Moving with monks

Burma’s generals must know this well. There can possibly be nothing more moving than the sight of hundreds and thousands of red-robed monks facing off against tanks and soldiers in riot gear. As the monks have kept the momentum in this week’s protests against the junta, a staggering paralysis of initiative is being felt among the international community — and, crucially, in New Delhi. This is inexcusable. Foreign policy, at its most effective, draws upon a confluence of the national interest and a moral purpose. New Delhi, inexplicably, appears to be giving the impression that it has to choose one or the other. It doesn’t. Both India’s national interest and its commitment to promoting the greater good in the neighbourhood would be well served by taking a tough line with Burma’s generals. But in doing so, New Delhi must also take the lead in making more pragmatic the international consensus on Burma by weighing the efficacy of isolating sanctions against meaningful engagement with Burmese society.

It is important to remember what sparked off these protests. The monks made good their ultimatum to come out on the streets after the Burmese Government doubled the price of fuel. It is this focus on the dire economic situation in ordinary Burmese households that has given the pro-democracy movement traction. It is not clear, however, whether the protesters — even with the monks on board — have the capacity to maintain resistance against the generals. The Burmese military, in effect, the only arm of state in the country, is adept at fighting many wars at the same time. Against insurgents who have been with arms before independence came in the 1940s and against any democratic challenge to their hold on power. The point is, who do sanctions then work against? The military or ordinary Burmese?

The generals, in any case, have been working around the sanctions. They must be told, as they hold out leases for gas and Oil exploration and give China the promise of greater access to the Indian Ocean, that their policy of playing one country against another is unacceptable. And as our columnist notes, with a political transformation in Burma so likely, it is by weighing in on the side of that transformation that India can meet its own strategic objective, of countering Chinese influence in the country.

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