[Assam] India's Myanmar Policy

[Sanjib Baruah]

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1071015/asp/opinion/story_8418724.asp

The Telegraph (Calcutta), Monday October 15, 2007

Monday, October 15, 2007

EAST WITH BITS LEFT OUT
--- A more imaginative Myanmar policy would do India good

SANJIB BARUAH

Most countries do public diplomacy abroad. In its standard use, the term 
refers to cultural and educational programmes, radio and television 
broadcasts, and citizen exchanges to promote foreign policy goals. In 
recent years, it has come to include soft power  the goodwill that a 
country has because of the influence of popular culture and its positive 
image among foreigners. The target of public diplomacy is usually foreign 
audiences.

India however, chooses to do public diplomacy at home. For the second time 
in less than four months, the external affairs minister, Pranab Mukherjee, 
visited the Northeast to explain the Look East policy. Both events were 
sponsored by the public diplomacy division of the ministry of external 
affairs. One can only welcome the belated discovery by the South Block of 
the value of the public discussions of foreign policy. But one wishes that 
these exercises were more about taking input from the ground, rather than 
about explaining policy from the top. From the perspective of Indias 
multiple global audiences, there may be some risks in calling these 
exercises public diplomacy. Does our external affairs ministry treat the 
Northeast as Indias near abroad or the far-east within?

Mukherjee explained the promises that the Look East policy holds for 
northeastern India and how the priority given to its economic development 
fits into our foreign policy goals. The Planning Commission deputy 
chairman, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, was around as well. He said that the 
Northeast would see a massive upsurge in economic development over the 
next five years. Audiences in the Northeast, however, have grown a bit 
tired of the repetitious nature of what they have been hearing about the 
Look East policy. The reporter for The Telegraph pointed out that 
Mukherjees speech in Guwahati was almost an exact reproduction of the 
speech he gave in Shillong four months earlier.

But the missing 800-pound gorilla from the Guwahati deliberations was the 
situation in neighbouring Myanmar. What are its implications for the 
future of the Look East policy? As fear grips Myanmar following the 
crackdown by the military junta, questions are being asked everywhere 
about the implications of the recent developments. What, for instance, 
does the crackdown on the Buddhist monasteries mean with reference to 
whatever residual legitimacy the military regime still has?

Since our Burma policy took a U-turn in the early Nineties, India has been 
betting on the military regimes durability. Thus, even though the decision 
of the army chief, Deepak Kapoor, to publicly articulate foreign policy 
goals raised some eyebrows, his statement calling the crackdown in Myanmar 
an internal matter was not out of line with official policy. Mukherjee has 
said, It is up to the Burmese people to struggle for democracy, it is 
their issue. And the most scandalous of all was the presence of the 
petroleum minister, Murli Deora, in Myanmar to sign a deal for natural gas 
exploration when the crackdown was in full swing.

Our foreign policymakers like to describe our Myanmar policy as being 
premised on realism. The concept is subject to much criticism in the 
academic literature on international relations. Realism can easily be an 
excuse for lazy thinking: letting some supposedly objective national 
interests get the upper hand in shaping foreign policy.

The sudden end of the Cold War in 1989 spelt the failure of realism to 
explain some of the new forces that were transforming the world. Among 
these emerging forms of more globalized political activism are those that 
have been further energized in recent years by the internet, the mobile 
phone and the proliferation of 24-hour news channels.

The impact of some of these forces is apparent in the pressures on Myanmar 
and on many other governments  including India  vis--vis their Myanmar 
policy. In the past few days, India has had to modify its initial stance 
in response to these pressures. It voted for the European Union-sponsored 
resolution at the United Nations Human Rights Council condemning the 
Myanmarese government for its violent repression of peaceful 
demonstrations. The council has also approved a resolution calling for an 
independent investigation of the human rights situation in Myanmar.

Myanmar itself has responded to these pressures by clamping down on the 
internet, the mobile phone network and by taking steps to stop the flow of 
news and pictures from the country.

Recently, Chinas sensitivity to world public opinion has been all too 
apparent. Even on Myanmar, unlike India, China did not take a strict 
internal matter line, but opted for behind-the-scenes diplomacy. With the
the Beijing Olympics on the horizon, China does not want to be seen as 
being closely associated with unpopular, repressive regimes.

After initial resistance, it began putting pressure on Sudan to accept a 
UN peacekeeping force in Darfur. Activists have warned that Beijing risks 
hosting the Genocide Olympics. While no one expects Beijing to become an 
advocate for democracy in Myanmar, there is little doubt that its Myanmar 
policy reflects sensitivity to global public opinion and the importance of 
soft power.

China is not alone in this matter. Unlike the early years of the 
Association of Southeast Asian Nations, when there was a reluctance to 
intervene in the internal affairs of member states, political 
liberalization in countries like Indonesia and Philippines, and political 
activism in Thailand and Malaysia are leading it towards siding with the 
forces for change in Myanmar. Japans Myanmar policy has also changed 
significantly. Even Singapore has said that it is deeply troubled by the 
crisis in Myanmar.

India may be the laggard in responding to this new era of global activism. 
Indian foreign policy- makers had discovered realism rather late. It is 
understandable that countering Chinese influence, and hoping that Myanmar 
(and Bangladesh) would extend to our security establishment the kind of 
help that Bhutan provided in 2003 to eliminate Northeastern rebel groups 
would be major considerations in Indias Myanmar policy. But shouldnt we be 
worried that Indias national interest defined in that way  and often 
articulated by active or retired military generals  requires the presence 
of non-democratic regimes in the entire neighbourhood?

Rather than betting on the generals survival for much longer, it is time 
for India to take a long-term view, draw lessons from its isolation on 
Myanmar, and rethink its Myanmar policy. It is in a good position to take 
the leadership in a global initiative to bring about a political 
transition in Myanmar. That would enable India to side with the forces of 
Myanmars future. In another era, when Burma was a province of India and 
the separation of Burma from British colonial India was debated, the 
Buddhist monks of Burma took a strong pro-India position. Writing from 
Calcutta in 1931, Ottama Bhikkhu of Burma supported a federal scheme tying 
India with Burma that had Gandhis blessings. None of Burmas traditions, he 
said, hark back to China, all hark back to India. He pointed to Burmas 
historical connection with India by sea and land dating back to the 
earliest times. Madras and Bengal, he said, supplied dynasties of Burmese 
kings, priests and peasants. The Buddha gave Burma its religion and Indian 
architects their style of architecture. Contrasting this with the relative 
absence of cultural influence from China, he said, even though China is 
near Burma, its interest in Burma seems to have been limited to these 
trade-routes, for traces of her influence are hard to find.

No other country has more of a reservoir of soft power assets in Myanmar 
than India. Today, the democracy movement there is led by a woman who once 
lived in India, and is the author of a book called Burma and India: Some 
Aspects of Intellectual Life under Colonialism.

We should not squander these soft power resources by letting our obsession 
with economic growth and energy security and our security establishments 
inclination to put counter-insurgency ahead of conflict resolution stand 
in the way of a more imaginative Myanmar policy.

The author is at the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi, and Bard 
College, New York.