Raile Rocky Ziipao - Infrastructuring Borderland in Northeast India

Indigenous people at the intersection of international borderlands are straddled between nation-states and the harsh realities of the border subject them to difficult concrete conditions coupled with the infrastructure of injustice. They experience an ontological crisis arising out of the culturo-historical identity, belongingness to a geopolitical landscape, and state-bounded citizenship. Taking the case of the Indo-Myanmar border, the first part of the paper explores the methodological debate on researching borderlands in South Asia. I raised few methodological questions: how can researchers conscientiously bridge the gap between the diverse realities experienced by the borderland communities? How can one respectfully engage with distinct beings while fostering a dialogical space conducive to mutual coexistence? To address these complexities, I adopt an "engaged observation" (Bodhi 2020), as opposed to "participant observation". In this methodological approach, I consciously and willfully commit myself to immerse in the perspective of my participants, fostering a mutual sense of responsibility in our shared complex domain of knowledge within an egalitarian framework. The second part of the paper focuses on the physical infrastructure and development policies of the states by comparing two border towns along the Indo-Myanmar borderland. Infrastructure in general and border areas in particular provides a basis to understand the issue of access, inclusion and exclusion, equity, social justice and other contemporary practices and processes of the state. Against this backdrop, I raised some questions: who is responsible for borderland infrastructure development especially those villages where half is in India and the other half on the Myanmar side of the border? Can the border be secure without adequate physical infrastructure? What is the political economy of borderland development? I posit that there is an eminent contradiction in the development policy of the nation-states at the borderland. This probably points to some degree of insecurity of the nation-states (India and Myanmar), although they have stated their vision statement for open trade, free mobility, and deepening infrastructure development. And yet on the ground, the actions are still guided by the securitization of (un)development.

Raile Rocky Ziipao teaches at Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, India. He was the 2017-18 Raghunathan Family/South Asian Fellow, Harvard University and the author of Infrastructure of Injustice: State and Politics in Manipur and Northeast (Routledge: London and New York, 2020).