Myanmar is the country that decides whether India’s Act East Policy becomes a living corridor or remains a diplomatic slogan.
India can speak of Southeast Asia. It can hold summits with ASEAN. It can build ports, highways and border trade points. It can talk about the Northeast as India’s gateway to the East. But the geography is unforgiving: between India’s Northeast and mainland Southeast Asia sits Myanmar.
Myanmar is not just another neighbour. It is India’s only land bridge to Southeast Asia. It connects India’s Northeast to Thailand and beyond. It opens a route from Mizoram and Manipur to the Bay of Bengal, the Mekong region and ASEAN markets. It also sits between India and China’s expanding influence in the eastern Indian Ocean.
That is why Myanmar is crucial to India’s Act East Policy.
But Myanmar is also India’s most complicated eastern neighbour. Since the 2021 military coup, Myanmar has descended into civil war, with ethnic armed organisations, anti-junta resistance groups and the military fighting across large parts of the country. The Council on Foreign Relations noted in January 2026 that Myanmar’s military government controlled only around 21% of the country’s territory, while rebel forces and ethnic armies held about 42%, according to a BBC investigation.
This creates India’s dilemma: Myanmar is necessary for connectivity, but unstable for execution. India needs cooperation from Naypyidaw, but much of Myanmar’s borderland is no longer fully controlled by the junta. India wants democracy and stability, but it also has hard security interests. India wants to limit China’s influence, but China is already deeply embedded in Myanmar’s infrastructure, minerals and ports.
Myanmar is therefore not a simple foreign-policy file. It is the hinge of India’s eastern strategy.
Myanmar Is India’s Land Bridge to Southeast Asia
India’s Act East Policy is built on a basic strategic idea: India must connect more deeply with Southeast Asia and the wider Indo-Pacific.
That connection cannot be only maritime. Ships, ports and naval diplomacy matter, but land connectivity matters too. India’s Northeast cannot become a true gateway to the East unless roads, railways and trade routes pass through Myanmar into Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam and the wider ASEAN region.
This is why Myanmar is structurally important.
Without Myanmar, India’s eastern connectivity remains dependent on sea routes and indirect trade. With Myanmar, India can imagine a continental route from Imphal to Mandalay, from Moreh to Mae Sot, and from the Northeast into the economic networks of mainland Southeast Asia.
The India-Myanmar-Thailand Trilateral Highway captures this ambition. The project is intended to connect India’s Moreh with Thailand’s Mae Sot through Myanmar. India is undertaking work on key Myanmar stretches, including the Kalewa-Yagyi road section and bridges on the Tamu-Kyigone-Kalewa road. Reports in 2025 described the highway as a 1,360-km route and noted India’s work on the 120.74-km Kalewa-Yagyi section and 69 bridges with approach roads on the TKK section.
This is not merely a road. It is India’s physical entry point into mainland Southeast Asia.
If completed and secured, the highway could transform Manipur, improve trade, support tourism, increase people-to-people movement and reduce the psychological distance between India and ASEAN. It could also connect with larger regional corridors extending toward Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam.
But the highway’s problem is also Myanmar’s problem: infrastructure cannot function where political authority is fragmented and security is uncertain.
The Northeast Cannot Rise Without Myanmar Connectivity
For India, Myanmar is not only about foreign policy. It is also about the development of the Northeast.
India’s northeastern states have long suffered from geographic isolation, weak industrialisation, high logistics costs and limited access to larger markets. The Siliguri Corridor connects the Northeast to the rest of India, but it is narrow and strategically vulnerable. Myanmar offers an alternative eastern opening.
This is why Act East must also be understood as “Northeast First.”
For Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh, Myanmar is not distant. It is immediate. Border communities share ethnic, cultural and kinship ties across the frontier. Trade, migration, insurgency, narcotics, refugees and local economies all operate across this space.
If Myanmar stabilises, India’s Northeast can become a bridge.If Myanmar remains unstable, the Northeast remains a security frontier.
That is the central choice.
India’s policymakers often speak of turning the Northeast into a gateway. But a gateway must open somewhere. For the Northeast, that opening is Myanmar.
Kaladan Is India’s Strategic Connectivity Project
The Kaladan Multi-Modal Transit Transport Project is one of India’s most important eastern connectivity initiatives.
It aims to connect India’s eastern seaboard to Myanmar’s Sittwe Port, then through inland waterways and road links to Mizoram. The idea is to provide an alternative route to India’s Northeast through the Bay of Bengal and Myanmar, reducing dependence on the long land route through the Siliguri Corridor.
India’s Ministry of External Affairs has described Kaladan as a project meant to provide connectivity between India and Myanmar from India’s eastern seaports to Myanmar’s Sittwe Port, and onward to the Northeast. In July 2025, India’s Press Information Bureau stated that Sittwe Port and the Kaladan project would significantly benefit Tripura by reducing transportation time and logistics cost.
This is why Kaladan matters.
It is not only about Mizoram. It is about India creating redundancy in its eastern connectivity. If goods can move from Kolkata or other Indian ports to Sittwe and then into Mizoram, the Northeast gets another access route. That changes logistics, trade and security calculations.
But Kaladan too has suffered from delays, terrain problems and conflict in Myanmar’s Rakhine and Chin areas. Indian strategic projects in Myanmar are not delayed only by bureaucracy. They are delayed by war.
This is the hard lesson of Act East: connectivity is impossible without security.
Myanmar’s Civil War Has Made Indian Strategy Harder
Myanmar’s civil war has changed the ground reality for India.
After the 2021 coup, Myanmar’s military faced nationwide resistance. Ethnic armed organisations and newer resistance forces gained territory in several regions. Border areas became more contested. The state’s authority weakened. Infrastructure projects became vulnerable. Refugees crossed borders. Insurgent and criminal networks gained room.
For India, this matters directly because the India-Myanmar border is not far from the conflict. It is part of the conflict environment.
Reuters reported in July 2025 that thousands of refugees crossed into India’s Mizoram state after clashes between anti-junta armed groups in Myanmar. Reuters also reported in May 2026 that Myanmar’s military had launched renewed offensives into border regions, including areas linked to critical rare earth deposits and important trade routes.
This instability affects India in multiple ways.
It brings refugees into Mizoram and Manipur.It complicates border management.It creates space for arms and narcotics smuggling.It affects Indian connectivity projects.It increases the influence of armed groups near India’s frontier.It forces India to engage not only the junta but also local power-holders.
India can no longer pretend that Myanmar is governed from the centre alone. Much of Myanmar’s periphery is shaped by ethnic armed organisations, local militias and resistance groups. Any serious Indian policy must account for this reality.
India’s Border With Myanmar Is a Security Frontier
India shares a long and difficult border with Myanmar.
The Ministry of Home Affairs states that India’s border with Myanmar is 1,643 km long. It passes through Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur and Mizoram. Much of this terrain is mountainous, forested and difficult to monitor.
For decades, the border was governed partly through the Free Movement Regime, which allowed border communities with ethnic ties to move across limited distances without a visa. This arrangement recognised the social reality of the region: communities on both sides often share ancestry, language and kinship.
But security concerns changed India’s approach.
In February 2024, India’s Ministry of Home Affairs decided to scrap the Free Movement Regime with Myanmar, citing internal security and the need to maintain the demographic structure of India’s northeastern states bordering Myanmar. The same month, the government announced a decision to fence the entire 1,643-km Indo-Myanmar border and build a patrol track for better surveillance.
This marks a major shift.
India is moving from a soft border based on ethnic mobility to a harder border based on security control. The reason is clear: insurgency, drugs, arms smuggling, refugee inflows and instability in Myanmar have increased Indian anxieties.
But this policy also carries risks. Border communities in Mizoram and Nagaland have deep ties with people across the frontier. A sudden hard border can create social resentment, disrupt livelihoods and produce local political opposition.
India must therefore balance security with sensitivity. A border cannot be managed only with fencing. It must also be managed through trust, development, local consultation and humane refugee handling.
Myanmar Affects Manipur and Mizoram Differently
India’s Myanmar policy must understand that the Northeast is not one uniform region.
Mizoram has shown strong ethnic sympathy for Chin refugees from Myanmar because of shared ethnic and cultural ties. Many people in Mizoram see refugees not as outsiders but as kin fleeing violence. Manipur, however, has experienced severe ethnic conflict and demographic anxiety, making Myanmar-linked migration far more politically sensitive.
This difference matters.
A policy that seems reasonable in Delhi may produce very different reactions in Aizawl, Imphal, Kohima and Itanagar. Border fencing, refugee registration, security operations and cross-border trade cannot be designed without understanding local society.
India’s Act East Policy depends on the Northeast, but the Northeast must not be treated merely as a corridor. It is home to communities with their own histories, fears and aspirations.
If connectivity is imposed without local trust, it will fail.If security is enforced without local sensitivity, it will create backlash.If Myanmar policy ignores the Northeast’s social fabric, it will become unstable.
The success of Act East begins with the people who live at India’s eastern edge.
China’s Influence in Myanmar Is a Strategic Concern
Myanmar is important to India also because it is important to China.
China sees Myanmar as a route to the Indian Ocean. Through Myanmar, China’s landlocked Yunnan province can access the Bay of Bengal. This reduces China’s dependence on the Malacca Strait and gives Beijing strategic depth toward the eastern Indian Ocean.
The Kyaukpyu deep-sea port is central to this ambition. CSIS has noted that Chinese state-owned firms reached agreements to build a deep-water port and industrial area at Kyaukpyu, which is also the terminus of oil and gas pipelines running to Kunming in China’s Yunnan province.
This matters deeply to India.
A Chinese-backed port on Myanmar’s Bay of Bengal coast has implications for India’s eastern maritime security. Even if projects are commercial today, ports can acquire strategic significance over time. China’s broader pattern in the Indian Ocean — ports, infrastructure, surveillance, logistics and dual-use facilities — makes India cautious.
Myanmar is therefore part of the India-China competition.
If India disengages from Myanmar on moral or political grounds, China gains more space. If India engages blindly without regard for Myanmar’s internal realities, India may lose legitimacy. The challenge is to remain present without becoming dependent on the junta alone.
Myanmar Is a Bay of Bengal Power
Myanmar’s coastline gives it strategic weight in the Bay of Bengal.
The Bay of Bengal is becoming one of the most important maritime spaces in India’s strategic thinking. It connects India’s eastern coast, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Thailand and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. It is vital for energy flows, shipping, undersea cables, fisheries, disaster response and naval strategy.
Myanmar sits on the eastern edge of this bay.
If Myanmar is stable and cooperative, India’s Bay of Bengal strategy becomes stronger. India can build connectivity through Sittwe, maritime cooperation, coastal trade, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief. If Myanmar becomes a platform for excessive Chinese influence, India’s eastern maritime environment becomes more complicated.
This is why Myanmar cannot be viewed only as a land neighbour. It is also a maritime neighbour.
India’s Act East Policy and its Indo-Pacific strategy meet in Myanmar.
Rare Earths and Critical Minerals Add a New Dimension
Myanmar is also becoming important because of critical minerals.
As the world shifts toward electric vehicles, semiconductors, clean energy, defence electronics and advanced manufacturing, rare earths and critical minerals have become strategic assets. Myanmar’s border regions, especially areas linked to rare earth production, are now part of this larger geopolitical contest.
Reuters reported in May 2026 that Myanmar’s military had stepped up operations in border regions, including areas with critical rare earth deposits and key trade routes. Reuters also reported that India saw an opportunity to strengthen ties with Myanmar partly to access rare earth resources and bolster security along its northeastern border.
This is important for India.
India wants to reduce dependence on China-controlled supply chains. Myanmar’s minerals may become part of that diversification strategy. But mineral access in a war-torn country is risky. It raises ethical, security and governance questions.
India must avoid the mistake of treating Myanmar only as a resource base. Any mineral engagement must be transparent, responsible and mindful of conflict dynamics. Otherwise, India could be seen as exploiting instability.
India Cannot Ignore the Junta, but Cannot Depend Only on It
Myanmar creates one of India’s hardest diplomatic dilemmas.
After the 2021 coup, Western countries largely isolated Myanmar’s military regime. India, however, continued engagement. This is not because India is indifferent to democracy. It is because India shares a border with Myanmar, has security concerns, depends on connectivity projects and wants to limit Chinese influence.
In June 2026, AP reported that Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Myanmar’s military-backed President Min Aung Hlaing in New Delhi, with India saying that dialogue was more productive than isolation. The discussions reportedly covered border security, intelligence cooperation, trade, defence, cybercrime and regional connectivity.
This reflects India’s realism.
India cannot manage border security, refugees, insurgency, connectivity and China’s presence by refusing to talk to whoever controls parts of the Myanmar state. But this engagement must be carefully calibrated.
If India is seen as legitimising the junta too strongly, it may alienate Myanmar’s democratic forces and ethnic groups. If India refuses to engage the junta, it may lose operational access and push Myanmar further toward China. The only sensible path is multi-layered engagement: maintain official channels, protect Indian interests, support humanitarian needs and quietly engage relevant local actors.
Myanmar is too fragmented for a single-channel policy.
India Must Engage Myanmar’s Border Realities
The International Crisis Group argued in 2025 that India has begun reaching out to Myanmar’s armed groups while preserving its historical ties to the state, because armed groups now hold much of Myanmar’s periphery. This is a significant shift.
It recognises a basic reality: on the ground, security and connectivity often depend on who controls the local territory, not who holds the capital.
For projects such as Kaladan and the Trilateral Highway, India may need practical arrangements with local actors to ensure safety, movement and maintenance. This does not mean abandoning formal diplomacy. It means adding ground-level realism.
A road cannot be protected by a press release.A port cannot function if its hinterland is contested.A border cannot be secured if local communities are alienated.A corridor cannot operate if armed groups control checkpoints.
India needs a Myanmar policy that understands state power, ethnic politics and local control together.
Act East Cannot Succeed Through Infrastructure Alone
India often treats Act East as a connectivity policy. That is only partly correct.
Roads, ports and highways are necessary, but they are not sufficient. Connectivity also requires peace, customs cooperation, banking channels, legal frameworks, border trade, logistics companies, security guarantees, local buy-in and political stability.
Myanmar exposes this clearly.
India may build a road, but if the road passes through conflict zones, trade will not flow. India may develop a port, but if the hinterland is insecure, cargo will remain limited. India may sign agreements, but if Myanmar’s state authority is fragmented, implementation will suffer.
This is why Act East must be upgraded from infrastructure diplomacy to political economy strategy.
India must ask: who benefits from these projects? Which local communities are included? Which armed actors can disrupt them? How will customs work? How will traders get finance? How will small businesses in the Northeast use these routes? How will security be provided without militarising local life?
Connectivity is not concrete. It is an ecosystem.
Myanmar Is Also a Test of India’s Neighbourhood Diplomacy
India’s Myanmar challenge reveals a broader issue in Indian foreign policy: how should India deal with neighbours in crisis?
If India speaks only the language of democracy, it may lose practical influence. If it speaks only the language of security, it may lose moral credibility. If it stays away, China gains ground. If it gets too close to unpopular regimes, public resentment may turn against India later.
Myanmar requires a mature middle path.
India should support restoration of peace and inclusive political dialogue in Myanmar, but without pretending that it can dictate Myanmar’s internal settlement. It should engage the military regime where necessary, but also maintain contact with democratic actors, ethnic groups, civil society and border communities. It should provide humanitarian assistance without politicising suffering. It should protect its border without demonising refugees.
This is not easy, but neighbourhood diplomacy is rarely easy.
A great power is judged not by how it deals with easy partners, but by how it handles difficult neighbours.
Cybercrime and Human Trafficking Are New Security Threats
Myanmar’s instability has created new criminal networks.
Scam centres, cyber fraud operations, human trafficking and forced labour have grown in parts of Myanmar and the wider Mekong region. Indian citizens have been trapped in such networks. According to AP’s June 2026 report on the Modi-Min Aung Hlaing meeting, India highlighted cooperation in rescuing more than 2,400 Indians from regional scam centres over the previous 18 months.
This adds another dimension to India’s Myanmar policy.
Security is no longer only about insurgency or border infiltration. It is also about digital crime, trafficking and organised criminal economies. Conflict zones provide space for such networks because law enforcement is weak and armed groups can profit from illicit activity.
India must therefore strengthen cybercrime cooperation, intelligence sharing, border monitoring and consular protection. The Act East corridor cannot become a corridor for trafficking and scams.
Modern connectivity brings modern crime unless governance keeps pace.
Myanmar’s Instability Can Affect ASEAN Relations
India’s Act East Policy is ultimately about ASEAN, and Myanmar is an ASEAN member.
But Myanmar’s crisis has divided ASEAN and weakened its ability to act collectively. ASEAN has struggled to enforce its Five-Point Consensus and manage the junta’s participation in regional forums. Some ASEAN states favour engagement; others are more critical. The result is diplomatic paralysis.
For India, this matters because Myanmar’s instability blocks the India-ASEAN land bridge and complicates wider regional cooperation.
India wants deeper ties with Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia and others. But land connectivity to mainland ASEAN runs through Myanmar. A broken Myanmar weakens India’s continental link to ASEAN, even if maritime and digital engagement continues.
This is why Myanmar is the missing link in Act East.
India may build strong relations with ASEAN capitals, but without Myanmar’s stability, the physical eastern corridor remains incomplete.
India Must Avoid Two Extremes
India’s Myanmar policy must avoid two extremes.
The first extreme is moral isolation. This would mean refusing to engage the junta and treating Myanmar only as a democracy issue. That may sound principled, but it would ignore India’s border, refugees, insurgency, China and connectivity interests.
The second extreme is narrow security realism. This would mean engaging only the military regime and ignoring public sentiment, democratic forces, ethnic groups and humanitarian suffering. That may seem practical in the short term, but it would damage India’s long-term legitimacy in Myanmar.
The correct approach lies between these extremes.
India must engage, but not endorse.It must protect its interests, but not ignore suffering.It must secure the border, but not alienate border communities.It must compete with China, but not imitate China’s transactional style.It must build connectivity, but not ignore conflict realities.
This balance will define whether India can act as a serious regional power.
What India Should Do Now
India needs a sharper Myanmar strategy.
First, it should continue official engagement with Myanmar’s authorities where necessary for border security, connectivity, Indian citizens and project implementation.
Second, it should quietly widen engagement with ethnic armed organisations, local administrations and civil society groups in border areas where they exercise real control.
Third, it should accelerate Kaladan and the Trilateral Highway, but only with realistic security planning and local consultation.
Fourth, it should support humanitarian relief for refugees and conflict-affected communities, especially in ways that do not create resentment in India’s Northeast.
Fifth, it should strengthen border management through technology, local policing, development and community trust — not only fencing.
Sixth, it should deepen coordination with Thailand, Bangladesh and ASEAN partners on Myanmar’s instability, trafficking and connectivity.
Seventh, it should monitor Chinese infrastructure, port and mineral activity closely while offering Myanmar alternative partnerships that are less coercive and more development-oriented.
Finally, India must treat the Northeast not merely as a security zone or transit corridor, but as the social foundation of Act East.
Why Myanmar Matters
Myanmar matters to India because it is where geography, security and strategy meet.
It connects India to Southeast Asia.It shapes the future of the Northeast.It affects Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh.It determines whether the Trilateral Highway can work.It decides whether Kaladan becomes a real corridor.It influences China’s access to the Bay of Bengal.It affects border security, refugees, drugs, arms and insurgency.It sits at the centre of India’s Act East and Indo-Pacific strategies.
No other country plays this exact role for India.
Myanmar is not easy. It is unstable, fragmented and politically painful. But strategic importance does not disappear because a country becomes difficult. In fact, difficulty often increases importance.
India’s Act East Policy will be judged not by speeches in Delhi, but by whether goods, people, ideas and opportunity can move from India’s Northeast to Southeast Asia. That road runs through Myanmar.
If Myanmar stabilises, India’s eastern horizon opens.If Myanmar collapses further, Act East remains trapped at the border.
That is why Myanmar is crucial.
It is not simply India’s neighbour.
It is India’s unfinished bridge to the East.
next
I’ll continue with Article 160 — “Why Sri Lanka’s Ports Matter in Indian Ocean Strategy.” This will complete the 130–160 batch, covering Colombo, Hambantota, Trincomalee, China’s presence, India’s security concerns and Indian Ocean trade routes.
