By Sudha Ramachandran

BANGALORE – Myanmar’s Senior General Than Shwe ended a five-day visit to India on Thursday having sealed several pacts that will boost security and economic cooperation between the two countries. A treaty on mutual legal assistance in criminal matters will enable India to get access to insurgents from its northeastern states who are taking sanctuary along the India-Myanmar border. The treaty will also boost bilateral efforts to combat terrorism and drug trafficking.

India has also pledged a grant of US$60 million for the construction of a road linking its northeast with Myanmar, besides a grant of $10 million for Myanmar to purchase agricultural

machinery from India.

More than these million-dollar deals, it is the red-carpet welcome that Than Shwe received that the junta will probably value most of all. Under criticism from the West for its plans to hold elections under a constitution that cements the military’s role in politics even as it excludes the participation of main opposition figure Aung San Suu Kyi, the India visit is endorsement for the junta from the world’s largest democracy.

The warm welcome triggered condemnation worldwide and angry protests by Myanmarese exiles in Delhi. These are pro-democracy activists, including monks who have gone in waves to India since the 1988 military crackdown.

To the pro-democracy activists, Than Shwe’s visit was full of ironies. Here was a general who presided over a bloody crackdown on Buddhist monks in 2008, visiting Bodh Gaya in eastern India, where the Lord Buddha is believed to have attained enlightenment.

In Delhi, the general laid a wreath at Rajghat, the memorial to Mahatma Gandhi. Gandhi’s non-violent resistance against colonial rule has inspired millions across the world, including the junta’s bete noire, Suu Kyi. And to top it, it was the world’s largest democracy that was feting the general.

The feeling of betrayal by India among pro-democracy activists is understandable. India was, after all, once their biggest supporter. In 1988, it not only condemned the junta’s crackdown on student protesters, but also officials in the Indian Embassy in Yangon are believed to have helped opposition groups during the protests and India provided sanctuary to pro-democracy activists fleeing the junta’s crackdown. In 1992, Delhi even sponsored a United Nations resolution calling on the junta to heed the verdict of the 1990 election and restore democracy.

Compare that with the Indian government’s response, or rather lack of response, to developments in Myanmar in recent years and the extent of India’s policy shift becomes evident. It remained silent for months during the 2007 mass protests in Yangon. When it finally spoke in a bland statement, the government said that it was “concerned” and expressed hope “that all sides will resolve their issues peacefully through dialogue”.

It failed to condemn or even take note of the junta’s ruthless suppression of peaceful protest. There has been no comment from India on Myanmar’s new constitution, which entrenches the military in the power structure. The extension of Suu Kyi’s house detention last year was also met with stony silence from Delhi.

Indian officials deny that India has abandoned the pro-democracy movement in Myanmar. An official in India’s Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) told Asia Times Online some months ago that India was still committed to democracy and human rights in that country. Only it had adopted “a more nuanced approach, one that involves dealing with the government and commitment to human rights and democracy”, he said. Explaining its silence on important developments in Myanmar, he said that raising “sensitive issues” such as the restoration of democracy or Suu Kyi’s detention in public was “unproductive”. India preferred “to nudge Myanmar quietly on issues of concern,” he said.

So did India nudge Than Shwe on issues related to the restoration of democracy during the Delhi visit?

K Yhome, associate fellow at the Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation, told Asia Times Online that it was likely that India would have raised its concerns about the elections. “It would have made it clear that the generals must, to the extent possible, ensure free and fair elections in a manner that would make the elections credible to the international community,” he said, adding that India was putting pressure on the generals “in its own way”.

India’s influence over the generals has grown significantly over the past 15 years. It was concern over China’s mounting influence in Myanmar that prompted Delhi to begin courting the generals in the mid-1990s, hesitantly at first and then assiduously over the past decade.

There were other reasons too. Success of its “Look East” policy was not possible if it remained reluctant to build ties with Myanmar – the “land-bridge” that links India with Southeast Asia. Besides, northeastern insurgents were taking sanctuary in Myanmar. Counter-insurgency operations there required the junta’s cooperation.

Myanmar’s ample gas reserves have been a huge attraction as well. Realizing that the generals would be in power the foreseeable future at least, Indian policymakers felt they had to engage them. This prompted the shift to a more “realistic policy” over Myanmar.

Justifying India’s engagement of the generals, Pranab Mukherjee, then India’s foreign minister, said in 2006 that India had to deal with governments “as they exist”. “We are a democracy and we would like democracy to flourish everywhere. But we cannot export our ideologies,” he said.

Unlike the West, which has dismissed the proposed election in Myanmar as a sham, India is taking a more nuanced view. The election, while it will not be perfect, is an important step in a longer process of democratization.

Yhome explains that in a country like Myanmar, which has been under military rule for decades, democratization will be “an incremental process”. To expect total regime change like the one the US expected is unrealistic. “No solution can realistically exclude them [the generals]. We have to accept the reality on the ground, recognize that some players will remain important and that we have to deal with them,” he said.

Again, while India has remained silent on the opposition National League for Democracy’s decision to boycott the elections, it is believed that it was in favor of the party participating in the poll. “The NLD had a choice between entering the fray and working the system, or staying out of it and going into oblivion. Unfortunately, it chose the latter,” the MEA official observed.

Journalist Siddharth Varadarajan, writing in the Hindu newspaper, has drawn attention to the seeming blunder the NLD has committed in boycotting the poll:

”A boycott will be effective only if the NLD can mobilize enough support on the streets and if the military fears the adverse impact this would have on its international standing. Neither of these conditions hold. The SPDC [State Peace and Development Council] has already hit rock bottom in the global popularity stakes and the opposition’s chances of paralyzing Yangon, Mandalay and the new capital of Naypyitaw are low indeed. Given how well-entrenched the military is and given Southeast Asia region’s preference for ‘order’, a ‘guided democracy’ is the best that can be hoped for under the present circumstances. But even this would be a huge improvement over the current stalemate and would open up political spaces that Daw Suu Kyi and the NLD could slowly utilize.”

It is highly likely that the election, if held at all, will be flawed. But that is inevitable, considering the country has been under military rule for over half a century. The political transition will be slow and move in fits and starts. Yet changes that were unthinkable even a year ago are happening.

The election will create political institutions that Myanmar has not had for decades – a presidential system, two houses of parliament, 14 regional governments and assemblies. All the same, a quarter of those sitting in parliament will be from the military. And it is likely that many civilians in the house will be their cronies. Still, “it will be the most wide-ranging transformation in a generation and offers an opportunity for a change in the future direction of the country”, Jim Della-Giacoma of the International Crisis Group has observed.

While the generals have clearly secured themselves by framing the rules of the game in a way that will ensure their future role in Myanmar’s politics, the upcoming transition will fill them with uncertainties. Two decades ago, when they did hold elections, their plans blew up in their faces as the NLD tidal wave swept them away, only for the result to be ignored.

Since 2007, monks in Myanmar have declared Pattani Kuzanakan against the junta their families in protest of the brutal crackdown. Pattani Kuzanakan imposes a boycott on the offender and prohibits monks from accepting offerings and preaching sermons to the offender, necessary for Buddhists to earn karmic credit. Those spurned become outcasts from Buddhist society.

At Bodh Gaya, the highly religious and superstitious Than Shwe prayed for about five hours, fed monks at a monastery and donated approximately $11,000 to the temple.

Clearly, he wants the path ahead to be as smooth as possible.

Sudha Ramachandran is an independent journalist/researcher based in Bangalore.

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