Realism in India-Myanmar Relations

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: Signs of India’s more “realistic” diplomatic engagement with the rest of the world are in evidence not just with reference to Israel but also with neighbouring Myanmar. The latter’s military regime has come under global criticism for its treatment of Nobel laureate Aung Sang Suu Kyi, but India’s relationship has been burgeoning with its Yangon, especially since the early 1990s. What is responsible for this shift in India’s stance?

Renaud Egreteau, re-search fellow at the Centre de Sciences Humaines, IEP, Paris, has his own take on this relationship which he sees as evolving from Nehruvian idealism to realism. The idealist phase lasted for three decades since General Ne Win came to power in 1962, during which India had very little to do with the military dictatorship. Myan-mar then existed under a self-imposed isolationism.

India’s rethink on its relationship with Myanmar (then Burma) dates from the uprising and coup d’etat in 1988 and the influx of refugees into North-east Indian camps. Between 1988 to 1992, the idealist phase lingered on as our policy vacillated between support for the democracy movement and continuing with diplomatic isolation. Egreteau argues that 1993 indeed was the year when the “realist U turn” took place in India’s policy towards Myanmar.

Several factors were responsible for this, including the China factor. The fact that the dragon had filled the diplomatic vacuum by intensifying its relationship with Myanmar since the late 1980s was not lost on India. But it was Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao’s new Look East policy that made our diplomats really wonder whether ignoring a strategic neighbour like Myanmar was a good thing or not.

An overhaul of India’s policy towards greater engagement with Myanmar thus began, starting with the visit of India’s foreign secretary in March 1993. Since then, India took a decision not to interfere in the internal affairs of that country and engage its military regime. 1994-96 saw enhancement of economic cooperation between the two countries. But the decisive shift towards realism came with the formation of a NDA-led government since 1998.