India once openly supported the Burmese democracy movement led by Aung San Suu Kyi. But in the 1990s, it changed course and stepped up engagement with the military junta based on strategic interests. Almost two decades later, according to many analysts, New Delhi has not achieved any of its three main strategic goals in Burma.
Åshild Kolås, of the Peace Research Institute in Oslo, identified India's primary interests with regard to Burma as increasing security in the border regions "through generous military assistance and agreements on counterinsurgency cooperation," promoting New Delhi's "Look East policy" by "building overland transportation routes from northeast India to Southeast Asia and the Bay of Bengal," and finally, "countering Chinese influence."
With regard to military cooperation, Kolås said, Burma, officially known as Myanmar, has failed to deliver help that New Delhi needs to confront insurgent groups in India's northeast that operate from across the Burmese border. "Even if the Burmese military were capable of delivering, sustaining cross-border militancy is a much better bargaining chip for the regime," she explained.
Kolås added that India's Look East policy was reckless, since "opening up to a country in crisis may offer few benefits while increasing challenges such as drug trafficking (opium, heroin and methamphetamines), weapons smuggling, human trafficking and the spread of HIV/AIDS."
She went on to say that India had "no chance of competing with China for any 'favors' from the Burmese regime," because Burma and China had stronger converging interests. China sees Myanmar as a transport route for oil and gas that bypasses the Strait of Malacca. Meanwhile, she explained, the Burmese regime wants to maintain China as a key ally due to its status as a permanent member with veto power in the U.N. Security Council.
Burma's preferences are apparent in its recent strategic choices. Benedict Rogers, in his book, "Than Shwe: Unmasking Burma's Tyrant," claimed that in 2007, Than granted Beijing special privileges for exploiting Burma's natural resources, agreeing to sell newfound gas from the Shwe gas fields to China, even though a competing Indian bid was more attractive financially.
Renaud Egreteau, an analyst from the University of Hong Kong, agreed with Kolås, arguing that India could not go beyond a tactical and targeted partnership because of "Burma's nationalistic agenda, which sees India as a credible counterweight to China, but not more."
Satyabrat Sinha, assistant professor at the Department of Peace and Conflict Studies at Sikkim University in northeast India, said that Burma's advantageous bargaining position exacerbates New Delhi's predicament: The Burmese junta knows that India cannot afford to "lose" Burma to the Chinese, nor can India allow the security situation in its own northeast to deteriorate.
Egreteau further explained that, given Burma's "nationalist and xenophobic legacies and policies," the Burmese regime can keep Asia's globalizing and democratizing trends at bay to remain the master of its own foreign policy, including toward India. He added that a vocal policy of opposition to the Burmese junta had little chance of success, given Burma's geopolitical environment. That explains "the tactful Indian policy of discreetly courting and engaging a Burmese military that will remain Burma's key policymaking player in the next decade."
However, Sabyasachi Basu Ray Chaudhury, from the Calcutta Research Group, argues that India's "all-carrot policy" vis-à-vis the military junta in Myanmar has not paid off. "[India's] Sinophobia may be based on certain developments taking place in [its] immediate neighborhood, but [India's] policies to deal with the growing Chinese presence in the region smacks of immaturity." Chaudhury compared India's failure to formulate an independent Burmese policy to its decision-making on Iran policy, which he described as being "outsourced" to Washington. India voted against Iran in the International Atomic Energy Agency in 2005, allegedly coerced by the United States as part of the Indo-U.S. nuclear deal.
Kolås believes India could play a larger role in encouraging reforms in Myanmar by engaging in a critical dialogue with the regime as well as with the opposition, and by providing international humanitarian assistance to Myanmar through the U.N. She also suggested that India would be better-positioned to support international and regional efforts to encourage political reforms in Myanmar were it to join a global arms embargo against Myanmar and cease cooperation for counterinsurgency purposes.
Chaudhury said that human rights diplomacy may or may not be a major issue in the foreign policy-making of a country. But India's pride in being the world's largest democracy is incompatible with remaining "oblivious to the continuous rights violations in Myanmar, and indirectly or directly [legitimizing and strengthening] an authoritarian regime in its neighborhood in the name of . . . national interest and national security."
Despite these flaws, New Delhi's policy on Burma continues to be driven by the fear of having a hostile neighbor with Chinese influence in the east, in addition to its archrival Pakistan on the western border.
Vishal Arora is an independent journalist based in New Delhi, India. He writes and researches on politics, culture, religion and foreign relations in South Asia. His articles have appeared in the media in India, the U.S., the U.K. and the UAE. He can be contacted at vishalarora_in@hotmail.com.