India could have played the kind of role it did in Nepal if it had utilised all the opportunities offered by Burma. In 1997, Burma agreed to Indian assistance in the upgrade of road communication in the Kachin state, Chin state, upgrade of railway systems, development of port facilities and inland water terminals in the Chindwin and Kaladan rivers. After the Asian meltdown, Burma even offered its proven gas blocks in the Bay of Bengal after Thailand decided to give them up. A decade down the line, the Kaladan multi-modal link is still to be completed, the Tamanthi hydro-electric project is still to take off and even the Vajpayee government’s decision to allow import of 50,000 tonnes of sticky rice for the northeastern states only exists on paper. And the decision to acquire gas blocks for exploration purposes is still being contested between Foreign Secretary Shiv Menon and Petroleum Secretary M.S. Srinivasan.

The UPA political leadership, in particular the Congress leaders, may privately be supportive of Aung San Suu Kyi and the monks now on Rangoon’s streets, but overtly it will have to deal with whosoever is in power; such is the security calculus. New Delhi also knows that with the Burmese army controlling every part of society, transfer of power in that country will have to come through negotiations and not through revolution or isolation of the military regime. New Delhi has not forgotten that two years after Suu Kyi was awarded the Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Understanding in 1993, the Burmese army suddenly withdrew in the midst of Operation Goldenbird and the surrounded militants escaped from the Indian dragnet. It does not want to visit that nightmare again.