The road became necessary to maintain supplies of war material to Chiang Kai Shek’s Kuomintang forces in China’s Yunnan province. Air supplies were costly and hazardous along what was dubbed as the ‘aluminium trail’ because of the number of aircraft that crashed on the Paktai ranges.

According to military archives, the road was thrown open on May 20, 1945 after US army engineers completed “the toughest job” ever given them in wartime. It was named after Gen Joseph Warren Stilwell, its builder, on the suggestion of Chiang Kai Shek.

After the war ended, the road — covering a distance of 1,726 km from Ledo in Assam, and passing through Mytkyina, Burma, before finishing at Kunming in the Yunnan province of China — fell into disuse, partly because of the events in Burma and because of a general neglect of India’s insurgency-prone north-eastern states.

The revival of the Stilwell Road now holds out the promise of a better future for the entire region consisting of the Indian states of Assam, Meghalaya, Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura and Arunachal Pradesh.

“All these years we were isolated from the rest of India, save for the narrow link between West Bengal and Assam. Today, people are waking up to the possibilities of sharing mutual economic benefits with neighbouring countries to the east,” Assam state’s minister for industries and commerce Prodyut Bordoloi told IPS.

The first phase of the Look East policy was launched in the early 1990s when economic liberalisation was launched in the country. Its aim was to renew ancient contacts with South-east Asia from which India had somehow drifted away.

India’s northeast maintained commercial and socio-cultural exchanges with Indo-China for centuries. The Ahoms, who ruled Assam for over 600 years and gave the state its name, are believed to have migrated from Thailand via the Patkai range.

Thailand has been enthusiastic about the planned restoration of the Stilwell Road and is a keen member of the BIMSTEC (Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral and Technical Cooperation) that groups Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Myanmar (Burma) and Thailand. Tourists moving from Thailand to southern China and Bhutan are already showing an interest in India’s northeast, according to tour operators.

India sees in BIMSTEC an opportunity to address the lack of opportunities for people in the north-east and convert the region from being a security problem into a land of economic opportunity.

India’s commerce ministry has indicated that its target is to have the Stilwell Road operational by 2010.

“Reviving the Stilwell Road is seen as a way to open India’s northeast to China and South East Asia,” says Mahesh K. Saharia, chairman of the North East Regional Council of the Indian Chamber of Commerce. “The opening of the road is not so much for political considerations as for commercial reasons and the development of the northeast.”

Saharia says the logic is simple. “Though 40 per cent of the world’s people live in China and India, they garner, between them, less than nine per cent of the world trade, and intra-trade between the two neighbours accounts for less than 3.5 per cent of it. However, if intra-trade doubles as projected that would mean moving a huge tonnage of goods for which the land route remains the best option.”

China has already built a highway to reach Mytkyina on the old Burma Road, reducing the distance from India to Kunming considerably. In fact, Kunming will then be only 700 km from upper Assam, Saharia points out.

Bordoloi agrees. “Stilwell Road is not a new road. From ancient days, the 12th century particularly, it has been a trans-migrational route for people of different tribes. Now we have to renew those ties. Also, we have to keep in mind the development of the Sitwee port in Burma which can serve as a shorter sea route [compared to Kolkata] for the northeast’s export produce.”

There are security concerns too. The jungles of Burma are alleged to be training grounds for insurgents in the north-eastern region and are known to be used as a staging ground for the movement of narcotics from the infamous ‘Golden Triangle’.

Bordoloi brushes aside such fears. “We need to review old ideas; you can’t look at everything through the prism of security. Old paradigms do not work. If there is better infrastructure and connectivity, narco-terrorism can be controlled better.”

There are other potential flies in the ointment. Burma’s military junta has been wary about the Stilwell Road because a 300-km stretch runs through the jungle-covered mountains and valleys of insurgency-hit Kachin state, over which it exercises limited control.

However, according to Papori Phukan, a researcher for the New Delhi-based Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, the Burmese junta cannot afford to ignore certain geographical realities. “The area is not connected with mainland Burma and the locals who live in and around the Pangsau pass already procure their basic requirements from Nampong in India, where the Burmese are allowed to visit without passports,” she told IPS.

Similarly, people from Arunachal Pradesh state regularly cross over into Burma, using the Stilwell road, to buy goods from Pangsau, Papori said. - IPS News Service