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Working with a neighbour

President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam's visit to Myanmar, the first by a head of state from India, marks a major milestone in bilateral relations. With Myanmar, or Burma as it was known earlier, under military rule from 1988, New Delhi has avoided visits or contacts at the highest level. While most of the top Generals from Yangon have visited India, especially during the past three or four years, Indian delegations have been at the ministerial level. So it was that the military junta attached considerable importance to Mr. Kalam's visit. Moreover, as one having a long way to go on the development front, Myanmar has been keenly looking to ways of enlarging and strengthening ties with countries in the region. Such high-level visits eminently served that purpose. India has been wary of raising expectations in Yangon because of its traditional commitment to democracy. After having conferred the Jawaharlal Nehru Award for international understanding on Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi in 1994-95, India cannot abandon its moral support for the `Restoration of democracy movement' in Myanmar, led by Ms. Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy. Fears about a growing Chinese involvement and influence in Myanmar have perhaps prompted New Delhi to put aside the concerns over democracy and human rights and move towards a "constructive engagement," as the Association of South East Asian Nations would like to call it.

Clearly, the bilateral understanding on the Indo-Myanmar gas pipeline project, which will now be re-routed through Mizoram, skirting Bangladesh, stands out as a landmark. If it has taken years for the pipeline project to get this far, it is because Myanmar was initially not particularly serious about the idea. Subsequently, the project got stalled on account of the contentious issues Bangladesh raised over taking the pipeline through its territory. Against this backdrop, the latest move to go for a realignment of the project in a way that would keep Bangladesh out of the picture does make a lot of sense, even if the changed design would mean taking a circuitous route. A great deal more of ground work and precise estimation of the supplies would need to be done before it can get off the ground. The goal of raising bilateral trade from the current level of just $400 million to $1 billion may appear ambitious at this point of time, but the energy sector holds the key. Much of Myanmar's trade may also be routed through Thailand or Singapore. It is significant that the President utilised the opportunity to raise the democracy issue with Senior General Than Shwe and the State Peace and Development Council. Of course, the response was on expected lines — that the process of constitutional reform was on. Despite several such assurances, there has been no tangible progress on the road to democracy.

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