Under the headline “India Seeks New Rail Link through Burma, China, Russia”, The Irrawaddy’s William Boot reports:
The Indian Railways Board has a plan to build 150 kilometers of rail track across its northeastern Mizoram state and another 200 kilometers inside Burma to hook up with a line the Chinese are said to be planning which will run through Yunnan Province…It’s the ambition of the chief of India’s railways, Jay Prakash Batra, who has also become chairman of the Paris-based International Union of Railways (UIC).
Announcements like this – whether to do with roads, bridges or the other infrastructure of trans-border linkage – are part of a century-long refrain in the India-Burma-China theatre. Big dreams to link “the region” together have very rarely got any wind in their sails. Occasionally, some scheme or another is made to happen. The most famous – the World War II-era Burma Roads – were built by the allies trying to find a conduit to supply Chinese troops fighting the Japanese. Since then, even these roads have, by and large, fallen into disrepair.
Today, building any type of trans-regional linkage across Burma is fraught with difficulties.
As I have remarked in the past, Burma, and particularly the parts of the north where this railway would run, have some of Southeast Asia’s most basic transport infrastructure. This newly announced Indian ambition for a railway should only serve to re-focus our attention on the Burmese government’s failure to provide adequate transport infrastructure for its citizens. It is often overlooked that one of the many sins of the Burmese regime is its lack of investment in the public goods that can foster a diverse and dynamic economy.
The junta has failed, in so many ways, to invest in the day-to-day needs of its people.
In the New Year, New Mandala plans to focus more attention on these needs – and some of the diverse aspirations that the junta has continued to ignore. If there are particular topics or issues that you would like to see covered in this new series, please do not hesitate to get in contact with me.
9 responses so far ↓
1 aiontay // Dec 23, 2006 at 3:33 am
If there were adequate transport, then a lot of other needs would be able to be address. For example, Burma’s rural population would be able to sell its agricultural production much easier than it does now.
There was a Kachin village outside of Kutkai that made a huge amount of money (by local standards) selling mustard greens during the winter in town. They had adequate water and had their fields on south facing slopes, so the lack of rain and nighttime frosts didn’t kill their mustard like many other villages. Since the transport was so bad, getting just about any other fresh vegetable in town was almost impossible. Of course, if transport was improved, that village would lose a lucrative crop, but probably they’d find some way of compensating due to the improved transport.
However, it should be pointed out that improved transport would also improve the military’s ability to control the country; the first order of business would transporting more soldiers and military supplies, not mustard, so would improving transport really help? I think there are aspirations beyond economic and infrastructure development that are being ignored, and there is the real problem.
2 Thai Radio // Dec 23, 2006 at 8:40 pm
Once the richest state in South-East Asia Myanmar has become one of the poorest.
But help will indirectly come from Thailand’s development: if
you neighbour grows rich you don’t want to be left behind.
Besides refugees in Thailand are a potential hope of change
as they’re going to fuel a dynamic opposition.
3 Vichai N. // Dec 24, 2006 at 1:09 am
We look at our neighbor Myanmar and we wonder why with such rich natural resources and very capable people, Myanmar had failed miserably economically, politically and developmentally during these past decades. Thailand too had overtaken its other neighbors Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam and much farther the Republic of the Philippines.
In my guts I believe HM The King of Thailand was very very instrumental in steering the Kingdom through all its political and economic trials mainly by keeping us a united Thai nation.
After all the Kingdom had been through all these monster tyrants and monster corrupts, the most recent being Thaksin Shinawatra. Had Thailand been without its King Bhumibhol, those monster tyrants past could have easily led Thailand astray, dangerously astray.
The Thais have a lot to be thankful for. The Thais have a lot to be thankful for with its King Bhumibhol above to inspire and give guidance.
4 James Haughton // Dec 24, 2006 at 10:23 pm
Your argument doesn’t follow Vichai. The alleged reason given by the Burmese Junta for seizing power in the first place was to keep Burma a “united nation”, by suspending the Shan State’s constitutional right to secede after 10 years. Being a “united nation” has made the Burmese poor.
5 Vichai N. // Dec 24, 2006 at 11:36 pm
Come off it James. HM King Bhumibhol was the inspirational glue that kept the Thais patriotically united and you know it, through coups and flawed elections.
But Seasons Greetings to all just the same.
6 Johpa // Dec 25, 2006 at 6:36 am
HM King Bhumibhol was the inspirational glue that kept the Thais patriotically united and you know it, through coups and flawed elections.
I remember reading an older ethnologue on Northern Thailand from an “old school” French anthropologist who noted that Thai whiskey was the social glue that held village society togther, an observation which I can personally confirm has some validity. Perhaps the palace has also served as a similar inspirational glue on a broader scale, but it has also served an active catalyst in Thai politics.
I have just finished reading the Handley book and the one thing this book has done is, continuing in a metaphorical manner, is to release the genie out of the bottle relative to discussing the Palace and its role in Thai politics.
For better or worse, one can make perhaps a weak argument that if not for the palace, there goes Thailand. On the other hand, Burma has always been a far more ethnically diverse Kingdom than Siam, estimates are usually around a 60% Burmese popoulation for Burma proper, so historical comparisons are not so easy to make.
7 James Haughton // Dec 25, 2006 at 3:10 pm
Seasons greetings to all as well.
My argument was not that the king hadn’t succeeded in uniting Thailand. It was that being “united” is not a prerequisite for economic, political, et al, success. Burma is “united” under the generals.
8 v r rednam // Jan 12, 2007 at 10:14 pm
open boarders with india. it will help india north east as well as burma. both tourism, export and imports from china
9 New Mandala » Bangladesh to Burma “friendship” road // May 2, 2007 at 12:08 am
[...] This initial construction includes what has become an almost obligatory component of the ongoing frenzy for cross-border development – a “Friendship [...]
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