A passage to Burma? India, development, and democratization inMyanmar

Renaud Egreteau∗

HKIHSS, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong

Since the 1990s, India has faced heavy criticism for its realist approach to Burmese affairs.Geopolitical imperatives indeed drove Delhi towards a closer partnership with its military-ruled neighbour. India, however, claims it plays a key role in fostering development inBurma; therefore, consolidating long-term democratization prospects there. This articleaims to challenge this view. Using the literature on development and democracy, as well asinterviews with Indian policy-makers, it will explore India’s recent engagement with theBurmese socioeconomic landscape, and assess its democratizing impact. It argues that,despite an evident discourse shift since cyclone Nargis in 2008, India’s development andinfrastructure projects remain low-key and peripheral, its education and health assistancemarginal and its transnational connections with the emerging Burmese civil society absent.India’s own dilemmatic approach combined with Burmese traditional resistance impedes abroader Indian leverage. Unless a more diverse socioeconomic involvement is offered byDelhi in Burma and more knowledge about its evolving polity is nurtured at home, Indiawill neither pave the way for pluralism to grow there nor alleviate its deep-rooted imagedeficit there.

Keywords: democratization; democracy promotion; development; foreign assistance;India–Burma relations; Burma/Myanmar

Introduction

She disapproves India’s approach to Burma’s woes, and she made it clear.1 Since her third

release from house arrest in November 2010, Aung San Suu Kyi, iconic leader of the

Burmese opposition, has repeatedly criticized New Delhi for not doing enough for the promotion

of democracy in her country (Indian Express 2010). In 1993, after four years of an all-out

support to Burmese pro-democracy forces, India opted for a strategic engagement of its mili-

tary-ruled neighbour. Since then, New Delhi has always defended its policy of dialogue with

the Burmese military regime, and subsequently faced mounting criticism for not openly cham-

pioning the pro-democracy forces. Transnational activists have denounced a ‘betrayal’ of the

world’s largest democracy, stressing arm deals and red carpets rolled out by New Delhi to visit-

ing Burmese junta leaders during the 2000s (Burma Campaign UK Briefing 2007). Yet, pundits

in South Block have long contended that India should rather define realistic strategies based on

geopolitical realities, not Western-inspired ethical policies. The most recent Indian literature on

Indo-Burmese relations reflects this realist positioning (Sibal 2009, Kanwal 2010, Mohan 2010).

ISSN 1356-9775 print/ISSN 1469-3631 online

# 2011 Taylor & Francis

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13569775.2011.619771

http://www.tandfonline.com

∗Renaud Egreteau is a Research Assistant Professor with the Hong Kong Institute for the Humanities andSocial Sciences (inc. Centre of Asian Studies) at the University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong. His currentresearch explores Burma’s praetorian politics, the intricacies of the Sino-Indian strategic relations, aswell as India’s interactions with Southeast Asia, particularly through the lenses of Burmese Indian diasporicnetworks. Email: egreteau@hku.hk

Contemporary Politics

Vol. 17, No. 4, December 2011, 467–486

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Opinions developed by leading Indian commentators and former policy-makers further

acquiesce (Chellaney 2010, Parthasarathy 2010, Malik 2011).

But there has been a perceptible change in New Delhi’s discourse on Burma over the years,

notably since the passage of cyclone Nargis in May 2008. The tragedy prompted – in India and

elsewhere – new debates on how the international community should intervene in Burma by not

having to choose between democratization or development (Myint-U 2008). Against this back-

drop of policy rethinking, this article explores India’s most recent engagement with the Burmese

socio-economic and political landscape. Indian diplomats and military officials have relentlessly

argued that by adopting a constructive engagement of the Burmese leadership, New Delhi was in

far better position to get access to the Burmese polity, economy, and society (Sikri 2009, Bhatia

2010, 2011). Subsequently, by fostering a development partly hindered by Western sanctions,

India would place itself as a key player of Burma’s gradual democratization. This article will

question this assumption.

Using literature references on development and democracy – the prevailing wisdom consid-

ering that economic development and wealth creation leads to some forms of democratization,

although the relationship remains complex – this research intends to critically examine the

impact India’s policy has had since the early 2000s on Burma’s development and then question

its potential influence on Burmese democratization prospects. It will demonstrate that New

Delhi’s forays in Burma have so far been marginal in development matters – despite progress

in a post-cyclone Nargis context – arguing that India’s own dilemmatic approach to the Burmese

conundrum, its security-driven policy obsession and resistances offered by the Burmese polity

itself have impeded a further thrust. India has nevertheless proved to be relatively sensitive to

international criticism and launched after 2008 new localized development and cooperation

initiatives. Yet they are still peripheral or ill-adapted as it will be argued. While dismissing

the revert of India to a blind support of Burmese democratic opposition, this article will call

for a (re)definition of an Indian roadmap in Burma, less focus on energy, and security infrastruc-

tures, therefore encouraging larger forays in basic education (not only higher education),

medical and health care, agriculture cooperation, transnational civil society capacity-building,

as well as peace-building initiatives.

India’s stance on Burma since 1988: a background

After four postcolonial decades of estrangement – if not alienation – from its eastern neighbour,

India strived to re-enter the Burmese political field in 1988. With Rangoon’s students uprising

and the subsequent crackdown of the 8-8-88 movement, New Delhi found a rationale to refocus

its foreign policy towards Burma. Although already foreseen with the visit to Rangoon of (the

late) Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in December 1987, India’s renewed interests in Burmese

affairs first took the form of an outspoken, yet muddled, agenda of democracy promotion.

Embracing the Burmese pro-democracy movement and its home-returning iconic figure,

Aung San Suu Kyi (who had spent her teenage years in New Delhi), India openly supported

her National League for Democracy. It also sponsored various student organizations and

ethnic armed groups (notably the Kachins) fighting against the new Burmese junta that took

power in September 1988 – both from inside Burma or from India’s soil (Mishra 1989).

However, this open political support was short-lived. As early as 1991, India’s influential

security establishment pushed for a re-think of India’s posture towards the renewed and strength-

ened Burmese praetorian regime. A more realistic approach was to be defined by New Delhi not

to leave the political vacuum left by an ostracizing international community wide open to China

(Banerjee 1996, Egreteau 2003). After the visit of the then Indian Foreign Secretary to Rangoon

in 1993, India opted for a closer engagement of the junta, prioritizing Burma’s strategic

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relevance for India’s twenty-first century agenda (Choudhury 2005, Yhome 2008, Kanwal

2010). Dropping its vocal criticism of military authoritarianism and muting its support to the

Burmese democratic opposition inside and outside the country, New Delhi sought to achieve

four main foreign policy objectives. First, to be in position to checkmate China’s post-1988

strategic and commercial thrust into Burma – this had much worried India’s military circles

and sinophobic elite, both traumatized by the 1962 Sino-Indian war (Egreteau 2008a).

Second, to stabilize its bordering Northeastern states, plagued with criminal insurgency and

ethnic strife – the latter having found roots and support beyond the 1643 km-long Indo-

Burmese borders (Nardi 2008, Saikia 2009). Third, to find new energy supply routes and

trade markets in a Southeast Asian country still rich of under-exploited resources (Lall 2006).

And fourth, to expand its diplomatic visibility in Asia using Burma as a spearhead for its

‘Look East Policy’ launched in 1991.

While not openly dropped, public promotion of democratic values and practices, rule of law

and good governance in Burma have been pushed by India’s policy-makers into the background.

Geopolitical imperatives have rather encouraged New Delhi to cultivate a closer, yet uneasy,

partnership with the Burmese military-dominated ruling elite from the mid-1990s. Up to the

point of being accused by transnational pro-democracy movements and Burmese exiled

groups of not doing enough for regime change, political transition and globally the democratiza-

tion of a Burmese polity much in need of it (BCUK 2007, Mohan 2007, Twining 2008). Beyond

a clear reluctance of India’s policy-makers to endorse a regional ‘democracy promotion

diplomacy’ (Cartwright 2009), evident geostrategic interests and the fear of losing the meagre

leverage over the Burmese praetorians New Delhi claimed it had gained through regular and

high-level bilateral dialogues have deterred most of India’s establishment from outspokenly

encouraging democratization trends in Burma.2 Also, the Burmese praetorian system soon

appeared much stronger in the late 1990s than when it was first envisioned 40 years ago

(Callahan 2009, Kyaw 2009). India has therefore strongly contended it has to deal with it, in

the same manner it has to cope with an enduringly Army-dominated Pakistan (Malik 2011).

Yet, this realpolitik approach received a cooler welcome than expected, both in India and in

Burma. And after two decades of cosier Indo-Burmese state interactions, the Burmese auth-

orities proved not only reluctant to intimately embrace India’s rising ambitions eastward, but

seemed also to be in position to impose conditions to the pace and path of the Indo-Burmese

relationship (Egreteau 2008b). On the contrary, their Indian counterparts appear much more

divided in their common long-term vision of Burma and in search of protracted leverages

there (Lall 2008a, Egreteau 2010). Beside, India has become even more sensitive about non-

intervention and territorial sovereignty issues worldwide. New Delhi stands strong on the

defence of its policy of non-interference, especially with regard to Burma – which remains

an approach far different from that of the West and its normative positions (Mohan 2007,

Mallavarapu 2010). Finally, despite a growing Chinese influence in the region, Burma materi-

alizes less immediate threats to India’s core security interests compared with West Asia or

Tibet for instance, hence a lower Indian investment in the Burmese strategic and economic land-

scape through the 2000s.3 Yet, a strategic rethink has been visibly promoted by the Indian min-

istry of external affairs in recent years (Sikri 2009, Bhatia 2010, Parthasarathy 2010). While not

reverting to a blind support to Burmese political opposition forces, India should try to gain the

best of both worlds, Indian diplomats now argue. They push for an approach less openly struc-

tured around security-driven objectives, yet without giving up the critical objectives New Delhi

first aimed to strategically pursue in the early 1990s. Now, ‘people-to-people contacts’, ‘devel-

opmental projects’, ‘capacity-building’, and ‘empowerment’ initiatives are part of the new

lexicon adopted by India in Burma (Ramachandra 2011). In the words of Foreign Minister

S. M. Krishna – who visited Rangoon in June 2011 – India now aims to fund projects that

Contemporary Politics 469

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would ‘directly benefit the friendly people of Myanmar’ (Press Trust of India 2011). Against this

backdrop, this article will examine India’s new approach and question its relevance and potential

democratizing influence on the Burmese polity and society.

Linking development and democratization

While national security and strategic interests have shaped for more than a decade the Indian

elite’s views of post-1988 Burma, successive setbacks and vocal criticism have nurtured a

more accommodating discourse. Since the late 2000s indeed, policy-making circles in New

Delhi and at India’s embassy in Rangoon have tentatively mapped out a new approach

putting forward a potential role for India in Burma’s socio-economic development.4 One of

the main arguments Indian diplomats have persistently defended over the past few years is

that by helping the Burmese society to develop and benefit from a sustainable growth, India

would be participating in Burma’s hesitant forays in democratization – as experienced in the

1980s by other Asian societies ruled by authoritarian regimes, such as South Korea, the Philip-

pines, or Taiwan. In contrast with Western approaches that have claimed since the 1990s that

international sanctions against the Burmese military rulers were a prerequisite to foster their

withdrawal from domestic politics and subsequently boost development and democratization

processes, India’s most recent posture appears to fit in the global assumption that development

rather preludes democratization, and not the opposite.

Social scientists have since the 1960s much debated about the linkages between development

and democracy (Lipset 1959, Jackman 1973). For long, it has widely been accepted that econ-

omic growth and an increasing redistribution of wealth would facilitate political changes and a

gradual democratization of countries experiencing unprecedented socioeconomic development

(Huntington 1991, Inglehart and Welzel 2005). In particular was underscored the significant

role of a rising middle-class, which was presumed to expect more and more political and

social dividends from the economic growth it had helped creating (Boix and Stokes 2003). In

addition, the positive impact of foreign aid and development assistance on endogenous democra-

tization processes was critically acclaimed (Knack 2004, Schmitz 2004), while the influence of

international conditions brought into the picture (Colaresi and Thompson 2003, Levitsky and

Way 2005). However, the unilateral correlation between development and democracy has gradu-

ally been disputed, with development notably construed as a valuable instrument to defuse social

tensions and cope with political shocks, thus strengthening authoritarian rules (Bueno de

Mesquita and Downs 2005). In fact, the demonstration can be reversed according to recent lit-

erature, as the consolidation of democratic practices appears to be first needed to broaden and

maximize development (Diamond 1992, Przeworski and Limongi 1997). Authors have further

established that wider political participation, state accountability, freedoms of movement, and

pluralism could also expand economic development, facilitate trade and improve conditions

of living, rather than the other way round (Przeworski et al. 2000, Kennedy 2010).

In both sets of arguments, democratization and socio-economic development are inter-

twined; and Indian policy-makers have therefore recently incorporated these debated linkages

into their policy formulation and objectives with regard to Burma (Yhome 2008, Sikri 2009).

Following the arguments put forward by political scientists Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way

(Levitsky and Way 2005), India now claims that by building transnational development

bridges between India and Burma with a parallel engagement of the Burmese ruling military

elite, it can create opportunities. New Delhi would be offering its neighbour new ideas, expertise,

training skills, and a global window to the democratic world that pro-isolation Western states

stuck in their ostracist approach could not (Bhatia 2011). Through reciprocal high-level diplo-

matic trips, cooperation, and dialogue, Indian policy-makers argue they can establish bilateral

470 Renaud Egreteau

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connections and exert some credible leverage over the Burmese polity and society, of which the

West remains much absent.5 India builds roads and ports in Burma, funds power projects and

infrastructures up-gradation, expands communication trade and investments, while sponsoring

education or training of Burmese people, and is henceforth in position to foster Burma’s

socio-economic achievements, it is claimed. But the Indian argument of expanding its develop-

ment assistance in and throughout Burma still falls short when comparing it with India’s similar

socio-economic involvement in other parts of the world. When Senior-general Than Shwe

visited New Delhi in 2010, he was offered a global development package worth less than

US$200 million. In stark contrast, when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visited East Africa

in May 2011, he pledged to bring on the table a myriad of Indian loans and lines of credits

worth US$5 billion to be dished out over the next three years. He also offered a US$1 billion

lump sum to pay for peacekeeping operations and education programmes in Ethiopia,

Somalia, and Tanzania (Economist 2011). And he had earlier announced India’s support to

Afghanistan would soon reach a record level of US$2 billion (Economic Times 2011). It

shows where India’s strategic priorities lay, argue activists but also, increasingly, diplomats

(Sikri 2009, p. 69). Looking at the patterns of its Burma-focused assistance, which remains –

despite progress since 2008 – merely articulated around low-key developments projects in per-

ipheral areas, India’s development aid to Burma is still in its infancy at best, ill-placed at worst.

To begin with, New Delhi has been increasingly struggling to take a credible toehold in Burma’s

poor infrastructures market over the past decade.

India and Burma’s infrastructure vacuum

Despite a bilateral border agreement signed in 1994 and a series of MoUs from then on yearly

negotiated, Indian strategic investments purported to create an Indian sphere of influence in

western Burma have been slow to pay off. India first sought to invest in Burma’s deficient infra-

structure sector, mostly through road constructions, upgrading of railways, a river port project

(in Sittwe, Arakan State), hydroelectric projects, and the extension of communication lines

(Yhome 2008). However, compared with the number and diversity of Chinese or Thai involve-

ments in the very same sector of activity in Burma, or even to India’s own growing presence

elsewhere in Asia (in Afghanistan for instance), doubts have emerged regarding the long-term

impact of India’s low-key Burmese projects, for they remain quite peripheral or involve

limited budget lines.

One of the most visible investments of India has been the India–Myanmar Friendship Road,

a 160-km route linking Tamu (at Manipur’s border) to Kaleywa and Kalemyo (Sagaing region).

Inaugurated in 2001 and ever since maintained by the Indian Border Roads Organization (of the

Indian Army), this road connects India’s North-East major transport corridor to Burma, through

India’s Manipur State. However, after 10 years, the segment between Kalemyo and Mandalay

has yet to be completed by the Burmese authorities. In July 2010 and June 2011 were signed

two other road deals. A first one in the Chin State between Paletwa and Myeikwa (at India’s

Mizoram border), and which from 2011 would be executed by the Myanmar Ministry of Con-

struction – but financed by India. A second one aims to upgrade the 80-km long Rhi-Tiddim

road (also linking Mizoram) at a cost of more than US$60 million, also to be financed

through an Indian grant assistance (Ramachandra 2011). Yet, beyond routes connecting its land-

locked Northeastern region, India has not unveiled any plan to invest in similar projects deeper in

Burma’s territory, unlike other neighbouring countries. In 2010, after a decade and a half of

closer Indo-Burmese interactions, India had built less than 200 km of roads in Burma, compared

with more than 700 km in war-torn Afghanistan since 2003 (Time 2011). Burmese railways

sector too have attracted some limited Indian interest. A line of credit worth US$60 million

Contemporary Politics 471

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was granted by India to procure railway equipments to the state-controlled Myanmar Railways

in July 2010, echoing a similar US$56 million-worth Indian loan to supply locomotives and

coaches and upgrade the Yangon–Mandalay line in 2004 (Kuppuswamy 2010). But India’s

assistance in the sector will come out as quite marginal once China completes by 2015 a

810 km-long railway corridor between Muse (Yunnan border) and the ocean port of Kyaukphyu.

In April 2011, Beijing indeed agreed to finance it through a US$763 million loan of the China

Development Bank Corporation (Myanmar Times 2011).

Indian diplomats rather became more enthusiastic about the Kaladan Multi-modal Transit

Transport Project, officially signed in April 2008. Thought out as early as the mid-1990s

when India’s ambassador to Rangoon happened to be an ethnic Mizo (the late L. T. Pudaite),

the idea of opening up India’s northeast to the Bay of Bengal through Burma and the

Kaladan River seems to be met with universal approval in Delhi. It involves both private and

state-owned Indian companies, such as Inland Waterways Authority of India and Essar Oil

Ltd. This project aims to unlock Mizoram by providing southwards a river-cum-road corridor

from the Indian border to the Indian Ocean and port facilities in Sittwe. It therefore proposes

to bypass Bangladesh, with which New Delhi had developed tensed relations in the past, very

much depending on who is governing Dhaka. An initial investment worth US$120 million

was agreed (Associated Press 2008). Upon completion of the project, Mizoram may then

benefit from secured inland waterways and a river port entry to the Indian Ocean. Nevertheless,

this Kaladan initiative remains focused on a Burmese region – the Arakan State – still very

much disconnected politically, culturally, and economically from Burma’s heartland. The vola-

tility of Arakanese politics has long been seen with suspicion by the Burman-dominated central

polity (Smith 1999, pp. 244–245). The successive post-independence Burmese centre govern-

ments have consistently been reluctant to propose better East–West connections within

Burma. This therefore seriously impedes a broader impact of India’s involvement from this

Western peripheral region upto the rest of Burma. The multimillion project is also perceived

with scepticism by local Mizo elites as it might bring ‘undesirable elements’ to the most peaceful

state of Northeast India (Hindustan Times 2011). Furthermore, India failed to secure a similar

port development project in Dawei on the Burmese Eastern coast. New Delhi had announced

the funding of feasibility studies after a BIMST-EC meeting in 2004 (Financial Express

2004), but then the Indian initiative seemed to have stalled (Irrawaddy-on-line 2007). The

Dawei project was eventually awarded to an Italo-Thai company in 2010 (Myanmar Times

2010b). This setback further illustrated India’s difficulties to expand its influence beyond the

mere India–Burma borderlands (see Figure 1).

Besides, two major hydroelectric projects in the Sagaing region have embodied India’s ven-

tures into Burma’s power sector. A MoU signed in 2004, and extended in September 2008,

allowed the funding by India of the Tamanthi and Shwezaye dam projects, both located in the

Hukauwn Valley on the Chindwin River basin. New Delhi has long pushed for a closer

cooperation between its state-owned National Hydroelectric Power Corporation (NHPC) and

Burma’s Department of Hydro-Power Implementation. Conversely, the lack of transparency,

widespread corruption, and numerous bureaucratic impediments observed at the local level

have undermined these projects. Besides, the latter increasingly faced criticism from environ-

mentalists and Northeast civil society groups, as well as a sharp concurrence from Chinese com-

panies.6 Up to the point of seeing India’s ambassador in Rangoon publicly questioning the

relevance of India’s involvement in the two projects in May 2011 (Times of India 2011). If

India does not rethink its strategic investments, he argued, especially in basic infrastructure

and hydropower, New Delhi may soon not be in position to offset the negative image its

state-run companies – and their ‘sarkari’ attitudes – already have in Burma. Denouncing

erratic implementations, he stated India could lose out most of its Burma-related projects

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Figure 1. India’s projects in Burma.Source: Author’s map.

Contemporary Politics 473

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unless a better and faster work was offered by Indian contractors – as if a 2010 Delhi Common-

wealth Game syndrome was mounting in Burma too.

However, the second visit to India of Senior-general Than Shwe in July 2010 had been the

occasion for New Delhi to open new doors of potential cooperation. In particular, the fields of

solar energy, wind energy, and mining industry were explored. India granted a line of credit

worth US$64 million for upgrading Burma’s transmission lines sector in 2010, while two

years before, it had proposed to set up an underground optic fibre cable link between India’s

Northeast and Mandalay (Kuppuswamy 2010). It also funded the maintenance of a 2001-built

data-processing centre in Rangoon (New Light of Myanmar 2001), deepening cooperation in

remote sensing applications and providing the Burmese administration with Indian satellite

images ever since (Hindustan Times 2006). But put into perspective, India’s ventures in

Burma’s global infrastructures over the past decade have been met with little success. Inspired

by few influential Chief Ministers and intellectual elites from its North-East who aim to unlock

their supposedly landlocked region (Baruah 2007, Barua and Das 2008), New Delhi has agreed

upon only marginal or peripheral projects linked to the potential stability of its own Northeastern

periphery. It failed however to gain a foothold in Burma’s geo-economic heartland along the

North-South Irrawaddy River corridor – which is and will remain dominated by China-driven

dynamism. Comparatively under-funded (few US$ million-worth projects each time), or target-

ing remote and under-populated Burmese areas, India’s infrastructure projects neither reflect

India’s potential in the matter nor prelude any large-scale visible Indian influence in Burma

in the long run.

Doing business with Burma: patterns and pitfalls for India

Modernization fostered by trade and industrialization leads to cultural and social changes, says

the literature despite enduring criticism (Przeworski and Limongi 1997, Inglehart and Welzel

2005, and for the critical view: Acemoglu et al. 2008, Kennedy 2010). With the 1994 border

agreement, the Indo-Burmese bilateral trade was set to boom and contribute to the development

of local communities in Burma, it was then argued. Over the past two decades, it indeed rose

from a ridiculous low amount of US$ 62.15 million during the 1988–1989 fiscal year, to US$

345.15 million in 2000–2001, and topped US$ 1.19 billion in 2009–2010 (Xinhua 2011).

Yet, India has become only Burma’s fourth, fifth, or sixth commercial partner, depending on

the year singled out through the 2000s. The Sino-Burmese bilateral trade for instance reached

US$2.6 billion in 2009–2010 – much more if one includes informal cross-border trade.

India’s Burmese trade also remains highly unbalanced: one-to-five in favour of Burma, which

imports less than US$200 million worth of products from India. Indian goods are indeed

sparse in local Burmese markets, mostly because they are unable to compete with the cheap

Chinese, Thai, and even Korean products. India is nonetheless the leading exporter of pharma-

ceuticals to Burma and – since General Ne Win’s times – the first country to import Burmese

agriculture and forest-based products such as beans and pulses, or timber.

Several reasons can be put forward to explain India’s comparatively poor trading record.

Less favourable geographies, infrastructure deficiencies inside Burma, and inadequate

banking services in a country crippled by international financial sanctions have much hindered

India’s trade thrust – at least more visibly than its more inter-connected rivals from China or

Thailand (Lall 2008a, pp. 17–18). The intricacies of a military-ruled and largely monopolistic

Burmese economy have further prevented Indian small- and medium-sized companies to carve

out credible business niches. Yet, New Delhi recently tried to map out new connectivity channels

to boost its economic presence. It indeed proposed in 2010 to create innovative financial instru-

ments to facilitate banking transactions with Burma by establishing direct links between Indian

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and Burmese banks (Xinhua 2011). Much to the displeasure of exiled activists, it indeed offers

Burma opportunities to circumvent Western financial sanctions – although India remains far less

attractive than Singapore or the Virgin Islands. A Relationship Agreement between the United

Bank of India on one side and the Myanma Foreign Trade Bank, Myanma Economic Bank, and

Myanma Investment and Commercial Bank on the other was thus signed to provide bilateral

banking arrangements. Since 2004, the Export-Import Bank of India has also regularly agreed

on special financial connections with its Burmese counterparts. This had helped the Indian

government providing several loans and lines of credit, particularly to build or upgrade factories

and refineries inside Burma.7 Overall, it has certainly participated in the relative boost the

Indo-Burmese trade has witnessed since 2007.

What is more, the Indian state’s role looms too large, despite its catalyst function, in India’s

commercial ventures in Burma. State-owned companies are clearly spearheading India’s tenta-

tive thrust: ONGC, GAIL, NHPC, Indian Border Roads Organization, and so on. But the vibrant

Indian private companies that leads India’s forays in Africa, the West, or the Middle East – and

are less prone to the burden of corruption and Indian traditional bureaucratic slowness or mis-

management – are quite absent from the Burmese markets. Only a handful of Indian private

multinational firms have stepped in. Pharmaceutical groups such as Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories

or Ranbaxy have long been leaders in their sectors, while the petroleum giant Essar Group

has been supervising the construction of the main port infrastructures of the Kaladan project

near Sittwe since 2010 (Indo Asian News Services 2011a). The historical Tata family conglom-

erate has tried to set up a truck assembly plant near Magwe since 2009 – with a financial help

from the Indian government. But small and medium Indian companies struggle to enter Burma.

Given the country’s banking deficiencies, they often simply stay away from a hardship market or

operate from safer Singapore and Malaysia.8 As long as India does not muscle its non-state

business activities in Burma, diversify its activities, and foster banking interconnectivity, the

global Indo-Burmese trade will lag behind.

Yet India still yearns for a more decisive share in the still underexploited Burmese energy

sector, notably the hydrocarbon market. Beyond Burma, this has become one of India’s most

obvious objectives at a time when the country’s energy needs are growing exponentially (Lall

2006). Even though cooperation in the energy industry between Burma and India was

planned as early as 1993, it did not materialize until 2002. And it has since focused mainly

on upstream and downstream projects of Burmese natural gas offshore blocks. The A-1 and

A-3 Shwe Gas project are involving Indian state-controlled ONGC-V and GAIL companies,

which announced a renewed investment planning worth more than US$1 billion in 2011,

thanks to a cooperation with Daewoo International. Essar Oil invested in 2005 in the A-2 and

L blocks. In the midst of the Saffron Revolution of September 2007, ONGC-V was granted

by the Burmese government three other deepwater exploration blocks, AD-2, AD-3, and AD-

9 (Ramachandra 2007). Despite having lost the Shwe Gas production to China in 2008 (but

not the exploitation), India still expects to gain further energy projects.

Gemstones and logging – two other sectors which internationally came under fire in 2007–

2008 after the adoption of ‘targeted’ Western sanctions – are also of considerable interest to

India. China (jade) and Thailand (rubies, sapphires) remain the largest trading hubs for

Burmese gemstones, but India is gradually offering another valuable outlet (especially for

rubies and gold). As an illustration of this growing interest, Burmese jewelers and jade

traders regularly attend international gems fair held in India (Xinhua 2010). As for the

logging of Burmese timber (teak notably), criminal and underground networks in Northeast

India have long been key players in smuggling, with Burmese local authorities turning a

blind eye to the lucrative business over the years (Indo Asian News Services 2006). Lastly,

overall in the agriculture sector, while importing a wide range of Burmese products, India –

Contemporary Politics 475

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which had experienced a remarkable Green Revolution in the 1960s – has a low-key influence in

Burma. In 2010, one agreement was signed on agriculture assistance and the building of rice

silos in cyclone-affected deltaic regions – but it was worth only US$10 million (Press Trust

of India 2011). Another offered a special Grant Assistance for Implementation of Small Devel-

opmental Projects (Kuppuswamy 2010). A meagre involvement, when compared with India’s

potential and capacities in trainings and teachings on agriculture and food-processing technol-

ogy as well as on environment studies.

Lessons in democracy? India’s education and training programmes in Burma

Although increasingly challenged by academia (Acemoglu et al. 2005, 2008), conventional

wisdom claims education is a determinant factor for the democratization of a society, beyond

economic modernization (Lipset 1959, Przeworski and Limongi 1997). While engaging

Burma on the matter through the 2000s, India has therefore argued it has been gradually parti-

cipating in the broadening of its neighbour’s education opportunities, the latter having today

reached an appallingly low level (Lall 2008b, Lorch 2008). Flaws in, and limitations of,

India’s education-related initiatives are however still evident.

Besides the long-running welcoming of Burmese monks in Indian monasteries or Buddhist

studies University departments in India (notably the Nava Nalanda Mahavihara University),

New Delhi has been trying since the late 1990s to foster academic exchanges between its

faculty and its Burmese counterparts. Despite the far humbler expertise or English language

command of most of the Burmese students, each year the Indian Council for Cultural Relations

sponsored a dozen Burmese doctoral students to study in India. In June 1999 was signed the first

agreement on cooperation in the fields of Science and Technology, an MoU which has been reg-

ularly extended since – the latest having been concluded in July 2010 (Kuppuswamy 2010). In

2003, Educational Consultants India Ltd negotiated with the Burmese Ministry of Education an

agreement proposing short-term deputations of Indian teaching personnel to various Burmese

universities (Yhome 2008, p. 23). After all, the father of Nobel Prized Amartya Sen had been

a visiting professor at Mandalay University between 1936 and 1939, so why not reviving this

scheme, it can be argued? Through India-ASEAN cooperation framework, as well as BIMST-

EC and MGC multilateral cooperation schemes, India has been offering several scholarships

to Burmese well-established academics and mid-rank civil servants to be trained in various

Indian institutions. In 2010–2011, 140 Burmese trainees were supported by India under the

Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation programme, 70 under the Technical Cooperation

Scheme of Colombo Plan and 10 under the General Cultural Scholarship Scheme of the Indian

Council for Cultural Relations – figures that doubled compared with four years earlier (Ministry

of External Affairs 2011, p. 11). Technical cooperation is a matter of pride for Indian authorities,

despite low budget and scholarships given to the foreign trainees.

Bilaterally, New Delhi also granted a US$2 million loan to build in Rangoon the India–

Myanmar Centre for Enhancement of IT Skills. The agreement for this high-tech computer

centre was finalized during the visit of India’s Vice-president Hamid Ansari in February 2009.

It is now run by 10 Burmese computer engineers who have received 6-month training courses

in Pune, Maharashtra. They were sponsored by India’s Ministry of Communications and Infor-

mation Technology.9 More recently, India promoted the establishment of a Myanmar–India

Entrepreneurship Development Centre (Rangoon) and an Industrial Training Centre in

Pakokku, to train electricians, welders, and mechanists (New Light of Myanmar 2010a). Further-

more in 2010, theMyanmar–India Centre for English Language Training (MICELT)was opened

in Rangoon. India has long hesitated before teaching English language abroad, giving evident pri-

ority to Hindi classes. Still in the early 2000s, both the Indian embassy in Rangoon and the

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Consulate-General in Mandalay – the latter re-opened in 2002 – were trying to promote Hindi

language classes and cultural products, but not English.10 In November 2009, two Indian

English teachers (only. . .) joined MICELT from Hyderabad (Ministry of External Affairs

2010, p. 12). Giving the rising privatization of the education business in Burma – in order to

offset despairing weaknesses of the Burmese state (Lorch 2008) – India can hope to find new

spaces for the educational influence if it better used the export of its own private education sector.

However, India has been mostly concentrating on higher education in Burma, through the

sponsorship of PhD scholarships or the promotion of IT capacities. But most Indian institutions

receiving Burmese trainees – as elsewhere in the world – have despaired of their low level of

knowledge (not only in English). Scores of reports by UN agencies, academics, or NGOs have

highlighted Burma’s dilapidated basic education system (Lall 2008b, Lorch 2008). So why focus

on higher education when primary and secondary educations are already in a ramshackle?

Recent literature underscores the value for non-democratic states and societies to prioritize

higher education, so as to boost their own ruling elite education, while on the contrary democra-

tization processes have all the more chances to be initiated under the very same regimes when

spending shifts from tertiary education to basic and primary education of the masses (Ansell

2008). Today in Burma, there is no guarantee that prioritizing the higher education of an elite

– be it non-military related – would have a trickle-down effect with the rest of the population

(Acemoglu et al. 2005). Beside offering English training and computer training, India’s invol-

vement in Burma’s basic education would have a far more impact in the mid-run if investments

in school constructions, teacher formations and, why not, syllabus assistance were provided by

New Delhi, rather than concentrating solely on top-level education of Burmese elites.

India also recently set out to train Burmese public servants, journalists, and notably, mid-

rank military officers. The main objective is to strengthen a much decrepit Burmese adminis-

tration structure and get it acquainted with modern administrative (and accountable) working

methods – which will be very much needed in case of a democratic transition. In September

2010, the head of the Myanmar Civil Services Selection and Training Board was in New

Delhi and Mussoorie to discuss cooperation with the Indian Institute of Public Administration

and the LBS National Academy of Administration (New Light of Myanmar 2010b). Since

2006 the New Delhi-based Foreign Services Institute run by India’s Ministry of External

Affairs has welcomed every year several young Burmese diplomats (through India-ASEAN

funding schemes). In December 2010, a mutual legal assistance treaty was signed between

the two neighbours, which includes a programme in English language training of Burmese

civil administrators and lawyers along the Indo-Burmese borders (Hindustan Times 2010).

The Indian Army has also funded the training, since 2003, of several Burmese air force officers

in its naval base of Kochi (Kerala). Since 2010 Burmese journalists have been offered trainings

in English language, computer and news management at the Indian Institute of Mass Communi-

cation in New Delhi. Two batches of 25 Burmese reporters or news agency staff (Myanmar

Times, Weekly Eleven, New Light of Myanmar, MRTV, Popular Journal, etc.) were sent there

in September 2010 and May 2011 (Myanmar Times 2010a). Summarizing one can argue that

India has been moving towards greater cooperation with the Burmese socio-economic landscape

over the past three years. But so far, this training cooperation established between Indian and

Burmese administration or military institution proved not as reliable as first expected. True,

Burmese civil servants and military officers received valuable – and much needed – formations

in India. But once back to Burma, communications with their former Indian instructors and train-

ing institutions are usually severed. Many in India’s academies or universities have complained

that they had lost track of their former Burmese trainees once they return to their home admin-

istration. This impedes sustainable bilateral cooperation and long-term influence of India.

Contemporary Politics 477

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The Nargis effect (and its limits)

Foreign policy discourses on development and its intertwined – yet debated – effect on demo-

cratization have long been marginal in New Delhi. The influence of Indian security agencies and

nationalist politicians still indeed tends to give a ‘national interest’ impetus to India’s Burma

policy. Yet, the devastation of lower Burma caused by the passage of cyclone Nargis in May

2008 – and the subsequent polemical intervention (or rather, lack of) of the international

community – fostered new debates in India. As the Western world was split over the way to

approach the Burmese gridlock (Myint-U 2008), there obviously has been a re-thinking

among (some) Indian policy-making circles. Talks of development assistance, capacity-

building, and humanitarian aid, beyond the mere backing of trade and security cooperation

have been more commonly heard – yet still discreetly. Vocal criticism by Burmese exiled move-

ments and transnational activists accusing India of not doing enough for democracy in Burma

while marginalizing Aung San Suu Kyi also weighed a lot (BCUK 2007). Indian diplomats

were the first to propose a new discourse on ‘capacity-building’, ‘empowerment’, and ‘commu-

nity-based development’, visibly inspired by an increasingly popular NGO-ish jargon. This is

certainly due to the more accommodating personalities of the two Indian ambassadors posted

in Rangoon since 2008: Aloke Sen (2008–2010) and V.S. Seshadri (since 2010).11 Less

prompt to nationalist discourses on a ‘Rising India’ which has regional interests to secure but

no moralizing lessons to receive from the outside, they must have come to terms with the

difficulties Indians have in establishing more intimate interactions with the Burmese ruling

establishment. Nonetheless, India’s revamped approach since Nargis has remained overcautious

and mostly reactive.

Also, the Indian civil society is much absent from the Burmese contemporary socio-political

landscape. The latter has witnessed a remarkable emergence of non-state actors since the mid-

2000s, thanks to the collapse of the Burmese Military Intelligence of General Khin Nyunt in

2004 and the gradual review of the strategies defined by international and cross-border NGOs

(Tegenfeldt 2006). Academia says the creation and then extensive mobilization of a civil

society and all forms of associational non-state entities is an essential source of democratization

(Alagappa 2004). It is both endogenous (Huntington 1991, Diamond 1994, Mercer 2002,

Tusalem 2007) and exogenous (Schmitz 2004, Levitsky and Way 2005). It besides proves

more successful when not instrumentalized by a handful of powerful NGOs with contending

agendas and competing external donors (Clark 1998, Zaidi 1999, Rahman 2006). Here, may

lay a long-neglected niche for India in a de facto extremely centralized Burmese polity, with

most state and non-state institutions under the control of one – the Military (Steinberg 2006,

Kyaw 2007, Callahan 2009). Fostering social and political pluralism in Burma will be crucial

to consolidate any gain made in terms of better modes of governance, civil and ethnic rights

and other forms of basic freedoms or access to welfare and education in the coming years.

India could help in building transnational linkages between its own dynamic civil society –

especially in its Northeast – and the Burman and or community-based civil societies inside

Burma. So far, very few Indian NGOs have showed a keen interest on Burmese affairs –

contrary to many crusaders in the West or along the Thai–Burma borders. Lack of networks,

historical estrangement of two societies bruized by colonial and postcolonial conflicts,

reminiscence of anti-Indian Burmese attitudes, and the intricacies of interethnic strife in

India’s Northeast; many reasons can be put forward to explain this timorous presence of

India’s own civil society in Burma. In India proper, more number of Indian and Burmese

NGOs formed by exiled Burmese are operating along the borders or in New Delhi to assist

Burmese refugees – for instance, the Burmese Community Resource Centre, Human Rights

Law Networks, Burma Campaign India, Burma Social Welfare Association, Manav Ekhta

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Parishad, Burma Centre Delhi, Chin Refugee Committee, or Samaritan Society of Mizoram. But

the presence of Indian NGOs inside Burma is negligible, safe few cultural associations or

business gatherings in urban areas, and ad hoc networks along the borders of Mizoram, Nagaland

and Manipur. It should be expanded. But with New Delhi’s official – yet sibylline – discourse

on India’s support for ‘national reconciliation’ and ‘inclusive process’ in Burma, little can be

expected from its government regarding the creation of new politicized non-state stakeholders

there. India remains reluctant to overtly challenge its ‘non-interference’ policy especially in

matters of human rights, refugees, civil liberties, or Burmese state deficiencies.

Consider the health sector however. India took the opportunity of its post-Nargis intervention

(which was nonetheless allowed by Naypyidaw in early May 2008) to dispatch medical teams to

work in affected areas as well as providing food supplies (Xinhua 2008). But it appeared difficult

to sustain this momentum in health cooperation with the Burmese authorities – contrary to

Afghanistan where Indian permanent medical missions have been set up. In 2011, India’s

Rangoon embassy took the initiative to negotiate the up-gradation of Yangon Children’s Hospi-

tal and planned to revamp Sittwe’s Hospital (Indo Asian News Services 2011b). Few cross-

border activities have also been run by Indian Northeast medical NGOs or associations in

malaria and HIV-aimed programmes, but are far from being fully endorsed by Indian and

Burmese authorities as they imply underground connections. NGO and academic circles have

urged India to do more in medical assistance, given the plurality of the needs in Burma

(Skidmore 2008). Large-scale training of Burmese medical practitioners, doctors, and nurses

in India, but also the establishment of new medical facilities inside Burma can be suggested

by New Delhi. Indian pharmaceuticals companies (Ranbaxy, Dr. Reddy and so on), which are

leading the drug and medicine markets in Burma, could also provide philanthropic funds. As

responsible donors, they could enhance Burma’s access to facilities, and finance the construction

of clinics or support training programmes. Lastly, traditional Indian ayurvedic practices have

been lost in Burma along with decolonization processes when Indian elites forcibly left the

country after the 1940s. But they can be (re)discovered by Burmese practioners, with the help

of India, which is now increasingly exporting – notably to the West – this indigenous cheap

and popular Ayurveda approach to health care.

‘The brown man’s burden’: why India remains uncomfortable with democracy

promotion in Burma

Take up the White Man’s burden (. . .) to seek another’s profit, and work another’s gain. (RudyardKipling 1899)

Pile on the Brown Man’s burden, compel him to be free, let all your manifestoes reek with philan-thropy. (Henry Labouchere 1899)

India’s dilemmatic approach

Since it officially chose to engage the Burmese ruling elite, there has never been a clear Burma

policy path defined Indian policy-making circles. Facing internal dilemmas, the various minis-

tries in New Delhi, but also security agencies in India’s Northeast and the leadership of state-run

companies aiming to invest in Burma, have hardly agreed on a common vision for the next 10

years (Lall 2008a). An array of contending agendas in New Delhi impede a well-structured and

sustainable India–Burma partnership. As early as the mid-1990s, internecine dissensions

emerged among India’s establishment. On the one side, a handful of politicians and diplomats

proved sensitive to Indian public opinion, which rather favours a popular support of Aung

San Suu Kyi and democratic ideals in Burma.12 On the other, aware of the catastrophic

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consequences of a strategic shift that would discard two decades of engagement with a strategic

neighbour, realist security and business circles have pushed for more state-to-state inter-connec-

tions – be it with an ostracized Burmese junta (Parthasarathy 2010, Malik 2011). It therefore

remains extremely difficult to decipher New Delhi’s current Burma policy-making. Competing

Indian agencies and administrations de facto seek to influence New Delhi’s overall approach

according to their own interests. While India’s military establishment had long had the upper

hand in defining Delhi’s relations with the Burmese, Indian diplomats appeared extremely

divided, even reluctant to protract an intimate partnership with another military-led govern-

ment.13 On their side, security agencies in India’s Northeast, obsessively wary of China’s

waxing influence, advocate for a policy guided by strategic concerns, leaving other interests

in the background. Indian business circles have also backed a further thrust eastwards, but it

appeared that only the Indian public sector spearheaded the momentum, leaving India’s

dynamic and liberal private companies much hesitant – whereas they are not in Africa or

West Asia. Consequently, India’s ‘Tower of Babel’ of perceptions, interests and voices much

impedes the definition of a clear roadmap in Burma, including for a democratizing agenda.

Furthermore, policy discourses on India’s commitment to democracy worldwide have tra-

ditionally been weak in New Delhi. India, despite boasting a model of poly-ethnic and multi-

lingual society structured around a stable federalist and democratic system, has rarely promoted

the export of its democracy ideology (Mohan 2007). A post-Cold War strategic re-orientation

and the salience – or return – of authoritarian and military rules at its borders (Pakistan,

Burma, Sri Lanka) have tended to encourage a shift of perceptions in New Delhi, as dealing

with democratic regimes often opens more doors for cooperation as one can argue (Cartwright

2009). Yet, outspoken promotion of democratization by India – as if it was nowadays the

‘Brown Man’s Burden’ to bring democracy worldwide to paraphrase Kipling and Labouchere

– remains exceptional among Indian policy-makers. Including when Burma and the iconic

(and India-lover) Aung San Suu Kyi are at stake (Mallavarapu 2010). Despite a recent

meeting in Rangoon between Aung San Suu Kyi and the visiting Indian Foreign Secretary Nir-

upama Rao in June 2011, there is still a clear reluctance among India’s leadership to openly

support the Burmese opposition – much of the chagrin of Aung San Suu Kyi herself. India

sticks to a non-interference regional diplomacy and since the mid-1990s, it has showed no

further political inclination towards the National League for Democracy – a party declared

illegal in May 2010. Neither has it proved closer to the new Burmese political parties formed

in 2010 to contest the military-backed elections. Nor eventually has New Delhi resourcefully

revived its linkages with the myriad of politicized (or armed) ethnic groups it used to support

20 years ago, such as the Kachins or the Chins. Exchanges between Indian officials and the

various Burmese inside and outside oppositions are indeed minimal today.14

Burmese resistances

If serious quandaries and internal divisions among India’s establishment deter New Delhi from

boasting more credible leverage in and on Burma, resistances from the country itself present

another obstacle to India’s push eastwards. After a first decade of hesitancy marked by mutual cri-

ticism and limited success of joint counterinsurgency operations in the 1990s (Banerjee 1996,

Egreteau 2003), the Burmese generals eventually opted to skilfully play their ‘India card’

during the 2000s. Even if China remains the most loyal partner, Naypyidaw feels increasingly

more confident and cognizant of its regional interests as well as policy bargaining abilities.

Over the past decade, the Burmese military has deftly manoeuvred Burma’s foreign policy in a

regional environment that it found difficult to navigate in the 1990s, with only Chinese and

ASEAN diplomatic options at hand. But at the dawn of the twenty-first century, the courting of

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India – and Russia – has not only become a major component of Burma’s adroit economic diplo-

macy, but also a useful strategic bargaining chip against rising Chinese, Thai or Western pressure.

Yet, for a xenophobic Burmese military establishment, India does not loom as large as often

imagined. Given its colonial traumatic legacies as well as its strong nationalist stance, Burma

has never been enthusiastic about wholly embracing India’s eastward projection – only to the

extent that it suits Burma’s immediate interests. Fear of the revival of an imperialistic India still

lingers among indo-phobic Burmese military circles (Egreteau 2008b, 2010). What is more, in

its tentative thrust since the 1990s, India has attempted to rely primarily on Burmese communities

of Indian origin (about 2.5 million today in Burma). Dismissing decades of distrustful relationships

with the Burman Buddhist majority,15 uneasy at seeing ‘kalas’ coming back, New Delhi has

underestimated Burma’s nationalist background and its anti-Indian roots (Egreteau 2011).

There are indeed many other endogenous barriers to a further Indian engagement policy that

would nonetheless focus on the different layers of Burmese economy and emerging civil society.

As with the West, the Burmese leadership still fears to fully open Burma’s doors to foreigners,

including NGOs and international associations (be they Indian), and let them getting access to

places or communities Naypyidaw rather wants to control or to marginalize and isolate. Legal

aspects, erratic visa regulations and banking restrictions in a blacklisted country also prevent

a further push of international and Indian development agencies. The official dissolution of

the junta in March 2011 and the subsequent formation of new Burmese civilian – yet still prae-

torian – government brought some dose of optimism (Holliday 2011). Yet, the India government

appears to doubt if it can effectively press for more political space in Burma. Anxious at the idea

of losing everything it has nevertheless gained since the 1990s, New Delhi will neither challenge

nor risk alienating from a Burmese praetorian elite that has all the chance to dominate the

country’s policy-making through the 2010s.

Is there a democratizing niche for India in Burma?

As in the West or other Asian countries (Myint-U 2008, Guilloux 2010, Holliday 2011), debates

have recently emerged in India on the need to intervene through innovative channels in post-

Nargis Burma – by not having to choose between development or democracy. Since 2008,

some diplomats in the stately avenues of New Delhi, as well as few businessmen and intellec-

tuals have advocated for a different Indian approach. Hence the gradual implementation of a

variety of Indian development and educational projects described earlier here. But this article

argues India is still not in position to durably impact Burma’s development prospects, penetrate

its civil society, and subsequently boost democratizing trends. India’s development agenda in

Burma remains low-key and under-funded. Constructions of infrastructures, power projects,

and programmes are located in peripheral, remote, and under-populated areas. They involve

delays and cost overruns. Also, the overall educational exchange offered by India is still very

selective. And the Indian civil society lacks substantial linkages with its nascent Burmese

counterpart. Notwithstanding a deep-rooted mistrust between the two neighbour’s societies,

all that makes the world’s largest democracy a still minor player in Burma’s development

and democratization prospects.

Yet this assessment could be made of many other external state actors, especially Western or

East Asian. The Burmese field is a particularly xenophobic one, and many resistances by its

polity – including to development itself – impede the outside world in its tentative development

and democratizing thrusts there. While it is wrong to assert India’s expanding assistance to its

eastern neighbour is undeserving, New Delhi can still not position itself as a credible vector

for socio-political and economic transformation in Burma. Moreover, the development initiat-

ives nonetheless proposed by India are badly publicized by Indian themselves, with limited

Contemporary Politics 481

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funds and little human resource involved. But India is nevertheless on the right track, and should

continue a policy of engagement of all actors of the Burmese landscape. By defining a clearer

roadmap first – as New Delhi has done in West Asia or East Africa. Indian policy-makers

are still split in the opinions over the way forward in a post-junta Burma in 2011, but support

for a less security- and energy-focused policy should be a priority. Given the limited numbers

of its Burma-centred assistance programmes so far conceived, India needs – and can – do

more to facilitate the creation of new indigenous Burmese stakeholders in democracy (students,

administrators, journalists, bankers, farmers, social workers, lawyers, teachers, etc.). Another

priority should be Burma’s future socio-economic welfare; better targeted health and basic edu-

cation initiatives can be envisioned. India can indeed assist the Burmese emerging civil society

in deepening more efficient social work and humanitarian aid, while acquainting it with the pat-

terns of a modern, multi-lingual, and poly-ethnic democratic society governed by accountable

state structures and institutions. As long as the West and Japan remain sceptical about the

Burmese ruling elite’s arguments about the emergence of a ‘flourishing-disciplined democracy’,

there would be a niche for India, if only security matters were put into the background.

That ought to mean, also, more investment at home. India’s academia lacks the knowledge

on Burmese contemporary dynamics it should boast if New Delhi is to develop a deeper under-

standing of its neighbour. Indian expertise often depends on the (although valuable) experience

of former diplomats and retired generals. Comparatively, very few Indian scholars, including

the younger generations, have focused their research on Burma’s ethnological, economic, and

socio-political dynamics, even in the Northeast. Fostering more interests on Burma at home is

imperative, to avoid relying only on biased Western policy-oriented references or academic

research on Burma. It is also imperative to nurture an ‘Indian way’ of humanitarian and devel-

opment assistance – as increasingly observed in Africa or Afghanistan – and not following

Western path of external (and conditional) aid. Finally, the Indian psyche still conceives

Burma in much romanticized ways. Views on the prestige of a Burmese ‘Golden Land’ enriched

by Indian diasporic communities during the colonial era, or Amitav Ghosh’s popular novels and

the mediatized struggle of Aung San Suu Kyi still dominate in India. It would be wise for the

expanding Indian academia to deconstruct romantic cliches and better construe the Burmese

evolving realities.

Concluding remarks

For many theorists of the democracy paradigm, notwithstanding a peaceful geopolitical environ-

ment, a stable democracy needs two interrelated characteristics: a robust and dynamic civil

society and a capable state structure. Obviously, postcolonial India has been able to build up

both for itself since 1947 – despite flaws – but it struggles to either inspire or push Burma

towards a similar path. However, after a decade of overcautious interactions with the

Burmese military leadership, India has recently proved to be sensitive to domestic and inter-

national criticism. The introduction of more development, technological, and educational pro-

jects which attempt to bring in a diversity of Indian institutions – as well as funds and

capacities – has been discussed in New Delhi and Rangoon. Time will be needed to critically

assess whether this is a sustainable shift. As for now, India remains in Burma primarily

because of its global security and strategic interests, not because it aims to democratize,

develop, and pacify its neighbourhood. One can expect little democratizing influence of India

in the coming years there, as it will take time for its divided policy-makers to adapt to

Burma’s evolving ecologies, and build up new cultural bridges with a neighbour with whom

they do not share a much closer and intimate relationship (unlike Pakistan or Bangladesh).

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That should not deter New Delhi from paving the way for a broader and more humble invol-

vement in the country. Burma faces a myriad of obstacles to reach development, peace, and

eventually democracy. But a focus on peace and conflict resolution, rather than merely

human rights, democracy, and development could also be proposed by India. Substantiating

peace-building and conflict resolution processes – as New Delhi is doing in Afghanistan and

Somalia for instance – could indeed prove to be extremely valuable for a Burma torn-out by

civil wars since 1947. Initiatives based on peace-building and peace keeping, as well as inter-

ethnic war termination processes could be envisioned. Finally, without reverting to an outspoken

promotion of the Burmese democratic opposition – as in 1988–1990 or like it is advocated by

Western militants or Burmese exiled groups – but through better transnational connections with

the country and its society, India could patiently live up to the positive image its has elsewhere in

the world. Above all a better drafted Indian policy could eventually reconcile the Indian and

Burmese societies bruized by decades of colonial legacies and mutual distrust.

Acknowledgements

This is a revised version of a conference paper presented during the international symposium on

‘Myanmar 2011: Governance, Development and Dialogue’, held at the University of Hong Kong

on June 20–22, 2011. The author wishes to thank Ian Holliday for his encouragement, as well as

Marie Lall and the anonymous reviewer for their sharp comments.

Notes

1. For linguistic simplicity and without any political connotation, the author has chosen to hereafter use theEnglish terms ‘Burma’, ‘Burmese’, ‘Burman’, and ‘Rangoon’, instead of the vernacular terms of‘Myanmar’, ‘Bamar’ or ‘Yangon’, as ‘India’ has been preferred to the vernacular as ‘Bharat’.‘Burmese’ then refers to the wider citizenship and common language of the people inhabiting Burma,while ‘Burman’ (Bamar) more specifically designates the country’s dominant ethnic group. Burma isalso the home for non-Burman (yet Burmese) ethnic minorities, such as the Karens, Kachins, Shans,Nagas, and so on.

2. Author’s discussion with Rajiv Sikri, former Secretary (East) of India’s Ministry of External Affairs,New Delhi, November 2009.

3. Author’s discussions with two former Indian Foreign Secretaries: Salman Haidar (1991–1994) inHong Kong, September 2010, and Kanwal Sibal (2002–2003) in New Delhi, November 2010.

4. Changes of discourses of diplomats based in Burma have been evident through the years: author’sregular discussions with Indian diplomats in Rangoon and Mandalay, between 2002 and 2008.

5. Author’s discussions with G. Parthasarathy, former Indian Ambassador to Rangoon (1992–1995),New Delhi, November 2010.

6. See for instance the anti-Tamanthi movement created by Northeastern and Delhi-based civil societygroups. The Kuki ethnic minority is much involved in it, as exposed by their website (accessed on4 August 2011) available at http://www.freewebs.com/anti-htamanthi/

7. As for instance the Thanbayakan Petrochemical complex, in Magwe Region: see the press release onEXIM’s website (accessed on 5 August 2011) at http://www.eximbankindia.com/press250209.asp

8. Author’s discussions with C. Murali, President of the India–Myanmar Business Club, Rangoon(January 2005) and with Mak Patel, former consultant for the Indian Ministry of Energy, Rangoon(March 2006).

9. According to a briefing released by its Department of Information Technology on its bilateralcooperation in Asia, available online at: http://www.mit.gov.in/content/asia (accessed on 4 August2011).

10. Author’s discussions with Rajiv Bhatia, India’s Ambassador in Rangoon (May 2004), as well as withIndia’s first Consul-General in Mandalay (May 2004), and his successor (April 2005, March 2007).

11. Author’s discussion with Amb. Aloke Sen, Calcutta, India, October 2010.12. Author’s discussion with George Fernandes, former Indian Defence Minister (1998–2004) and

supporter of Burmese democrats, New Delhi, March 2006.

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13. Author’s regular discussions with Indian diplomats based in New Delhi and Rangoon since 2002.14. Author’s discussions with leaders of the Kachin Independence Organization/Army (KIO/KIA), Laiza,

Burma, August 2011.15. Author’s discussion with Amb. Eric Gonsalves, former secretary at India’s embassy in Rangoon

(1962–1965), New Delhi, November 2009.

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