Mizzima

The following Is an interview by Igor Blazevic with Angshuman Choudhury, Associate Fellow at the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi examining India-Myanmar relations in light of the Myanmar military coup of  2021.

Angshuman Choudhury is an Associate Fellow at the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi. He is also a member of the Indo-Pacific Circle. Prior to this, he was a Senior Researcher at the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, New Delhi, where he coordinated the South East Asia Research Programme. Angshuman primarily works on Myanmar, Northeast India, Southeast Asia, Indian foreign policy, and patterns of armed conflict. He has additional interests in identity, citizenship regimes, and forced displacement, with focus on Assam and Rakhine State. Angshuman is himself from Assam, currently based in New Delhi.

Here is the interview:

Igor: India and Russia are the countries that are most unapologetically engaging and supporting the Myanmar’s junta. It is clear why Putin’s Russia supports junta. It is more confusing why India, a neighbour, shows so much disregard to the suffering and will of the Myanmar people. Angshuman, can we start by outlining the main drivers of Indian policy of support to the Myanmar junta? What are the long term strategic interests and more immediate concerns?

Angshuman Choudhury: For me it is not a surprise that India is engaging and working closely with the junta after the coup. If you look at Indian policy towards Myanmar over the last 20 to 25 years, especially after early 1990s, India has always followed the philosophy of working closely with whoever is in control of Naypyidaw, be it the military or civilian government. In addition, India has a very long history of working closely with the Myanmar military. There is a path dependency of working with the military.

Interests that drive India’s foreign policy in Myanmar can be summarized into three points which are border security, balancing China and economic and commercial interests.  

The core driving philosophy is that, it is the Myanmar military that will be able to ensure all these three points for India. It's a Myanmar military that can ensure the security and stability of the 1,600-kilometer-long India-Myanmar border. It's engagement with the Myanmar military that will help India balance China. It's engagement with the military that will help India advance its economic and commercial interests in Myanmar. The main thrust in Delhi is that, if we have to ensure all these three points then we have to work with the Myanmar military. 

Until 1988 India was very supportive of pro-democracy forces in Myanmar. After 1988, the Myanmar military began to use the border to put pressure on India to reverse its policy. Myanmar military allowed Indian insurgents to take shelter inside Myanmar along the border regions. India started to believe that if it continues to support pro-democracy forces the Myanmar military will continue to disturb India by using Indian insurgents. So, they decided in Delhi to change policy and start working with the Myanmar military.

All this became even more pronounced because of China’s rise over the last ten years. India feels threatened by rising Chinese influence in its own neighborhood. India is especially worried because of expanding Chinese influence through the Belt and Road Initiative, which includes a major north-south connectivity component in Myanmar. This has created an even stronger imperative to build a close relationship with whoever is in power in Naypyidaw in the recent past.

Igor: However, since the attempted but failed coup, India’s approach you're describing looks increasingly paradoxical.  We see junta having less and less control and plunging the whole country into chaos. And at the same time India is betting more and more on the junta as someone who can secure key Indian interests. How do you explain that there is a such a little understanding of the real developments in Myanmar? 

Angshuman Choudhury: You are right, there is a serious paradox.  I have written a lot about this in my articles that even from India's strategic point of view it doesn't make sense to work with the Myanmar military. India is doing this because the foreign policy psyche of New Delhi is stuck in the 1990s. They believe that although Myanmar military might not be in control of large swathes of territory at the moment, it will eventually regain control. That's why in Delhi they believe that they need to bet on the military. There is no other more dominant force in the country. In the past, there has been resistance against the military but ultimately the military has always prevailed. The military is seen as a winning horse. The government in New Delhi fails to understand that today the situation is very different from the past. 

There is also one more reason. Over the last decade the Indian establishment, particularly the (PM Narendra) Modi government, has built a very close relationship with the Myanmar military. Modi met Min Aung Hlaing on at least three occasions and that all happened during a civilian administration in Myanmar. We have also seen the Indian army chief and National Security Advisor visiting Myanmar. We have seen military exercise between the Indian and Myanmar Navies. The Indian and the Myanmar armies have conducted joint operations along the border. This is what I call path dependency. A big chunk of the Delhi’s policy toward Myanmar is created not in the foreign ministry but in the defense and security establishment, by the national security advisors and the military chiefs. That explains this tilt towards the military.

Igor: In the current situation it does not look very probable that it is possible to continue with big infrastructural projects such as Kaladan Project and India-Myanmar-Thailand Trilateral highway project. However, India is still ready to make a big fanfare about ongoing implementation. How is such disregard of reality possible? 

Angshuman Choudhury: Believe it or not, the establishment in Delhi doesn't have enough information about what's going on inside Myanmar. Despite all its foreign intelligence and analysis capabilities it does not have enough information, or even if it does, it tends to under read the information and to underemphasize the extent of the revolution. This is why the establishment in Delhi thinks that the military can still prevail.

Regarding Kaladan, India knows very well that the last stretch of the Kaladan project, the stretch from Paletwa to Kalewa, is out of Myanmar military’s control. India knows that it's the CNF (Chin National Front) and the AA (Arakan Army) that have control over this patch of territory and India does not expect that road to be completed anytime soon. The only reason why India is still taking this project forward by inaugurating the Sittwe port is because it wants to send a message to the outside world and especially to China, that it has good relations with the Myanmar military and that it can get things going on the ground despite the coup. The target audience of photos of inaugurating the Sittwe port are not the Myanmar people, it's China.

Igor: Is Hindu nationalism playing any role in influencing Indian policy? One can imagine that there is affinity between the type of nationalism which is the core of Modi government and BJP party and the Bama Buddhist chauvinism. Is there any ideological affinity which is making the Modi government closer to the Myanmar military than to the democratic movement?

Angshuman Choudhury: Unlike many of my colleagues who study foreign policy, I do believe that ideology plays a key role in foreign policy. One cannot discount political ideology while understanding a country’s foreign policy. The Hindu nationalist ideology plays a part. But it's a complex mix of both interests based foreign policy and ideological affinity. This ideological affinity is both cultural alignment between Hindu nationalism and Bama nationalism, but also ideology of hyper nationalistic, militaristic nationalism. It's both cultural and political nationalism that we are seeing at play. Good example is when at a recent meeting of radical Hindu nationalist clerics in northern India, one of them framed the violence inflicted on the Rohingya in Myanmar as a positive example of what should be done to the Muslims in India. Besides this, there is a subtle but unmistakable tilt towards an autocratic style of governance within the highest levels of the Modi government in Delhi. That is also something that cannot be denied.

Igor: Is Akhand Bharat ideology influencing the BJP approach to Myanmar in any significant way?

Angshuman Choudhury: For those who don't know, Akhand Bharat literally translates to “undivided India” or “greater India”. This is a ridiculous fantasy of the Hindutva nationalist movement, an irredentist fantasy much like Vladimir Putin's idea of a greater Russian motherland. It is a movement to reclaim what they believe is lost Hindu land which includes Pakistan and Afghanistan, probably Myanmar as well. However, I wouldn't say this ideology is really influencing the current government’s policy towards Myanmar. 

Igor: India’s support for the junta become more explicit over the past year and it seems that overlaps with the arrival of the new Indian ambassador, H.E. Vinay Kumar. Did he arrive with instructions to be more active in relations with junta? Or have some other factors triggered a more active engagement of India? Or is this also a consequence of some personal ambition of ambassador Kumar?

Angshuman Choudhury: It's impossible for me to confirm whether ambassador Vinay Kumar has any personal ambitions or interests. Generally speaking, Indian foreign policy and any kind of policy making has become very, very centralized. The ambassador cannot do anything without a directive from Delhi. And there is a belief in Delhi that now we need to up the engagement with the Myanmar military given the Chinese threat. So yes, there has been a clear shift from cautious engagement to diplomatic normalization after ambassador Vinay Kumar took charge. However, my understanding is that the directive came from the establishment in New Delhi.

If you compare the 2021 visit of the previous foreign secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla to Myanmar, it was quite different from the visit of the current foreign secretary Vinay Mohan Kwatra in November 2022. In the 2021 visit, the foreign secretary met Min Aung Hlaing, but he also met members of the civil society, many of whom are very pro-democracy. The press statement that came out from India after the visit talked about democracy, about releasing political prisoners and it was a very long press release. In 2022, it was a very short press release, and there was no mention of restoration of democracy, no call to release political prisoners, no call for cessation of violence. The only focus was on economic and strategic interests. The foreign secretary did not meet anyone from the civil society. He only met Min Aung Hlaing, Wunna Maung Lwin and other senior junta leaders.

Igor: What can Myanmar civil society and Spring Revolution activists can do to be heard by India’s policymakers? Can the Modi government be influenced by either Myanmar’s vox populi or by the advocacy groups and the NUG?

Angshuman Choudhury: I wouldn't be very hopeful given the sort of staunch thinking in India in terms of engagement with the junta. But that doesn't mean that we should just sit and do nothing. The key advocacy message from Myanmar civil society should be that the Indian government needs to bet on the revolution and not the Myanmar military, if India wants to secure its own strategic and economic interests in Myanmar. 

That should be argued by highlighting that it’s the revolutionary forces that command the popular legitimacy in Myanmar. India claims in every statement that it wants to work for the benefit of the people. So, it is necessary to convince the government in New Delhi that if they really want to work for the people than they have got to do it through the revolutionary forces, through the NUG, NUCC and the various civil society organizations and not through the Myanmar military. It should be stressed that if they continue to work through the Myanmar military, they won't be able to achieve their objectives in the short, medium or long term.

The other important thing would be to ensure that there is a regular flow of information into both the Indian government and non-government circles, including think tanks, civil society, and the academic and media communities in Delhi. Which means, organizing not just closed-door briefings but also public briefings. This would require Myanmar's civil society groups to create linkages with Indian civil society groups so that they can also take up their cause and advocate. 

The think tank community in Delhi is very important, because most of the think tank community in Delhi is pro government. So, if you get through to this community, you also get through to the government in a way. The focus has to be on that.

Igor: What about the media? What would be your advice on how to work with the media?

Angshuman Choudhury: Indian media as you must have seen is not very interested in Myanmar. Despite the fact that there's a huge coup and political crisis right next door. They are only interested in Myanmar when certain big events happen or when China gets involved. For example, after the recent Chatham House report on the Great Coco Island, a lot reports about Myanmar appeared in Indian media. 

Igor: Many in Myanmar intellectual political circles look into the Indian federal constitution as something that is useful inspiration for the Myanmar federalism. Can exchanges with Indian experts and learning about the Indian constitution and federal model be a venue to create links and engagement between Myanmar civil and political society with Indian counterparts? 

Angshuman Choudhury: It can be one of pivots to convince the Indian government that they need to bet on the right side. We know that there has been a serious democratic backslide in India. However, the Indian government still believes in “selling” the Indian variant of federal democracy to the outside world. The Indian political establishment is very much proud of the fact that India has a federal democratic tradition. What it does at home is probably entirely different but in its outward image it likes to project India as a very proud democratic nation. So yes, that definitely is a good pitch.

Igor: What about the Mizoram state government?

Angshuman Choudhury: I'm glad you raised this question about Mizoram. The Mizoram state government has been very supportive of the revolution in Myanmar, particularly in Chin State. The Mizoram chief minister has actually strongly stood his ground in supporting the refugees from Chin State. Working with the Mizoram government would also be a good way to affect attitude shifts in New Delhi. But the caveat is that the Mizoram government doesn't have too much political leverage in the broader federal structure. That also needs to be kept in mind.

Igor: What about Members of Parliament? Can MPs be the entry point for advocacy, either from the BJP side or from the opposition side? 

Angshuman Choudhury: It's better to start with BJP Members of Parliament. The BJP is the ruling party and if you will manage to influence the BJP MPs, you would probably manage to shift the foreign policy to some extent. 

Igor: What are the chances to mobilize Indian people support for the Myanmar people? Is there a possibility to wake up the interest of the ordinary public toward the Myanmar, and how to do that?

Angshuman Choudhury: This would be very difficult. The general public interest in India on Myanmar is unfortunately very low. I would recommend to focus on the three pillars mentioned before. One is media, very important. Number two, civil society organizations. Number three, the think-tank community. This needs to be three-prong strategy of public diplomacy and information campaign, using these three anchors or pivots.

Igor: When the Myanmar military bombed the Chin army base some bombs hit Indian territory as well. The Indian reaction has been pretty muted. Why did the Indian government not take the incident more seriously?

Angshuman Choudhury: Delhi doesn't believe that complaining about one specific incident is more important than destroying its relationship with the Myanmar military. In the cost benefit analysis in Delhi 's mind, maintaining a good bilateral relationship with the Myanmar military is more important than creating noise over what they see as a minor incident that can be managed easily. While that was a very serious breach of Indian sovereignty and territory, Delhi was very cautious and said that the bomb landed on the river bed which is technically no man's land. They tried to cleverly manage the incident.

Igor: The NUG has representatives in India. How do you assess the NUG approach to the Indian government and to the Indian public?

Angshuman Choudhury: The NUG needs to be more active and I say that as friendly advice. It needs to have a more aggressive public diplomacy campaign in India. It needs to be more visible. One concern amongst Indian policymakers and pro-government people is that they keep talking about the fact that there is no leader of the revolution, unlike in the previous phase where there was Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. The NUG needs to persuade Indian policymakers that this is a revolution which has a strong, credible and sophisticated leadership. There is a need to explain there are strong debates and constitutional framework behind the revolution and the NUG. 

Igor: Do you have any more concrete knowledge about the weapons which Indian government or state-owned companies are providing to Myanmar junta? There is a lot of fog around arms sales. The Indian side is always using the argument that all those deliveries were commissioned before the coup.

Angshuman Choudhury: Yes, officially Indian government says that whatever weapons have been transferred after the coup, the deals were signed before the coup. I am not convinced about that. I believe the Indian government is not being truthful about everything. I have filed public information requests (RTI) to the Indian government to tell us when the deals are signed and what are the details. They refused to divulge that information under the clause of national security. I don't think the Indian government has been forthcoming. I would reckon some of those deliveries were made based on more recent agreements, especially in case of the 122-mm howitzer barrels that were transferred recently.

Igor: Can we talk a bit more broadly on how India sees itself in the context of global rivalries? How does India place itself between Russia, its traditional ally, and the West and QUAD?

Angshuman Choudhury: India is trying to project itself as a third force, as a leader of countries who do not want to align with either bloc, with Russia or America. This is going back to its Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s non-alignment tradition but with new terms like “multi-alignment” and “strategic autonomy”. The idea is to project India as a leading middle power or aspiring power who can guide the way for other middle powers or smaller powers, who do not wish to get trapped in this great power conflict. India is trying to achieve this through alignments with West Asia and the Pacific Island countries, with ASEAN, Latin American and African countries.

Yes, India is a member of QUAD, but India doesn't want the QUAD to be a security alliance. It doesn't want to provoke China to that extent. India is happy with the QUAD dealing with non-security issues. It is part of the QUAD because it helps boost India’s footprint within the Indo-Pacific. Indian policymakers believe in alliance building within the Indo-Pacific to balance the Chinese influence. But they do not want QUAD to become a security alliance.

Igor: China was very alerted by the Burma Act passed by the US Congress and started to be much more active since the beginning of this year. True, in the case of China, that was maybe even more triggered by the end of their Zero-Covid policy and ensuing drive to activate economic activities at home and abroad. Did the Burma Act in any way ring an alarm in New Delhi? 
Angshuman Choudhury: I don't think the Burma Act has been taken seriously in Delhi. There is a sense that it is just a symbolic step by the US policymakers which may not actually translate to any hard action. Unfortunately, there is a bit of a truth in that. 
The Modi government has been careful of what the US might do in its neighbourhood. It was worried that the US might try to drive a wedge between India’s own relationship with the (Myanmar) junta. So, it has not played ball on certain issues like imposing a no-fly zone and opening a humanitarian corridor between India and Myanmar. 

Igor Blazevic was lecturer at the Educational Initiatives Myanmar between 2010 and 2016 and is senior advisor at the Prague Civil Society Centre