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Insurgency in Northeast India: The Chinese Link
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj has just ended a four-day visit to China where she discussed “bilateral, regional and global issues of concern” for both countries.
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj has just ended a four-day visit to China where she discussed “bilateral, regional and global issues of concern” for both countries. The range of discussions with her Chinese counterpart Wang Yi, that stretched to over two hours, were rather extensive: finalising the transit issue for Indian pilgrims to Kailash Manasarovar through Sikkim to the border question, to defence contacts between the two neighbours, trade and commerce, and possibly river waters, in view of the concerns in India over the massive damming of the Yarlung Tsangpo (Brahmaputra).
What is not known, however, is whether Sushma Swaraj or the new Foreign Secretary, S Jaishankar, an expert China hand who spent four years in Beijing as India’s Ambassador there, raised the issue of official Chinese arms manufacturing companies regularly selling small arms (man-portable lethal weapons like AK series rifles, light and sub-machine guns, grenades etc) to insurgents in Northeast India.
China, in fact, holds the key to the availability of weapons and ammunition among the terror groups in Northeast India that is actually keeping insurgency alive in this far-eastern frontier. Any new policy that New Delhi may formulate in the coming days would have to take this fact into consideration. It is here that the China factor will come into play, something that the Modi Government will have to confront.
The charge-sheet by the National Investigating Agency against Anthony Shimray, chief arms procurer of the Isak-Muivah faction of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN-IM), specifically says that Shimray, accompanied by a representative of another rebel group, the National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB), visited the Norinco headquarters in Beijing. Norinco is one of China’s largest State-owned weapons manufacturers.
The NIA received a shot in the arm with the arrest in 2013 of Wuthikorn Naruenartwanich. His extradition to India was cleared by a criminal court in Thailand but Willy has since moved a higher court. What is clear is the Chinese link in weapons supply to rebels in Northeast India.
Bangladesh and Myanmar have been the key transit routes through which small arms made in China reaches the Northeast. The main motive is to sell these weapons for huge profit to armed groups in Northeast India.
A security situation in the Northeast that remains under control is vital to the pursuance of India’s Look East Policy. Therefore, New Delhi will have to devise a strategy to neutralise insurgency in the Northeast, and that strategy will have to factor in the flow of small arms to these groups. The ability to chock this flow right at the source of its origin could well hold the key.
By: Wasbir Hussain
