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Myanmar’s cyclone crisis and India’s aid

Jairam Ramesh… India’s “actions have [spoken] and will speak louder than words.” — Photo: R. Ragu

Striking a nuanced note, India has “salute[d] the people and the Government of Myanmar for their resilience and fortitude in facing [the] devastation” caused by Cyclone Nargis. For Myanmar’s long-entrenched military regime, which had sensed the open and coded Western game-plan of engineering its downfall in the wake of the disaster that hit the Irrawaddy delta and its adjoining areas in early May, India’s praise really amounts to more than a sign of political neutrality.

India is the only country to have so saluted the Myanmarese authorities; and New Delhi was conspicuous among the first parties that sent relief supplies. In fact, it is believed that Indian Navy ships were the first to offload sea-borne aid supplies at the Yangon port. But New Delhi fights shy of claiming credit for such a ‘humanitarian first.’ And, Union Minister of State for Commerce and Power Jairam Ramesh spelt out India’s latest message of goodwill at an international pledging conference in Yangon on May 25. Organised by the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the United Nations, the meeting was surely designed to help the people of Myanmar.

However, the notion of humanitarian aid with political strings is nothing new in inter-state relations. And unsurprisingly, independent opponents of Myanmar’s junta, the self-styled State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), noticed how its credibility was put on the line on the basis of some pre-conference rhetoric in the Western camp.

Ignoring the fact that India, China, and Thailand rushed unconditional aid as soon as it was possible , several Western countries and their allies raised an unrelenting anti-junta chorus in the run-up to the May 25 meeting. They urged the SPDC to allow their “expert” aid-workers to move about freely in the cyclone-hit areas. And, the SPDC, always wary of any “baneful” external influences, resisted what it saw as Western attempts at political, as different from military, intervention in Myanmar in the name of a humanitarian mission. It was in such a climate of confrontation between the SPDC and the West that ASEAN, which includes Myanmar as a member-state, took the belated step of organising the Yangon conference. And, the U.N.’s co-sponsorship was designed to enhance the West’s comfort level for the conference.

The SPDC, of course, is eager to demonstrate its ability to exercise, at will, the Myanmarese people’s sovereignty. But the West is equally determined to prove how indispensable it is to their well-being. Unsurprisingly, the junta not only agreed to the conference in such politically sensitive circumstances but took certain controversial steps at home at the same time.

In the immediate wake of the cyclone itself, the junta had sought to prove its “skill” at managing a multi-role state by holding a countrywide referendum, except in the cyclone-hit areas, amid the “relief efforts.” And, before the Yangon conference, the SPDC, proclaiming victory in the referendum, claimed to have obtained a popular mandate to transform Myanmar into a praetorian state with a military-dominant political system.

As if this was not enough as a retrograde step, the SPDC extended the prolonged house-arrest of Aung San Suu Kyi, Nobel Peace laureate and celebrated democracy campaigner, even as the Yangon conference concluded. In taking this high-handed action, the junta did not feel deterred by the ASEAN-U.N. symbolism of international solidarity with the people of Myanmar in their hour of humanitarian crisis.

A relevant question is whether India’s commendation of the SPDC, even if only in the limited context of Cyclone Nargis, does look awkward in the wake of the latest manifestation of the junta’s cavalier disdain for Ms. Suu Kyi and for democracy. The answer, an emphatic ‘no,’ was implicit, however, in the way Mr. Ramesh had, at the Yangon conference itself, called for an “apolitical” approach to meet the consequences of the cyclone.

He outlined how “India had already sent to Myanmar the much-needed initial relief,” besides deploying medical teams in the affected areas, “when many in the international community were still in the process of organising themselves.” Against this apparent euphemism for the West’s anti-SPDC game-plan, Mr. Ramesh said India’s “actions have [spoken] and will speak louder than words.”

India would “assist Myanmar fully in [its] reconstruction phase” as in the relief and rehabilitation stages, he said, and urged the international community to “keep the process apolitical... in the true humanitarian spirit.”

Importantly, the ASEAN is also of the view that the latest extension of Ms. Suu Kyi’s detention “should not be used to politicise the urgent humanitarian effort for the victims of Cyclone Nargis, which should be kept a separate matter.” ASEAN’s obvious message to the anti-SPDC Western bloc echoes the messages from India and China. And, it is doubly important that ASEAN, despite its collective failure recently to nudge the SPDC towards democracy, has chosen not to toe the Western line on Myanmar.

The meeting between Mr. Ramesh and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in Yangon reflected the spirit of India’s “quiet” backstage diplomacy in regard to Myanmar’s democracy question. And, in meetings with Myanmar’s Prime Minister Thein Sein and other leaders including Foreign Minister U Nyan Win, Mr. Ramesh is understood to have received clear signals about their “appreciation” of India’s “apolitical” response to the cyclone tragedy.

If, as a result, India’s economic engagement with Myanmar receives a boost now, cynics may see this as a political dividend for New Delhi’s “apolitical” response. However, it requires no special insight to recognise that such a dividend cannot be equated with the Western political game-plan of fishing in the cyclone-stirred turbulent waters.

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