Myanmar: A test for Modi’s Act East policy

PM Narendra Modi receives a memento from Myanmar President U. Thein Sein during a meeting at the presidential palace in Naypyidaw on November 10, 2014.

In a few days from now, U Htin Kyaw, a close confidant of Aung San Suu Kyi, who led her party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), to a resounding victory, will take over as Myanmar’s first civilian President after five decades of military rule. This is the next best thing Suu Kyi could do because she cannot become President herself as the military-drafted 2008 Constitution bars anyone with a foreign spouse or children to hold the high office. The NLD supremo would, of course, be in the Cabinet, and may well hold two key portfolios — foreign minister as well as minister to the President. If this happens, it will provide Suu Kyi legal sanction to be part of the policymaking apparatus in key matters of defence and security.

Even before the November 8, 2015 national election, Suu Kyi had surprised everyone by stating she would govern Myanmar after the NLD’s victory even if she does not become President. By this, she had obviously meant she would install a proxy President and run the government through “backseat driving”. But unlike Congress president Sonia Gandhi, who did a similar thing, “guiding” the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Suu Kyi has chosen to be pragmatic by deciding to be a part of the government as a minister. That way, she hopes to be spared the blame of being a leader without accountability. Things are going to be complex because the other power centre in Naypitaw will obviously be commander-in-chief Min Aung Hlaing, head of the nation’s powerful defence forces.

Following the transition that Myanmar has undergone, will it become easier for New Delhi to consolidate its ties with Naypitaw One can safely predict India-Myanmar ties are bound to improve and even reach an all-time high in the days ahead. This is not simply because a government of a party led by the country’s democracy icon Suu Kyi is being installed in Naypitaw, it is also because New Delhi has been successfully dealing with the military regime in Myanmar since the 1990s. In fact, New Delhi has been pursuing a “two-track policy” approved by then Prime

Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao with Myanmar - engaging with the military and lending support to the democratic forces in the country. India’s foreign policy mandarins called it the “constructive engagement policy”. It paid off.

When the NLD won the November polls, key world leaders, including India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, did not forget to congratulate President Thein Sein, the head of Myanmar’s quasi-military regime, for being able to hold the elections successfully in the presence of international observers. New Delhi is expected to continue with this policy of engaging with the two power centres in Myanmar - Suu Kyi and the military. India and China’s interests intersect in Myanmar and, therefore, it is very important for New Delhi to achieve a headstart in consolidating the bilateral equations. As the NLD government’s toughest challenge will be to improve Myanmar’s economy and drag the nation out of poverty, India has an opportunity at hand to come to Suu Kyi’s aid. Being the only Asean nation to share a border with India, Myanmar can be our bridgehead to Southeast Asia and beyond, and fits well in the Narendra Modi government’s “Act East” policy, an initiative to connect with the neighbours in the realm of trade and business, connectivity, and people-to-people friendship. India has bagged a contract for exploring two hydrocarbon blocks in Myanmar. While Reliance was one of the successful bidders, the other block was bagged by a consortium of Oil India Ltd, Mercator Petroleum and Oilmax Energy. An

India-assisted port-cum-waterway project of Rs 350 crores is nearing completion. This project involves building the Sittwe Port and a jetty at Paletwa, a town in west Myanmar, located about 18 km from Bangladesh. It will provide a water link to ship goods from Kolkata port to Mizoram, via Sittwe port, bypassing Bangladesh. While this may be a good beginning, much more needs to be done.

During Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s 2014 Myanmar visit and external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj’s visit prior to that, New Delhi proposed setting up of a joint consultative committee to explore new areas of cooperation. Ms Swaraj went to the extent of suggesting that chief ministers of states bordering Myanmar could participate in the JCC, besides Union ministers. Issues relating to boosting trade, border cooperation and infrastructure development also figured in the talks. The two countries share a 1,643-km-long border, and it is only expected that engagements increase and business and investments grow beyond the meagre border trade through designated points along Northeast India. It is left to be seen how New Delhi pushes these ideas with the NLD government in the coming days. Of course, to achieve any significant headway in trade, business and connectivity projects with Myanmar, security is going to be critical.

Therefore, New Delhi would once again make a forceful plea to Naypitaw to deny access to its territory to Northeast Indian insurgents. By far, India’s biggest interest via-a-vis Myanmar will be to strengthen democracy in the country. Indian democracy is definitely stable despite the chaos and it would be in New Delhi’s interests to see that Myanmar follows India’s model and not adopt something of a Thailand-type “controlled” democracy. Many questions arise: can India nudge Naypitaw to adopt a policy of religious equality

Can it influence Myanmar to ensure minority rights, particularly the rights of Rohingyas Can India assist in democratic institution-building in Myanmar Can India make the military realise that the time is now for them to move further away from running the government and step back to their main role, that of the country’s defence One has to wait and watch, but this actually is a very big opportunity for the Narendra Modi government to test its “Neighbourhood First” policy, and establish India as a real proactive neighbour, and not a big brother.

The writer is a political commentator and executive director of the Centre for Development & Peace Studies, Guwahati