India re-evaluates Myanmar strategy following Bangladesh’s leadership change

The junta is losing control to armed ethnic groups. India must even-handedly support key players to avoid a Bangladesh-like fiasco.

People fleeing the civil war in Myanmar on a bridge connecting the country with India at the border village of Zokhawthar in Mizoram’s Champhai district, in November 2023.  | Photo Credit: REUTERS

The surprise ouster of the Sheikh Hasina government in Bangladesh has forced India to reassess its neighbourhood policy, particularly with regard to Myanmar. Hasina, India’s closest partner in South Asia and Bangladesh’s longest-serving leader, was thrown out of power and fled the country after what had begun as a students’ protest turned into a people’s insurrection against her on August 5.

The setback in Dhaka has led policy planners in New Delhi to review the country’s relations with other neighbours, especially those who have a long border with India.

A weakness of India’s approach that came to the surface in Bangladesh was its decision to put most of the eggs in the Hasina basket, while significantly reducing engagement with the main opposition, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, and other opponents of the ruling Awami League.

There is apprehension that India is committing the same mistake in neighbouring Myanmar, where the army has been ruling since February 2021 after dismissing the democratically elected civilian leadership of Aung San Suu Kyi. “Our basic policy has been to deal with the Myanmar military,” said Kanwal Sibal, former Foreign Secretary.

Reports, however, suggest that the army is fast losing territory and control to armed ethnic groups and forces owing allegiance to the National Unity Government (NUG), a gathering of Suu Kyi’s supporters and other democratic outfits. If Bangladesh was a lesson, then India will soon have to be more even-handed in its support to the key players in the ongoing war for control and influence in Myanmar.

While India has invested heavily in Myanmar, the country has not received the same attention from the New Delhi establishment or in the Indian media as other neighbours. Myanmar shares an over 1,600-km-long border with India that runs through the north-eastern States of Manipur, Nagaland, Mizoram, and Arunachal Pradesh.

India and Myanmar also share a maritime boundary in the Bay of Bengal, the Andaman Sea, and the Coco Channel.

Bonds of kinship linking India and Myanmar

There are traditional and strong bonds of kinship among the ethnic groups across the India-Myanmar border that come into play both during festivities and crises. The ongoing violence and instability in Manipur are said to have been fuelled in part by elements from across the border in Myanmar. A number of people from Myanmar have also taken refuge in Mizoram and other States in the north-eastern region in the wake of the largely Burman (Myanmar’s largest ethnic group, also called the Barnar, forms 68 per cent, or roughly two-thirds, of the country’s population) junta’s crackdown on villages and other residential areas suspected to be strongholds of armed rebels.

Equally, many north-eastern insurgent groups have a history of finding safe haven in Myanmar, with the support of other ethnic insurgents across the border, in areas where the writ of the army has hardly ever run.

Highlights

• The junta is fast losing territory and control to armed ethnic groups and forces owing allegiance to the National Unity Government (NUG), a gathering of Suu Kyi’s supporters and other democratic outfits. 
• Despite India’s traditional ties with Myanmar since the days of the erstwhile Burma falling under the British Raj, India’s present policy there is driven mostly by a desire to counter China’s looming presence. The pursuit of this policy, however, has restricted India’s engagement in the country mainly to the army.
• India should try and restore its earlier policy when Suu Kyi was still regarded as the civilian face of the country to strike a balance between both the army and the democratic forces. 

China factor determines India’s Myanmar policy

Despite India’s traditional ties with Myanmar since the days of the erstwhile Burma falling under the British Raj, India’s present policy there is driven mostly by a desire to counter China’s looming presence. India seeks to act as a viable option to the stifling presence of the Chinese there. But the pursuit of this policy has restricted India’s engagement in the country mainly to the army and prevented it from building strong ties with the democratic forces and other ethnic groups that are challenging the Barnar ethnic group’s domination.

Many observers believe that in an attempt to challenge China in Myanmar, India has ended up doing what the China does: focus mainly on the military, which, it knows, controls the levers of power in the country. “If we imitate, or our reading of the situation is like that of China, then we will be perceived like China without the power to influence, as we are already being perceived,” said Gautam Mukhopadhaya, a former Indian Ambassador to Myanmar. “Reset before it’s too late,” he cautioned. While India needs to continue its engagement with the army to ensure that China does not get a free run, it will also have to strike a balance by deepening ties with the democratic forces.

A member of ethnic minority armed group Ta’ang National Liberation Army standing guard at a hill camp seized from Myanmar’s military in Namhsan Township in Myanmar’s northern Shan State, in December 2023. | Photo Credit: AFP

Myanmar’s importance to India increased significantly from 2014 under Narendra Modi as Prime Minister when he launched the “Act East” policy. It led India to increase investment and push several projects to build connectivity with Myanmar and beyond.

As a result, projects intended to enhance surface and maritime linkages between the two countries like the Kaladan multimodal project (a road-river-port-cargo transport scheme) and the India-Myanmar-Thailand Asian Trilateral came up. For India, Myanmar and Bangladesh are both important to build connectivity with the north-eastern States, which are dependent on the narrow Siliguri “chicken neck” for access to the mainland.

The $484 million Kaladan Multi-Modal Transit Transport Project is India’s flagship investment programme in Myanmar. It involves river dredging, and port and road construction to connect Sittwe in Rakhine and the Chin hinterland with India’s Mizoram. The aim is to give the north-eastern region a vital route to the Bay of Bengal along the Kaladan river. Once the project is completed, it will reduce the 1,550 km distance between Kolkata and Aizawl by less than half. Reports say that India has completed the construction of Sittwe port at the estuary of the Kaladan river in Rakhine. The development of the river terminal and dredging of the river are currently under way. The road and other infrastructure on the Indian side are also under construction.

India is also likely to set up a special economic zone (SEZ) at Sittwe, close to the Chinese port and SEZ at Kyaukphyu, reports claim. This will allow India to not only increase its presence in the Rakhine but also expand its access to the larger South-East Asian market through Myanmar. It will also connect India’s north-eastern region to this vast region and its economy through neighbouring Thailand. India’s development assistance portfolio in Myanmar is now over $1.75 billion, the bulk of which is grant-funded. But India has also spent over $550 million in defence assistance to the Myanmar army.

The author Rajiv Bhatia, who served as India’s Ambassador to Myanmar, says an attempt is now on from India’s side to have a more balanced role in Myanmar with the army as well as with NUG representatives. But, as he points out, although India wants to engage with ethnic armed rebel groups, it is not clear which among them is in control. “There is not one but several groups at play, and it may be difficult to clearly identify the dominant player among them,” he said.

The former Ambassador also said that while Myanmar’s army has suffered a series of setbacks in recent months, it may be too early to conclude that it has lost control of the entire country. Moreover, it is not clear if any group is in a position to take the place of the army to restore stability in Myanmar.

India’s engagement with Myanmar is not limited to the land boundary. Maritime cooperation between India and Myanmar’s army is also important because of the growing strategic significance of the Indian Ocean and the Indo-Pacific region where China’s aggressive rise has been a serious cause for concern.

Junta’s losses near border with China

The military has lost swathes of territory near the border with China in northern Shan State to an alliance of armed ethnic minority groups and the People’s Defence Forces, the armed wing of the NUG. The alliance is battling to overturn the 2021 coup. According to reports, these groups have seized a regional military command and taken control of lucrative border trade crossings, prompting rare public criticism by military supporters of the junta’s top leadership.

Refugees from Myanmar at a camp in Kamjong in Manipur in June. | Photo Credit: By Special Arrangement

On September 3, General Min Aung Hlaing, Myanmar’s army chief and leader of the junta, said in the Shan State capital, Taunggyi, that his troops “will... launch counter-attacks”, The Global New Light of Myanmar reported. He accused the People’s Defence Forces of using “administrative buildings and innocent civilians as human shields”, according to the newspaper. “Therefore, the people residing in towns and villages where the terrorists unlawfully occupied should be aware of security so as not to face exploitation.”

It is difficult to ascertain the extent of territory that the army has lost to the armed rebels. But the junta leader’s attempt to put on a brave face is being seen by observers as an attempt to hide his growing frustration and nervousness about the unfolding situation.

Every country with an interest in Myanmar is now trying to hedge its bets by engaging all sides in the ongoing conflict. It is becoming exceedingly clear, and more so after the Bangladesh experience, that the army, irrespective of its strength and discipline on paper, may be on the retreat and in no position to guarantee Indian assets and interests in Myanmar for much longer. India should therefore begin to restore its earlier policy when Suu Kyi was still regarded as the civilian face of the country and strike a balance between both the army and the democratic forces. In places where it feels it is necessary, it should also actively woo the ethnic armed rebels to safeguard its investments and projects.

At a time when it is unclear how India-Bangladesh relations will pan out in the near future, the prolonged hostility and instability in Myanmar has added to India’s anxiety in the region and forced it to put its connectivity plans in Myanmar and South-East Asia on hold. One can only hope that the hard work India has put in over the years does not get lost in this fog of uncertainty.

Pranay Sharma is a commentator on political and foreign affairs-related developments. He has worked in senior editorial positions in leading media organisations.