India’s Disturbing Ties with Myanmar Junta

By Angshuman Choudhury 24 November 2022

On November 22, India’s Ministry of Exterior Affairs (MEA) put out a brief, three-point press launch asserting the working go to of international secretary, Vinay Mohan Kwatra, to Myanmar.

With out saying too many issues, it revealed one factor very unambiguously – so far as the connection between the Indian authorities and the junta is worried, it’s enterprise as normal.

The press launch notes that the 2 sides mentioned “upkeep of safety and stability within the border areas” and “bilateral improvement cooperation tasks”. Kwatra additionally “raised the difficulty of human trafficking by worldwide crime syndicates within the Myawaddy space of Myanmar by which many Indian nationals have been caught and reviewed”.

Going by the Indian tweets, the international secretary met all regime leaders, together with chief Min Aung Hlaing and international minister Wunna Maung Lwin. There have been some photograph ops the place palms had been shaken and well mannered smiles exchanged. The junta mouthpiece the World New Gentle of Myanmar reported Kwatra’s assembly with Min Aung Hlaing on its entrance web page.

What’s notable is that the MEA and the Indian Embassy in Yangon publicized the conferences between the visiting international secretary and the junta management on Twitter, which wasn’t the case when former Indian international secretary, Harsh Vardhan Shringla, visited Min Aung Hlaing in December 2021.

This implies New Delhi is now extra assured in partaking with the junta than earlier than and doesn’t thoughts trumpeting it within the open. In different phrases, it’s prepared to present the regime the worldwide legitimacy that it so desperately craves. In return, it expects constancy and cooperation.

New language, new strategy?

This time the Indian aspect referred to the junta as “the senior management of Myanmar”. The MEA press launch after Shingla’s go to final yr used the time period State Administration Council, which is what the junta calls itself. This yr’s phrase takes New Delhi one step nearer to recognizing the regime because the legit authorities of Myanmar. This isn’t stunning. For the reason that early Nineties, India has unwaveringly maintained a coverage of recognizing whoever is in efficient management of Naypyitaw because the legit authorities of all of Myanmar – which can not mirror the fact on the bottom.

Notably, this yr’s press launch was considerably shorter than final yr’s, displaying India’s narrowing strategy in direction of post-coup Myanmar.

Versus Shringla, Kwatra solely broached a really small set of points with the junta management, no less than publicly. These cowl India’s personal strategic and financial pursuits; initiatives that assist New Delhi keep its footprint in its jap neighborhood.

Most prominently they relate to the resumption of labor on the Kaladan Multimodal Transit Transport Challenge and the India-Myanmar-Thailand trilateral freeway – each of that are New Delhi’s flagship connectivity tasks in Myanmar. India’s engagement with the Border Space Improvement Programme and Rakhine State Improvement Programme was additionally introduced up.

All of those had been talked about, in virtually the identical language, in final yr’s press launch.

However Shringla additionally raised India’s curiosity in seeing a democratic Myanmar, the discharge of political prisoners, cessation of violence, help for the ASEAN peace course of and provision of humanitarian assist to the individuals. He additionally expressed hope to see Myanmar “emerge as a secure, democratic federal union in accordance with the desires of the individuals of Myanmar”.

None of this was talked about within the latest press launch. Omissions are revealing.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s authorities now appears extra reluctant to publicly stress the junta.

By dodging points that the junta may discover unpalatable, India hopes to appease the regime in return for full cooperation in securing its pursuits. As New Delhi’s tunnel-vision goes, poking the regime may end in India dropping entry in Naypyitaw and, consequently, ceding floor to China.

However one wonders what good is that this “entry” when it comes at the price of dropping goodwill amongst the bulk in Myanmar and, satirically, ending up wanting precisely like China.

Dropping public goodwill

By now it ought to be clear that the junta is unpopular, together with with the  Bamar majority from which earlier regimes drew legitimacy.

To parley with this regime is to alienate mainstream civil society, political leaders and the vast majority of the individuals.

No diplomatic technique can maintain for lengthy with out public help within the accomplice nation and India is already dropping out.

Social media responses to the MEA tweets reveal the surging anger and frustration in direction of India.

“We, the individuals of Myanmar, will always remember what India did to us throughout our most troublesome instances. India is writing a hideous historical past,” says one reply.

“A shame, India working with barbaric terrorists. If India actually needs to supply its ‘help to democratic transition in Myanmar’ then it ought to work with @NUGMyanmar moderately than the repulsive and failing Min Aung Hlaing terror group,” wrote one account titled Please Assist Save Myanmar.

Earlier this yr, the international minister of the Nationwide Unity Authorities (NUG), Daw Zin Mar Aung, advised me in an interview that she feels India isn’t supporting the pro-democracy motion because it was anticipated to.

What she mentioned mirrored a broader sentiment in Myanmar that India is not residing as much as its optimistic picture because the world’s largest democracy and a mannequin of democratic federalism.

The individuals really feel betrayed by India’s pro-junta diplomacy.

Quick-sighted coverage

India’s resolution to maneuver nearer to the junta is confounding not simply due to its ethical vacuity but in addition its political and strategic myopia.

The junta is a pathologically unreliable actor that solely cares about its predatory pursuits. It should all the time select to protect its networks of loyalty and revenue over India’s pursuits. Current developments have solely reaffirmed this.

Over the previous few months, Indian media experiences have revealed how a whole bunch of younger Indian IT specialists have been trafficked right into a Chinese language-run rip-off within the village of Shwe Kokko on the Thai border in Myawaddy Township. This mega-racket is protected by the Border Guard Power, a Karen militia led by the warlord Noticed Chit Thu and allied to Myanmar’s junta.

The border pressure is ready to function in that space as a result of the junta is permitting it to take action, in trade for loyalty within the ongoing battle with the Karen Nationwide Union.

The Indian press launch does point out this however the story within the junta media doesn’t.

So we don’t know whether or not the junta agreed to make sure the discharge of Indians who’re nonetheless trapped in Shwe Kokko or direct the border militia to ensure that no Indians can be trafficked into Myawaddy sooner or later.

One hopes that’s the case however the actuality is unsettling. A number of Indians who’ve managed to flee have advised horror tales of pressured labor, bodily deprivation and torture in Shwe Kokko.

Whereas the Indian authorities has managed to rescue a number of of them, one escapee not too long ago advised me that the response from the Indian Embassy in facilitating their extraction had been painfully gradual.

Earlier this yr, a number of media experiences indicated that the junta was recruiting anti-India militants from Assam and Manipur as mercenaries in its battle in opposition to the resistance in Sagaing Area. In trade, these militants had been being given secure haven inside Myanmar and bases for assaults in opposition to Indian forces alongside the border.

Shringla raised this final December however there isn’t a proof the junta has stopped giving refuge to Indian insurgents.

A disturbing dissonance

Later this yr India will formally tackle the presidency of the G20. The official theme for the Indian presidency is “Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam”, Sanskrit for “one earth, one household, one future”. Whereas revealing the official emblem of the presidency earlier in November, Modi mentioned: “The world goes via the after-effects of a disruptive once-in-a-century pandemic, conflicts and numerous financial uncertainty… The image of the lotus within the G20 emblem is a illustration of hope at the moment. Regardless of how hostile the circumstances, the lotus nonetheless blooms. Even when the world is in a deep disaster, we are able to nonetheless progress and make the world a greater place.”

India’s coverage on Myanmar belies these grand assertions of hope, humanity and inclusion. By backing a regime which maims, displaces and deprives its residents, India can hardly count on to place itself as a world chief match to “make the world a greater place”.

One might argue that in realpolitik diplomacy, there may be little place for human rights and moralistic idealism. However to speak about “people-centric improvement” on one hand and shake palms with a brutal navy chief at battle with the individuals on the opposite isn’t diplomatic dexterity, it’s a complete international coverage personal aim.

Angshuman Choudhury is an affiliate fellow on the Centre for Coverage Analysis, New Delhi.