Observers of militant activity in Bangladesh and elsewhere in the region have surely noted with interest the news of the June 23 arrest in Dhaka of the founder of Jama'atul Ansar Fil Hindal Sharqiya, Shamim Mahfuz.
The organization's name mirrors its intent: An organization of helpers of the Faithful, those who will bring victory to the region of Eastern South Asia. A relatively new outfit, its core is an amalgamation of leaders and cadres of several splintered extreme-Islamist groups.
Bangladesh's security agencies have stepped up interdiction and arrests since 2022. Of particular concern has been the group allying itself with a rebel group, the Kuki-Chin National Front (KNF) in the Chittagong Hill Tracts.
Bangladesh is justifiably concerned -- even justifiably paranoid -- about religious extremism. But in this case, the alliance is with the largely Christian Kuki-Chin, who have kin in the far-eastern Indian states of Manipur and Mizoram; and the contiguous regions in the Sagaing Division of northwest Myanmar.
As it happens, such ideology-agnostic alliances of convenience are legion in Eastern South Asia. Shelter, training, and weapons are offered for considerations mostly in cash and, if required, kind.
If such a revenue stream is linked to narcotics, fine. As the Taliban have ghoulishly shown as precedent, the farming of poppy for opium and heroin is not haram if it helps in command-and-control over Afghanistan.
Let's take the tri-junction area between Bangladesh, India, and Myanmar. Cross-border links exist within the gamut of Kuki-Chin-Mizo ethnicities in this sub-region. Even a cursory look at a map will explain the political geography which has, since the late 1940s, mindfully ignored impositions of border markers. Bangladesh, India, Bhutan, and even Myanmar have learned this to their cost. And, sometimes, cynical benefit that carries the all-forgiving, self-serving tag of national interest.
In late-May this columnist noted with concern the looting of large quantities of weapons and ammunition from police armouries and gun shops in Manipur, after the eruption of ethnic violence since early May in that state. The weapons were looted by those of the warring minority Kuki and majority Meitei alike, and led by rebel organizations seeking to represent them or fronts linked to such groups.
Of the several thousand weapons and much ammunition looted, a small fraction has either been voluntarily returned after appeals by an inept government, the trigger for the chaos; or after being tracked down by the Indian Army and various paramilitaries.
Much of the loot is now secreted in villages in Manipur, supervised by rebel groups; and, from what I understand, taken to cross-border havens in adjacent Indian states like Mizoram along well-established pipelines. Weapons have also made it across to Myanmar via both Manipur and Mizoram.
As maps will show, it's not much of a trek to Bangladesh.
Now to the underground service industry of quid pro quos. Usually, various services and facilities are offered for money and favours. There are several instances in the region.
Militant Islamist splinters have sought alliances with extreme left communist rebels in Manipur, no matter if atheism is anathema to one, or religion to another.
The National Socialist Council of Nagalim (Isak-Muivah), or NSCN (I-M), currently in ceasefire and engaged in peace talks with the government of India, made it its business, literally, to offer expertise and weapons to various anti-India rebel groups, even helping to spawn a few. It remains active on account of the terms of a bizarre ceasefire (more on that in a future column).
At its peak, NSCN's competing Khaplang faction, with its base in Sagaing Division, offered sanctuary to several rebel groups of different ethnicities: among them Assamese, Bodo, Kamtapuri, and several groups of Meitei rebels.
The arrangement continued even after the death of SS Khaplang, the leader of this faction, in 2017. But the Tatmadaw, Myanmar's army, stepped up attacks against the faction and its splinters. This was triggered primarily by urging of the Indian establishment: call it government-to-government quid pro quo to protect political, geo-economic, and strategic interests.
The groups have had to look further afield; but continue to find sponsors for a fee. Indeed, several anti-India rebel groups continue to find sanctuary in Myanmar thanks to arrangements with Tatmadaw elements, various ethnic groups, and even an occasional wink-and-nudge, to go by intelligence estimates, of that single-minded bull in the China shop.
Such rebel groups have even been known to provide perimeter security to Tatmadaw nabobs as a quid pro quo for being permitted to live in the borderlands of Myanmar that abut India and Bangladesh.
For instance, Tamu, the market town in Myanmar several kilometres across the Indian border town of Moreh in southeast Manipur, serves as camp office, residence, and recreational facility to several such groups.
Myanmar is a ready pipeline of narcotics -- opium, heroin, pseudoephedrine, and its end-product, methamphetamine, and newer-age opioids. Finished products travel back from the Shan and Wa areas bordering China, and Rakhine.
Myanmar is also a pipeline for weapons to Eastern South Asia. On offer are several Kalashnikov variants (usually made in China), ageing M-16 and M-15 assault rifles, landmines, grenades, rocket-propelled grenade launchers (RPG), telescopic sights, laser guidance systems, and handguns in a range from Smith and Wesson, Beretta, and Glock to several Spanish manufactures such as Llama, Astra, Star. And, naturally, all manner of ammunition. I've seen several weapons from this menu in rebel camps in Nagaland state; even Star handguns with Myanmar army markings.
Besides being a ready source of both used and new weaponry, that country's establishment also winks at supplies from Thailand, jettisoned or leached Chinese weapons usually routed through Shan and Wa areas, hardware from Lao, and so on.
The trade survives by greasing the food chain that runs from rarefied layers where magic wands are used to waive, to the bottom-feeding carriers. Not just in Myanmar, but in source and destination countries.
Myanmar is hardly likely to offer solutions. Since independence in 1948, the formula of accommodation-intimidation-autonomy-annihilation in a whatever-works combination -- not equity and development -- has largely been the key mantra to deal with its myriad ethnic groups.
To mitigate the crises of rebellions in Eastern South Asia, instead of looking to rogue states like Myanmar, countries need to look within to fix issues of identities, inequities, and indignities in a range from ethnic to religious to livelihood.
It's either that, or internal conflicts will continue with help from across these multi-ethnic borders, in a region in which unease or conflagration in one part can so easily be nurtured by another.
Sudeep Chakravarti is Director, Center for South Asian Studies at University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh. He has authored several books on history, ethnography, conflict resolution, and Eastern South Asia. His most recent book is ‘The Eastern Gate: War and Peace in Nagaland, Manipur and India's Far East' (Simon and Schuster).
