IF the real test of the short-term success of a
nation’s foreign policy lies in its
neighbourhood, rather than in distant lands or
remote or rarefied international fora, then
India’s policy has been something of a failure in
recent years - just when the country’s global
profile has undergone a sea change.
Nothing illustrates this better than New Delhi’s
policy somersaults over Nepal until it recognised
the inevitability of the absolute monarchy’s end.
Only slightly less serious has been its failure
to anticipate or influence major developments in
Bangladesh and Sri Lanka and, more recently, to
stand in solidarity with the movement for full
democratisation in Pakistan.
However, these lapses pale into the shade when
compared with India’s reprehensively passive and
callous posture towards the pro-democracy
movement in Myanmar - the greatest such
mobilisation since 1990 - which holds the
potential to overthrow one of the most repressive
and barbaric military regimes anywhere in the
world.
What is the current “Burmese crisis” all about?
Simply put, underlying it is popular disgust with
an extraordinarily predatory regime, which has
brutalised 47 million people with a huge
490,000-strong army for decades, which has
bankrupted a country endowed with magnificent
natural resources, which routinely practises
arbitrary detention, slave labour and torture,
and which has had no compunctions about gunning
down and “disappearing” dissidents.
The people of Myanmar have risen in revolt
against the junta. It is the duty of the
international community to support them and
protect them against a lawless government which
is accountable to nobody and shows no regard for
the cares and concerns of the larger world. If
human rights are inherent to flesh-and-blood
people, then concern for them must be universal.
Only the most consummate practitioner of
Machiavellian realpolitik or the diehard cynic
with deadened sensibilities could remain unmoved
by the sight of barefoot monks refusing alms
offered by soldiers in protest against the ruling
junta, or of the Army opening fire against a
column of peaceful demonstrators. The scenario
evocatively reminded the global public of the
Gandhian legacy of India’s great struggle against
colonial rule - close to the Mahatma’s birth
anniversary.
Yet, just as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and
Congress president Sonia Gandhi were extolling
the virtues of Gandhian non-violence, the new
Chief of the Army Staff, Deepak Kapoor, spelt out
his ground-level interpretation of India’s
approach towards Burma in his maiden press
conference.
He said that the happenings are Myanmar’s
“internal affair” but “we have good relations”
with its government and "we should maintain
these". General Kapoor stressed that the support
of the Myanmarse military is vital to the success
of India’s counter-insurgency operations in the
northeastern region.
Ergo, as far as Myanmar is concerned, out go
“romantic” notions such as democracy, human
rights, and peaceful resolution of disputes, from
which other things follow - including the
injunction against violating the impunity of
non-combatant civilians, and respect for
international law and covenants on civil and
political rights. In realpolitik, everything is
par for the course, and nothing is forbidden, so
long as it promotes “the national interest” (for
example, counter-insurgency). It was especially
deplorable that the Army Chief made this
pronouncement bearing strong policy implications.
This represented an intrusion into the
prerogative of the executive and was wholly out
of order for a military commander. Yet, General
Kapoor was following in the footsteps of his
predecessor Gen. Joginder Jaswant Singh, who,
too, was given to making expansive policy
declarations, including one that vetoed a
solution to the Siachen glacier issue with
Pakistan.
Kapoor’s statement may appear to be a crude
version of the supposedly sophisticated, nuanced
position of the Ministry of External Affairs. But
it is not. It accurately reproduces the core of
the Ministry’s stand, minus a few platitudes such
as "India hopes to see a peaceful, stable and
prosperous Burma“and”a broad-based process of
national reconciliation and political reform".
The bottom line is the same. As an establishment
journalist put it, in New Delhi’s view, "a
hundred thousand monks are hardly going to be
able to overthrow the military regime".
Had the Ministry’s approach been really different
from the Army’s, it would have summoned the
Burmese Ambassador to India to the Foreign Office
or issued a statement deploring the killing of
innocent people in Myanmar without mincing words.
It did nothing of the sort.
In fact, India did not even pull the considerable
leverage it has over the Yangon regime to help
fix the visit to Myanmar of United Nations
Special Envoy Ibrahim Gambari, including getting
him permission to fly to the new capital
Naypyidaw, where he first met the acting Prime
Minister, and after days of waiting, the top
junta commander, Gen. Than Shwe. In fact, China
pushed for this.
It is only when External Affairs Minister Pranab
Mukherjee sensed the international mood on
Myanmar during his October visit to New York that
he suggested that Myanmar consider conducting an
inquiry into the unconscionable use of force in
Yangon and other cities.
In New York, Pranab Mukherjee stressed that
India’s “interests” lie in "a stable and peaceful
periphery“- which is necessary”if India is to
grow rapidly and transform itself". He was at
pains to oppose economic sanctions against
Myanmar. He said: "I do not subscribe to penal
sanctions at all times. We should instead try to
engage the country concerned in negotiationsŠ.
Sanctions .. should be the last resort Šbecause
[they are] counter-productive. Instead of
correcting the errant rulers, they end in the
suffering of innocent people."
This was a weak, pusillanimous, and conditional
statement devoid of reference to principle or
doctrine. It came after more than 40 (and
according to one estimate, 200) protesters had
been killed by the junta, and thousands detained.
It repeated shop-worn cliches about the
limitations of sanctions - in favour of
“constructive engagement”, a strategy first
advocated by the West vis-À-vis Apartheid South
Africa, where it manifestly failed.
What “constructive engagement” with Myanmar might
mean was revealed by Union Petroleum Minister
Murli Deora’s visit to that country to discuss a
gas deal, right at the height of the
state-sponsored violence.
Pranab Mukherjee’s “national interest” statement
derives from the view that democracy or
protection of the life or limb of Myanmarese
civilians is not a worthy cause in and of itself.
The double standards which contrast this with
India’s fervent rhetorical advocacy of democracy
in the United States -led bodies like the Concert
of Democracies are both rigorous and astounding.
India’s stand on the Myanmarese question is
neither spontaneous, nor ethically grounded, nor
even driven by an internal process of policy
deliberation. It is impelled largely by
international pressure, spearheaded by the U.S.
This does not speak of a proactive approach
worthy of an emerging power with an independent
foreign policy orientation.
This passivity marks our media too: In contrast
to the international press, hardly any Indian
journalist has filed reports from within Myanmar
or from its borders.
India’s position on Myanmar is determined by four
parochial considerations: Securing Myanmar’s help
in fighting insurgencies in the northeastern
region; exploiting Myanmar’s natural gas
reserves; containing China’s influence in
Myanmar; and promoting “stability” in India’s
“periphery”, itself a derogatory term for our
neighbourhood.
All four considerations are dubious. Myanmar has
only extended limited, selective cooperation in
preventing some northeastern groups from
establishing camps on its soil. Prominent among
them is the National Socialist Council of
Nagaland (Khaplang), with whom Myanmar has a
ceasefire agreement anyway.
But the Myanmarese military has at best taken
token and desultory action against the United
Liberation Front of Asom, the People’s Liberation
Army and the United National Liberation Front
(UNLF) of Manipur. At any rate, the border region
has never been fully “sanitised” of insurgents.
The larger point is that Myanmar has shrewdly
played Chinese interests off against Indian
interests, while milking both countries for
military and economic assistance and holding out
the lure of gas, teak and other natural
resources. India has walked into this trap.
India’s famed “interests” in Myanmar’s gas
warrant critical scrutiny and introspection, not
celebration. It should embarrass us all that four
Indian companies figure among the “Dirty 20”
corporations implicated in the exploitation of
Myanmar’s gas reserves - at the expense of human
rights violations and environmental destruction.
Among them are the public sector ONGC Videsh Ltd
and the Gas Authority of India Ltd.
The human rights and environmental consequences
of these petroleum and gas companies’ activities
have been detailed at length by EarthRights
International, the Shwe Gas Movement and the
Arakan State Human Rights Commission. Put simply,
they are horrifying.
The argument that India should invest in Myanmar
and develop close relations with its military
regime to counter Chinese influence is a non
sequitur and hence unconvincing. A large country
like India can and has to live with military
relationships between some of its neighbours and
other powers. India has done so successfully
during periods of Pakistan’s close military
relations with the U. S. and China. This did not,
and should not, generate a panic response. Such
relationships are not a zero-sum game.
More important, those who demand that India must
see itself as a countervailing force to China
essentially advocate the launching of a new Asian
Cold War. This can only have disastrous
consequences for India’s long-term security. An
arms race with China - that too with a strong
nuclear component - will sharply raise India’s
already bloated military expenditure. The
economic burden will be massive. Once you are
sucked into an arms race, you no longer make your
own strategic decisions autonomously. They are
made for you by your adversary.
Finally, promoting “stability”, defined
independently of regime legitimacy, is a recipe
for freezing a situation of iniquity and
oppression. Surely, India’s long-term interests
do not lie in a neighbourhood which has a series
of “stable” but tyrannical regimes. We long
deluded ourselves that Nepal’s monarchy would
guarantee “stability”- only to find the
pro-democracy movement shattering that dangerous
myth.
In the ultimate analysis, a foreign policy
divorced from morality, or counterposed to it,
cannot serve national, leave alone universal,
purpose. In the past, although not consistently,
India tried to marry the two. Jawaharlal Nehru’s
advocacy of non-alignment, decolonisation, peace,
nuclear disarmament, and redressal of North-South
inequalities was one such attempt. It gave India
a much higher global stature than was warranted
by its military or economic power. It also
contributed to a better world.
Global Stature of The Past
In the mid- and late 1960s, too, India stood its
ground in opposing the U.S.-led Vietnam War
despite its dependence on Washington for
financial aid, and worse, its “ship-to-mouth”
existence in regard to wheat supplies. Similarly,
India continued to support the anti-apartheid
movement and the African National Congress (ANC)
in the face of all kinds of economic and
political arguments about losing its influence
with the West. Ultimately, the ANC triumphed.
India was proved right.
Again, India earned the respect of the world by
awarding the 1993 Nehru Memorial Prize for
International Understanding to Aung San Suu Kyi,
three years after she had won 90 per cent of
Parliament seats in an election and was arrested
– to be detained ever since.
The pertinent point is, any broad-horizon foreign
policy calculus must recognise that India has a
plethora of options in any given situation.
Indeed, these have multiplied with India’s
growing economic power. To imagine that they have
shrunk - for example, to a zero-sum game in
Myanmar vis-À-vis China - is to impose upon
ourselves an artificial narrowing of our horizons.
This can only demean India and detract from her
potential to contribute to making the world a
better place. At the end of the day, just as
India’s domestic achievements will be measured by
the world on the strength of her success in
overcoming mass deprivation and building an
inclusive society, her foreign policy success
will be judged by her contribution to the larger
world.