Bangladesh in relation to its domestic northeast woes.
Despite such intricate narration of India’s near east, there are some omissions. For instance, while Phizo takes centre stage in the Naga narrative, Rani Gaidinliu barely finds a mention. Moreover, because the book is ambitious in its scope, dealing with too many things in 300 pages, it can be read as difficult at times.
Despite this, Paliwal’s book is an important correction to the omission of the historical study of India’s near east. Paliwal convinces the readers that the history of India’s near east is worth reading, pausing, and introspecting on.
Book Details: Avinash Paliwal, India’s Near East: A New History. Hurst Publishers, 2024, pp. 480, £35 (hardcover), ISBN: 9781805260615