The increasing camaraderie between democratic India and authoritarian Myanmar, notorious for trampling the democratic aspirations of its countrymen, is obviously frustrating and outrageous to the advocates of democracy in Myanmar as well as the thousands of Myanmarese refugees staying in India for years, but the imperatives of the evolving balance-of-power dynamics in the Southeast Asian region gives India no option at all other than to warm up to the military junta. Times have so changed since India’s strong espousal of the pro-democratic uprising in Myanmar in 1988 led by the iconic Aung San Suu Kyi, as also the collapse of the erstwhile Soviet Union and the consequent shift from Cold War obligations to the multipolarity pragmatism, that Myanmar, despite its blatant disregard of the democratic aspirations of its citizens, has become an all-important foreign policy quotient for India in this region. For one, idealism will create further scope for the other giant, China, to be at the pivot of the Myanmarese business and strategic space — which India must compete with to remain a relevant player in the power play. For another, the safe havens enjoyed by northeastern militant groups in the jungles of Myanmar are a huge disadvantage for the counter-militancy operators in the region. With the Sheikh Hasina dispensation at Dhaka vowing to weed out Indian militant groups based in Bangladesh, and given the recent positive gestures shown by the Hasina government such as in the handing over of the likes of ULFA chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa and NDFB chairman Ranjan Daimary, Myanmar’s cooperation in cracking down on Indian militants’ hideouts in that country will prove to be defining in the fight against militancy in the Northeast. Therefore, it was only too natural that India should accord a red-carpet welcome to the visiting Myanmar military ruler, General Than Shwe, last Tuesday. He met Vice-President Hamid Ansari, External Affairs Minister SM Krishna and Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj before holding talks with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
Of the five pacts signed after the Singh-Shwe talks over a wide range of issues, including counter-terror cooperation, enhanced energy ties and collaboration in a string of development projects, the one on mutual legal assistance in criminal matters could prove to be crucial in enabling India get access to militants from its northeastern States who are settled in the safe sanctuaries of Myanmar. The treaty seeks to deepen bilateral cooperation in combating transnational organized crime, terrorism, drug trafficking, money laundering and smuggling of arms and explosives. The agreement has been welcomed in the Northeast. One hopes that Gen Shwe’s junta would not renege its mutual legal aid contract with India under pressure from China — one of whose strategic experts had harped on the Chinese desire to see India splintered into 20-30 independent states last year. Given that Beijing will respond in its own way to the latest development in the India-Myanmar relationship as it must increase its clout in Myanmar in order to shift the power equations in China’s favour, New Delhi must nuance its Myanmar policy very smartly, informed by the priorities of the day as well as by Myanmar’s trade-and-commerce expectations from its relationship with India. At the same time, atavistic foreign policy mandarins ought not to be allowed to spoil the new and evolving India-Myanmar friendship framework. While we greatly value the democracy desire of Myanmar’s suppressed populace and stand in solidarity with movements for democracy anywhere in the world, there are practicalities too that we can afford to ignore only to lose our new, widening and deepening global ground. The Myanmar military junta is one such practicality.