English Article

Mending Fences

Foreign secretary's visit showcases Delhi's careful balancing act on Myanmar, lays out the challenge.

Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla’s two-day visit to Myanmar, the first by a highranking Indian official since the coup in February, points to a subtle recalibration in India’s approach to Naypyidaw. To begin with, India had kept a distance from the hardline position taken by the US and Europe that sought to censure and sanction the junta for ousting Aung San Suu Kyi and the National League for Democracy after they swept the parliament elections. Delhi had also appealed for the restoration of democracy in Myanmar and even mildly criticised the sham trial that sentenced Suu Kyi to four years’ imprisonment, later reduced to two years, in one of the numerous cases filed against her, earlier this month. During his visit, Shringla met the military brass, members of the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) and some civil society leaders. However, his request for an audience with Suu Kyi was denied. New Delhi took a maximalist position on Myanmar when the military pulled the curtains down on the fledgling democracy in 1962 and held on to it until the 1990s when the then PM, P V Narasimha Rao, decided to engage the junta. The change of stance followed the realisation that the sanctions regime imposed by western democracies forced Myanmar into the orbit of Beijing. The situation is not very different today though the democratic impulse in Myanmar, a legacy of the prodemocracy movement of 1988 and the partial restoration of democratic government since 2015, has been manifesting in street protests.