Our forgotten neighbour

Recent trends in Myanmar civil war make a case for India to upgrade its links with anti-junta forces

Myanmar shares over 1,600 km of border with India, spread across four northeastern states of Manipur, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram. But one hears little about the country, especially since the coup by the Myanmar Army (Tatmadaw), led by General Min Aung Hlaing, on February 1, 2021, which seized control from the democratically elected government of the National League for Democracy led by Aung San Suu Kyi (Daw Suu). So, what’s been happening since? But before that, a quick recap of Myanmar’s governmental history may be helpful.
 

After about 15 years of post-independence democracy, the long reign of military juntas took over, beginning with General Ne Win’s coup in 1962. The widespread students-led revolts in urban areas in 1988 and the chance visit home by Aung San Suu Kyi from England (to tend her dying mother) ushered in the birth of the National League for Democracy (NLD), led by her. As the ferment and bloody suppression continued, the generals allowed the election of 1990, which, against all odds, was swept by NLD, though Daw Suu had already been placed under house arrest. Soon, the unpalatable (to the junta) election results were annulled and Daw Suu continued under house arrest for most of the next 20 years. With time, Western economic sanctions and the growing internal recognition of Myanmar’s falling behind the rest of prospering Southeast Asia, nudged the military to craft the new 2008 Constitution (heavily tilted to favour a big military role in government) and held the 2010 election, with Daw Suu reverted to house arrest and the NLD boycotting the patently unfree election. The military government’s party won handily and ruled till 2015, though with a lighter touch and with significant reopening of the isolated economy both internally and externally.
 

Daw Suu was freed in 2011, the NLD contested the 2015 election and, against all odds and expectations, won overwhelming victories in both Houses of Parliament and most state legislatures, an astonishing and globally unparalleled victory by the same leader and party after 25 years. But while the NLD formed a government, key ministries of internal order, defence and border affairs remained with the military according to the restrictive 2008 Constitution. In effect, the sweeping electoral victory gave Daw Suu and the NLD the right only to partner the military for the next five years (a crucial fact usually missed in most commentary). In the most recent general elections of November 2020, Daw Suu and the NLD won their third consecutive massive electoral victory. However, impatient military leaders and their due-for-retirement commanding general, Min Aung Hlaing, decided to get properly back into the saddle (or ‘gaddi’) and carried out the coup of February 2021. The election was cast aside, the NLD was outlawed, many of its leaders were imprisoned or killed and Daw Suu convicted, sentenced and imprisoned on several trumped-up charges, with verdicts adding up to nearly 30 years of incarceration!
 

The February 2021 military coup triggered massive protests across the country, especially in urban areas. The army responded brutally, killing thousands, imprisoning over 20,000, using airpower to bomb and strafe civilians, leading to over a million people being driven from their homes, tens of thousands to neighbouring countries, especially Thailand. By April, a loosely coordinated National Unity Government (NUG, mostly in exile) had been formed, including former NLD lawmakers, representatives of long-established ethnic minority insurgencies and various minority parties. In May, the NUG announced a “People’s Defence Force” (PDF). Both the NUG and PDF got off to a shaky start but, with time and against the prevailing conventional wisdom, gained popularity and strength, including, especially, through alliances with ethnic insurgent allies such as the Arakan Army, the Kachin Independence Army, the Shan State Army and the Karen National Liberation Army. Basically, Myanmar sank slowly but surely into a state of civil war, spawned essentially by the February 2021 military coup.
 

Over the past six to eight months, the tide of battle seems to have been going against the Tatmadaw, though one should never underestimate the lasting power of state military forces, with access to foreign arms supplies. Last October, the “Three Brotherhood Alliance” (consisting of the Ta’ang National Liberation Army, the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army and the Arakan Army) inflicted hundreds of casualties on the Tatmadaw and took a large number of prisoners (including senior officers) in the northern Shan State, bordering China. Although some sort of truce was patched up with Chinese mediation by January 2024, ethnic and people’s democratic forces continued to win significant battles across the country. Drone attacks on the junta’s forces, spread thin across the country, increased. Desertions from the Tatmadaw mounted. Feeling the growing pressure, in late February, the junta promulgated compulsory conscription for young men and women, triggering a flight of young Myanmarese to neighbouring countries. Early last week, the Tatmadaw lost control of Myawaddy, a key trading hub in the Karen state near the Thai border and even sought Thai help to evacuate some of its beleaguered forces.
 

On the other side of the country, a few days ago, the Indian government recognised the gravity of the situation and withdrew personnel from its consulate in Sittwe, the port on the Bay of Bengal. According to knowledgeable analysts, India’s links with the NUG and other anti-junta forces have been relatively limited and low-level, probably dictated by the long-felt need for cooperation with the junta to manage cross-border insurgency elements in regions bordering our northeastern states. But, given the recent trends in the civil war in Myanmar, the case for upgrading our links with anti-junta forces is surely rising.

Former foreign secretaries Kanwal Sibal and Shyam Saran have argued as much, including to act as a credible counterweight to the much deeper engagement of China on both sides of the Myanmar conflict (NDTV.com, March 26, 2024; and Business Standard, April 16). Who knows, perhaps this is already happening?

The writer is honorary professor at Icrier, formerly the longest-serving chief economic advisor to the Government of India, and author of An Economist at Home and Abroad (Harper Collins, 2021). Views are personal