Is New Delhi Drawing Close to Myanmar’s Resistance Movement Against the Junta?

What has remained hidden so far is the proximity of the Indian government to the Chin National Front.

A picture of the Chin National Army.

(Photo: Author)

A news report some days ago stating that the Indian government has sent an ‘unprecedented invite’ to Myanmar’s anti-Junta groups has triggered speculation over whether there has been a shift in New Delhi’s policy towards the neighbouring country.    

The report said that India has invited political and military opponents of the Myanmar junta to a forthcoming seminar in New Delhi to be hosted by the government-funded Indian Council of World Affairs (ICWA).   

A government official in New Delhi has confirmed the forthcoming conclave in New Delhi on Myanmar’s ‘Constitutionalism and Federalism’ but did not specify any date for the event.   

The Indian government’s decision to host the conclave comes in the backdrop of criticism by civil society organisations in Myanmar for its pro-junta policies. An episode that has gained wide publicity was India’s supply of weapons worth $51 million to the Myanmar military after the coup in February 2021, according to a United Nations report. India had also objected to the imposition of sanctions on Myanmar during the UN Human Rights Council meeting.  

New Delhi’s current Myanmar policy is different from its response to the military crackdown in 1988 when thousands were killed and a popular movement brutally suppressed by the Junta. The government had welcomed refugees and pro-democracy protestors from the country to the Northeast and New Delhi.   

A shift in the policy was discernible in the early nineties when New Delhi decided to forge closer ties with the junta owing to the growing Chinese influence in the country and the threat from separatist groups from India’s Northeast that had set up camps and training facilities in Myanmar’s Sagaing Region.  

From around 2010, another factor that prompted the Indian government to draw closer to the military was the Kaladan Multi-Modal Transit Transport Project and the Trilateral Highway both of which are key components of India’s Act East Policy.   

However, over the years, New Delhi has also cultivated close ties with some ethnic insurgent outfits in Myanmar. The episode began in the late eighties when a deal was struck between India’s external intelligence agency – Research & The Analysis Wing – and the Kachin Independence Army (KIA).  According to the agreement, the KIA will prohibit rebel outfits from India’s Northeast, especially the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) and People’s Liberation Army (PLA) from being trained in return for weapons.    

Subsequently, two consignments of weapons were supplied through Vijaynagar in Arunachal Pradesh. But the third met with a mishap when it was ambushed by the Myanmar military after the consignment had crossed the border into the neighbouring country. The KIA was also allowed to set up an office in New Delhi and avail diplomatic training in India.   

A complex situation confronted New Delhi after the military coup in Myanmar early in 2021. Besides its own approach, the government was compelled to accept the policies of the border states of Mizoram and Manipur, which are contrasting owing to the ethnic configurations and political situations in these twin states.   

Mizoram shares ethnic similarities with the contiguous Chin State in Myanmar.  It has opened its doors to all refugees from Myanmar. The state government has also opposed the plan to fence the border. The congenial ambience triggered conditions for the supply of weapons and ammunition involving local residents and Myanmarese citizens.    

In Manipur, the state government has been hostile to refugees and the presence of rebel functionaries from Myanmar.  A more aggressive posture was adopted after the outbreak of ethnic riots last year in May between the Meitei and Kuki-Zo communities. Many Myanmarese refugees are in detention centres and some have been deported as well. The rationale of these measures was to send a message that citizens from the neighbouring country are unwelcome in Manipur. Amid these developments were allegations by local organisations against Indian armed forces that they were collaborating with resistance groups in Myanmar.   

While many of these episodes were known, what has remained hidden is the proximity of the Indian government to the Chin National Front – the biggest rebel group in Chin State – and its efforts to cultivate closer ties with the Arakan Army active in southern Chin State and Rakhine State for restarting the stalled flagship Kaladan project in Myanmar. New Delhi realised that the project aimed at providing an outlet to the landlocked Northeast could meet with a dead end without the support of the Arakan Army. If some rebel functionaries are to be believed, a large chunk of remittances from Chin expatriates to Chin State is also channelled through Mizoram.        

China continues to exert influence in Myanmar with the Junta as also some prominent resistance groups, which certainly is not music to the ears of New Delhi. There is a high possibility that Rakhine State, where both India and China have strategic interests, could be the next region to be totally liberated by the Arakan Army. Currently, as many as 12 out of a total of 18 townships in southern Chin State contiguous to India and Rakhine State have been liberated by the Arakan Army. But China has already positioned itself in a more advantageous situation in Rakhine State than India.     

So, New Delhi’s decision to host the conclave is a calculated move reflecting the continuation of its earlier policy of maintaining ties with Myanmar’s resistance groups. The timing could be an indication of the Indian government’s realisation that the junta lacks the resources to regain the territories it has lost to the resistance groups in Myanmar. Some government officials also believe that Myanmar under the National Unity Government (government-in-exile) would be more beneficial for India than either the military regime or the previous government under the National League for Democracy.

(Rajeev Bhattacharyya is a senior journalist in Assam and author of ULFA: The Mirage of Dawn. This is an opinion article and the views expressed are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)