Guwahati: China has been funding scores of separatist and militant groups in the Northeast region, claimed a new book ‘Modi’s Bharat: A Decade of Achievements’.The book also claimed that China is “funding several of the militant groups in Manipur”. “Manipur has 34 ethnic-based militant groups (10 from the Meitei, 22 from the Kuki, and 2 from the Naga communities); many are funded by China and Pakistan,” claimed the book, authored by Amit Bagaria and Savio Rodrigues.The claims made in the book have come at a time when the Centre is undertaking efforts to bring peace in Manipur. The book claimed that Manipur violence had been spurred on by “stakeholders in ₹70,000 crore narcotics trade and a proxy war by China”.The authors stated that both Meitei and Kuki community members fled their villages after the Manipur violence erupted in the. They claimed that “393 temples and 317 churches were burned down” in the Manipur violence.The book claimed that Myanmar migrants have added to the tension in Manipur. “The Myanmar civil war, which has been ongoing since the independence of the country in 1948, further escalated tension in Manipur in 1948 with an influx of Kuki-Chin illegal immigrants. Over 40,000 illegal immigrants from Myanmar live in Mizoram and over 4500 in Manipur,” added the book.The book further claimed that “since 1947, China has had designs on India’s Northeast region”. “Through local recruits of their foreign spy agency MSS, Ministry of State Security, in the Northeast region, and of Ladakh, China is trying to convince the people that they are not Indians, just like Pakistan has been doing in Kashmir,” added the book, published by BluOne Ink.The authors also claimed that the Chinese recruits in the Northeast are “telling the people that they are facial contours, food habits and culture is more like China than those of India. China has been funding scores of separatist and militant groups in the Northeast region.”The authors argued that China’s neighbours in the Indo Pacific are looking upon India for stability and security amid the Chinese muscle flexing with them. “With constant military moves in the East China Sea and South China Sea, Chia is also showing aggression against Japan, South Korea, The Philippines and Vietnam, and Indonesia to some extent, and all these countries are strengthening ties with India, which they see as the only counterbalance to China,” added the authors in the book.They also stated that the Northeast region had been neglected for almost seven decades by the Centre. Making a contrast with Jammu and Kashmir, the book argued that despite a much larger population in the Northeast, the region was given “step-fatherly” treatment by the Centre “despite Chinese threats”.“It is debatable whether J&K and Ladakh were more neglected by successive governments for 66.8 years before (Prime Minister Narendra) Modi, or did the Northeast face a more step-fatherly treatment,” added the authors in the book.They asserted that “given the fact that the population of the eight Northeast states was almost 3.71 times than that of J&K state in 2011, it was perhaps much more important to pay attention to the region’s development, especially considering that China has designs on it”.Hailing the infrastructure development in the Northeast during the tenure of the Modi government, the book stated that “tourists’ arrivals in the region went up from 7.471 million in 2015 to 12.3 million in 2023, translating a 65 per cent jump in eight years”.The authors also stated that the “Modi government spent a whopping amount of more than ₹5.47 lakh crores on the Northeast region in the last 10 years. “In addition, ₹11540 crores was spent under Northeast Special Infrastructure Development Scheme and ₹6600 crores under the PM-DeviNE scheme,” added the book.
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