[Reader-list] India’s Myanmar Policy: Is there a credible China factor?

[Anivar Aravind]

  India’s Myanmar Policy: Is there a credible China factor?
Dr.TT Sreekumar
http://lankaguardian.blogspot.com/2007/10/indias-myanmar-policy-is-there-credible_02.html

Nevertheless, the situation is problematic in a crucial way. Visiting 
Myanmar meant lending economic support to the junta. But campaigning for 
boycotting Burma leading to decreased visitations meant adding to the 
miseries of vulnerable communities, particularly marginalized women who 
probably have no other economic avenue to depend on. Tourism is a major 
source of income for rural communities and millions depended on it for 
their everyday survival. This is the micro political economy of Burmese 
freedom struggle.

(October, 02, Singapore, Lanka Guardian) India’s lukewarm response to 
the current crackdown on the democracy movement in Myanmar is explained 
by diplomatic circles as conditioned by a compelling need to protect 
India’s interests in the changing regional politics characterized by 
growing Chinese hegemony. The explanation begs two interrelated 
questions: What do we normally mean by India's interest and how do we 
understand/situate the China factor in India's foreign policy?

If the logic of India's reluctance to support the democracy movement is 
guided by the motivation of protecting its own interest as a reaction to 
Chinese policy, then it looks quite contradictory and beckons to unpack 
the whole 'China factor' in India's contemporary foreign policy practices.

'China factor' has also been highlighted as playing a role in India's 
attempts to move away from the non alignment politics of the post 
colonial period as much as the fall of USSR, and of cold war and 
emergence of uni-polar US hegemony. Most recently, in the discourses on 
the Indo-US nuclear deal's implications, coalition of the left parties 
have been put to task for their failure to explain the stand taken by 
China on the nuclear issue. India's position, it is argued, should be 
analyzed in the context of China's nuclear ambitions and military 
strategies.

However, the way in which Indian regime negotiates the China factor, 
whether imaginary or real, has been contradictory. This has become 
evident in its diverging positions on the democracy movements in two 
neighboring countries Nepal and Burma.

In Nepal, when Beijing in an intriguing maneuvering of regional 
politics, supported the Gyanedra Dictatorship, invited him to Beijing 
and extended military support to the monarchy, covert and overt support 
from India was given to the democracy movement. US support to the 
movement was then viewed as a positive development, disregarding its 
long run consequences for the political and economic integrity of the 
countries in South Asia.

If we depend on an adhoc and post facto framework to justify India's 
foreign policy, the incoherence and contradictions can probably be 
wished away. Otherwise there are important inconsistencies and ironies 
that require further explanation. It is both in the interest of India 
and the people of Burma, that India should support the democracy 
movement as it did in the case of Nepal. What does one mean by India's 
interest? The ethical question is ultimately more important if by 
'India's interest' one means furthering democracy in the region as well 
in India. This has both a macro and micro dimension. Systematically 
building up deep economic ties with a country that has a questionable 
political record and later using this newfangled relationship as a 
justification for the silences against its increasingly unbearable 
atrocities, is a tactics that can at best be seen as a pale imitation of 
the US super power policy everywhere in the world.

The 'micro' dimension is also ethically significant. I have myself felt 
this while finally deciding to visit Myanmar sometime back. Civil 
society organizations challenging inequitable tourism practices had been 
debating the whole issue of the implications of 'visiting Myanmar. The 
junta was carefully opening its doors for tourists to show the world 
that everything is normal in the country. Moreover, the dilemma was 
accentuated by the fact the income from tourism is emerging as a crucial 
source of foreign exchange when sanctions were straggling its 
threateningly fragile economic base. Indigenous communities are paraded- 
literally-it is called indigenous fashion parade-for the gaze of the 
tourist. Myanmar's dependence on tourism is further exacerbated by the 
relative retardation of other productive sectors. Kachin, Kayyan, 
Palong, Wa, Bao, Rawang, Moon, Lahoo, Lushan. Lisoo and even the Shan 
from China are paraded in a blatant commoditization of culture and space 
in contemporary Myanmar.

Nevertheless, the situation is problematic in a crucial way. Visiting 
Myanmar meant lending economic support to the junta. But campaigning for 
boycotting Burma leading to decreased visitations meant adding to the 
miseries of vulnerable communities, particularly marginalized women who 
probably have no other economic avenue to depend on. Tourism is a major 
source of income for rural communities and millions depended on it for 
their everyday survival. This is the micro political economy of Burmese 
freedom struggle.

This is precisely the context where India's silence becomes 
objectionable from the point of view of global civil society. India has 
to recognize the right of the Burmese people to oppose the military 
junta and help them regain 'Burma' from 'Myanmar'. This is a 
responsibility that cannot be compromised either in the name of ties 
with the junta or the Chinese factor. This is not only in the interest 
of India, but also in the best interest of building stable democracies 
in the region.

Interestingly, China and ASEAN have also now come down heavily on the 
crackdown. How long can India remain silent?

(The writer is an Assistant Professor, Communication & New Media 
Programme ,Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences ,National University of 
Singapore. Email-sreekumartt at gmail.com .)

PS:The new column "Asian Mirror” will be written by Dr.T.T. Sreekumar. 
Our editorial team chose the name of the column in consultation with Dr. 
T.T. Sreekumar, who sent his good wishes to the Lanka Guardian.