The road to Myanmar is paved with hypocrisy

The road to Myanmar is paved with hypocrisy
R.K. Bobichand

Your news story, `India's V-Day gift to military Myanmar: Offer to do business' (IE, February 15) quoted India's External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh as saying that India was ready to do business with Myanmar as it was in ``India's national interest'' and that Yangon was ``geo-politically and geo-economically important for New Delhi''. The external affairs minister seems to have also said that for trade in the Northeast, India needed an eastward access ``and we cannot have that if we stand apart from Myanmar''.

Despite the aura of a positive and forward looking foreign policy inherent in these statements, the recent visit had other, not-so-obvious butnevertheless significant, implications. First of al, is the question of India's commitment to the democracy movement going on in Myanmar under the leadership of the charismatic leader and Nobel Peace laureate, Aung San Suu Kyi. Even though Jaswant Singh maintained that India was wedded to democracy and its credentials on that score needed no reiteration, by saying that it was ``inconceivable'' to imagine a situation where there was no top-level contact between two neighbours, he seems to be diluting the country's commitment to democracy in Myanmar.

Indeed, the new trend in India's foreign policy vis-a-vis Myanmar appears to characterised by double standards. While it is willing to forge closer ties with the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), India seems to be forsaking the ideological bonds it once had with those fighting for democracy in Burma.

India should not ignore the fact that a number of pro-democracy activists, mainly students -- who abandoned their country after the pro-democracy uprising and subsequent crackdown by the military on the fateful day of August 8, 1988 -- have been taking refuge in Manipur, specifically, and in India, generally (in fact, pro-democracy activists of Myanmar now observe August 8 as a black day). So while India proceeds to shake hands with the military leaders of Myanmar and harbours pro-democracy activists in the border state of Manipur and in New Delhi, insurgent groups of the Northeast are opening their base camps in the northwestern part of Myanmar!

Another intriguing aspect of Jaswant Singh's visit to Myanmar was his conscious avoidance of the press, and consequently the public, in Manipur, while he was there for a day en route to Mandalay for the opening of the Tamu-Kalemyo-Kalewa road constructed by the India's Border Roads Organisation.

The press and pubic of Manipur would certainly have been interested to know more about the Myanmar visit, considering the profound impact the road he was to inaugurate would have on Manipur, specifically, and the whole of the Northeast, generally. Although he had his foreign policy experts as well as press liaison officers with him, he still did not think it fit to even issue a press release while in Imphal. It was as if he was on a secret mission in India's national interest.

Although the Indian government has not forsaken the Myanmar refugees -- they are still regarded as welcome guests -- the ground beneath their feet seem to be slipping right before their very eyes. The inauguration of Tamu-Kalemyo-Kalewa road along Myanmar's northwestern border with India on February 13, 2001, signifies the freezing, if not termination, of India's ties with Aung San Suu Kyi.

The writer is an Imphal-based journalist