India: Marching in step with Burma’s generals

It must have been a proud moment for India’s representative to the UN Human Rights Council, Ambassador Swashpawan Singh, when on 2 October 2007 he valiantly voted in favour of a resolution condemning Burma’s repression of pro-democracy protests and calling for Aung San Suu Kyi’s release. Then again, his courage lasted all of two hours.  

Most Indian citizens feel that India owes the Burmese people an explanation for its long silence while monks were being shot and arbitrarily detained by the military government next door. Instead, the Indian Ambassador’s explanation took the form of a qualifying statement intended to soften his vote, clarifying, ‘“we regret that the text of the resolution adopted is not fully in conformity” with India’s stance for a “forward-looking, non-condemnatory” approach’.  

September’s silence: predictable 

While India should be commended for voting in favour of the resolution rather than against it like China and Russia, it is hardly surprising that it has failed to meet the demands of Indian public opinion to pressure the Burmese military junta. After all, India’s Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister, Murli Deora, himself witnessed protests in Burma’s streets when he signed a $150 million deal with the state-owned Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise in September 2007. The Shwe gas project is expected to yield between $12 billion and $17 billion for the Burmese government over a period of 20 years. With the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) spending over 40 percent of its annual budget on military expenses, the project is sure to provide the junta with plenty cash for its needs.  

India’s own National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), established to investigate human rights issues, recently participated in the annual meeting of the Asia Pacific Forum of National Human Rights Institutions where it expressed disagreement over a statement calling for Asia Pacific governments to negotiate with Myanmar to bring an end to human rights abuses. The Indian NHRC was outnumbered 16 to one. Clearly, even India’s supposedly autonomous institutions have chosen to echo the State’s apparent disregard of democratic struggles in the region.

The Indian government’s countenance in the last few months has paralleled its stance on Burma’s human rights abuses during the past 15 years. Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee defended military aid to Burma explaining: “We have strategic and economic interests to protect in Burma. It is up to the Burmese people to struggle for democracy, it is their issue.” These “interests” take the form of significant arms deals that are anything but neutral investments. In a December 2006 report entitled “Military Aid to Burma Fuels Abuses,” Human Rights Watch noted, “India’s Air Force chief, S. P. Tyagi, offered a multimillion dollar aid package to Burma’s military… This aid package includes counterinsurgency helicopters, avionics upgrades of Burma’s Russian- and Chinese-made fighter planes, and naval surveillance aircraft. This followed recent pledges in early November by then Indian Army chief of staff, General J. J. Singh, to help train Burmese troops in special warfare tactics.”

India’s about-face

In the past, the world’s largest democracy’s relationship with Burma was not quite so hypocritical. Prime Minister Nehru and Burmese leader U Nu were said to be close friends and maintained cooperative relations between the two nations. After U Nu’s ouster by a coup d’état in 1962, he was given refuge in India. In 1988, during the pro-democracy uprising, thousands of political activists found refuge in India and received aid from the Rajiv Gandhi government. India supported the popularly elected National League for Democracy (NLD) and even bestowed upon Aung San Suu Kyi the prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Understanding. 

India’s about-face took the form of a mid-1990s strategic policy of “pragmatic engagement” in which it warmed relations with the SPDC in order to gain a foothold on the region’s large oil and gas reserves. Indian defence analysts justified the move, claiming that by supporting the pro-democracy movement in the 1980s, China gained an economic and political stronghold in Burma. India cemented its new relationship with the military junta in 1994 by sending thousands of refugees back to Burma, where they suffered imprisonment and unfair military trials. So began India’s custom of placing ostensible geo-strategic interests over the Burmese desire for democracy.

Indian decision makers’ choice to engage with a government that commits arbitrary arrests, recruits child soldiers, and tortures pro-democracy activists is publicly justified by a number of military and economic interests. Foreign Minister Mukherjee made it clear that business interests take precedence over human rights when he firmly opposed any suggestion of economic sanctions in early October 2007, asserting, “Sanctions from the Security Council should be the last resort”. His buzzwords over the last month: engage, urge, and dialogue demonstrate that genuine economic pressure on India’s behalf is not an option when dealing with torturers next-door. Despite global pressure and Burma’s well-documented human rights abuses, General Singh had brazenly declared, "We value our growing military relations with Burma".

Indian army officials and politicians rationalise their collaboration with the dictatorial regime by noting that arms deals and donations keep India’s own northeast territories stable. Indeed, India recently offered to train Burmese Special Forces in counterinsurgency tactics. Cooperation between the two armies dates back to the time when India stopped demanding Aung San Suu Kyi’s release and completed a joint operation to squeeze Nagaland and Manipur insurgents out of base camps in Burma. The Burma Campaign UK writes, “There are serious concerns that once the regime has finished the crackdown on insurgents it will use the weaponry in its war against ethnic civilians”. 

Weapons are not the only support provided by India. Its most recent contribution to the junta’s revenue is “a very happy development and augurs well for expanding the cooperation between two neighboring countries”. At least that was the feeling expressed by Mr. Deora after his approval of the oil exploration deal. The state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) and the Gas Authority of India Ltd. (GAIL) are large investors in Burma, as is the privately owned Essar Group. 

India’s growing energy needs, which are estimated to climb to 400 million standard cubic meters per day by 2025, significantly influence India’s foreign policy in Burma. As pointed out by the former secretary general of the Indian Chamber of Commerce: “India and not China should be getting this gas. It is vital for the economy of eastern India.” Competing with behemoth China for regional power, India continues to pump money into Burma by participating in joint projects like road construction and telecommunications, and even encouraging tourism between the two countries. 

Shortsighted policy a mistake 

The allegedly realist dimensions of India’s policy cannot be ignored. India’s security concerns are real, as are its energy needs. Further, the half-hearted measures taken by the US and the EU are scarcely a benchmark for countries wishing to show support for democratic rights in Burma. Companies based in the US and the EU continue to operate in Burma, enriching the junta and negating the impact of sanctions imposed by their governments (see Human Rights Features – HRF/175/07). China and Thailand, non-democratic countries themselves, can scarcely be expected to issue determined calls for human rights and democracy in Burma.

Indian foreign policy pundits also privately argue that in the absence of a strong government in Myanmar, it will descend into fratricidal ethnic conflict with all the concomitant consequences for its neighbors. Despite having called for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi in the last fortnight, the Pundits in South Block are not sure if her National League for Democracy can fill the political vacuum if the generals are out of the picture. New Delhi still hopes Ms. Suu Kyi and the generals can work together notwithstanding an earlier failed attempt by former chief of intelligence and prime minister Khin Nyunt. India is also not impressed with the leadership of the so-called Burmese exile groups, although it has allowed some of them to operate from India, where they mainly carry out publicity work.

India’s nightmare is that Burma will join the other unstable states on India’s frontiers. The refrain in the corridors of power is: Nepal and Sri Lanka are adequate worries, why add Burma to this list? Coupled with this is the long-term uncertainty of the situation in Pakistan and Bangladesh, and even the Maldives, which is adding to the grey hair of the exalted in New Delhi.

India needs to be less myopic and more cognisant of long-term gains that will accrue to it if there is a democratic government at the helm in Burma. Long-term political stability is a much better guarantor of India’s interests than a rapacious military government that governs on whim and rules by fear.  

Moreover, the moral high ground is nothing to scoff at. As India strives to make its mark as a responsible, reliable world power, it must know that extensive dealings with a military government will blot its copybook. When the SPDC finally folds and a representative government takes power, India might be stuck with a lot of explaining to do.

 Human Rights Features