When the saints go marching in…

With tens of thousands of monks and citizens on the streets in peaceful protests against the ruthless military junta in Burma, will the Indian government turn its eyes away from the pro-democracy movement yet again? questions Hardnews

Satya Sagar Bangkok

Burma's long dormant pro-democracy movement is on the march once again. And this time it is clad in saffron — the colour of the country's revered Buddhist monks who have chosen to take on the men in green — the brutal Burmese military that has ruled for nearly five decades. 

On September 23, as many as 100,000 anti-government protesters led by a phalanx of Buddhist monks and nuns marched through Yangon (Rangoon), the largest crowd to demonstrate in Myanmar since 1988. Next day, tens of thousands more monks, joined by civilians, marched peacefully through key areas of several Burmese towns. Indeed, since late August this year, monks and people around Burma have been out on the streets protesting against a sharp hike in fuel prices imposed by the dictatorship on a long suffering people, among the poorest in the world.

The protests were initially triggered by student activists, who, lacking the immunity accorded to monks, were immediately beaten up and detained. Min Ko Naing, a student leader and hero of the 1988 failed uprising against the military regime, who has already spent nearly a decade-and-half in jail, was among those arrested.

On September 21, Yangon, the former capital of Burma, witnessed the largest rally yet of over 5,000 monks and nuns cheered on by thousands of ordinary folk. Till a month ago, such a show of dissent was considered impossible, even highly hazardous, given the military regime's past record of ruthless crackdowns on pro-democracy movements. Adding to the surprise turnout was a rare appearance by Aung San Suu Kyi at the gates of  her house as the  monks stopped by to pray for her release after over a  decade of house arrest. Suu Kyi, wearing an orange blouse and a traditional sarong, greeted the monks with folded hands and appeared to be in tears. It was one of the several peaceful protest marches on that day by monks in Yangon and Mandalay, a major religious centre and traditionally, the hotbed of political dissent in the country.

Latest information trickling in from Burma, even as this edition goes to bed, is that the crackdown has begun. Monks are being shot at, killed, people are being picked up, the army is out on the streets. Will the army repeat the bloody past when it killed thousands of peaceful protestors all over the country?

Coming ahead of a meeting of the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), as the junta calls itself, in Burma's new capital of Naypyidaw, the wave of public protests has raised hopes of a turning point in the country's troubled history. A group called the All Burma Monks Alliance urged people for the first time "to struggle peacefully against the evil military dictatorship" — until its downfall. 

Monks, along with student groups, have always been at the forefront of dissident movements since the colonial era. Burma, which became independent from British rule in 1945, had democratically elected governments till 1962 when General Newin toppled Prime Minister U Nu's government to establish one of world's longest running dictatorships. Following the massive 1988 pro-democracy movement, the junta agreed to hold general elections in 1990. Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) swept the polls but the military refused to hand over power under the guise of framing a new constitution.

Despite the new optimism, observers caution that there is a long way to go before the military concedes defeat. Operating like a closely knit clan or caste, Burma's armed forces, having been in power for so long, have too much to lose if there is a return to civilian rule.

Though its people live in dire poverty, Burma is a rich treasure house of oil, natural gas, minerals, forests, gems and rubies that in the past two decades have yielded great wealth to the generals. Many western companies, despite sanctions imposed by their governments, operate in the country along with their Asian counterparts from Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia and China. The Chinese government has significant stakes in Burma, being the largest supplier of weaponry to the military regime, apart from other commercial investments.

“The reports we are getting from inside the country point to a build-up towards a mass movement but it is too early to say how it will all go,” says Roland Aung Naing, a former student leader and currently correspondent for the BBC's Burmese Radio service based in Chiang Mai, Thailand. There have been several false starts to Burma's pro-democracy movement in the past two decades after it was crushed by the  military in 1988; scores of people were killed and hundreds put behind bars.

The current signs of an uprising are sure to pose a dilemma for the Indian government which has been cosying up to the junta in the  name of expanding economic ties and countering 'Chinese influence'. Indeed, the 'idealist' phase of India's foreign policy dates back to the days of Nehru and his Burmese counterpart U Nu; they were close friends and decided policies based on trust and cooperation. After U Nu's ouster in a military coup in 1962, successive Indian governments opposed the dictatorship on principle. At the height of the pro-democracy movement in 1988, the All India Radio's Burmese service had even called General Newin and his men 'dogs'. However, with the coming of the PV Narasimha Rao government in 1992, it is India that has been wagging its tail all along.

The 'pragmatic' phase of Indian foreign policy towards Burma since the early 1990s meant throwing principles out of the window to further Indian strategic and economic interests. In all these years, there is little evidence that India's long-term interests were better met by 'amoral pragmatism' than the 'muddled idealism' that had prevailed in the past. In fact, what emerges on a close examination of current Indian policy is that, for all its realpolitik gloss, the only beneficiary is the Burmese regime itself.

Take the myth of India countering China. According to Indian defense analysts, China has gained a significant foothold in Burma, setting up military installations targeting India and wielding considerable influence on the regime and its strategic thinking. They say that India's strong pro-democracy stand in the wake of the 1988 uprising provided a window for countries like China and Pakistan to get closer to the Burmese generals. This line of argument rests on the flawed assumption that had India taken a softer stand, the junta would have desisted from getting closer to China or Pakistan. The truth is that the Burmese generals, because of their proximity to the authoritarian regimes in China and Pakistan, would probably have favoured these two countries as allies over an 'unreliable' partner like India, a democracy.

Indian and other defense analysts, with their blinkered view of the world as a geo-political chess game, forget that the then Indian government's decision to back the pro-democracy movement was not a 'mistake' born out of ignorance, but an official reflection of the support for the movement among Indian citizens.

The second myth is that by wooing the generals India can get Burma's support in curbing the arms and drugs trafficking that fuel insurgencies in the Indian Northeast. This argument assumes that the junta is willing and able to control the activities of Indian ethnic militants and Burmese drug traffickers. In the case of drug trafficking from Burma there is reason to be worried — groups close to the junta benefit directly from the trade.

The Indian government has achieved none of its realpolitik aims in Burma and instead alienated Burma's pro-democracy movement and its millions of supporters worldwide. While large sections of the Indian population are apathetic or ignorant about their government's policies towards Burma, their silence does not really imply approval. Interestingly, the last time India took a stand in favour of democracy in Burma was when Rajiv Gandhi was prime minister. It would be a grand irony of history if the regime of his wife, Sonia Gandhi, fails to build upon this legacy and goes down as a supporter of one of the worst dictatorships of modern times.

The writer is a journalist based in New Delhi