India’s strategic gamble with Myanmar’s Junta
As Myanmar’s President Min Aung Hlaing visits India, strategic imperatives appear to be outweighing democratic principles
Myanmar’s President Min Aung Hlaing is in India on his five-day maiden visit. The controversy and protests started even as he landed in Bodh Gaya on Saturday. The optics were meticulously choreographed, but the baggage the President carries is simply too heavy to be whitewashed. Here was a man who led a coup against a democratically elected government in 2021, receiving ceremonial honours from the world’s largest democracy. In February 2021, military chief Min Aung Hlaing overthrew Myanmar’s democratically elected government, arresting Aung San Suu Kyi on flimsy charges. But this time, the resistance was sizeable. The junta has lost control of over half the country’s territory. Desperate to project legitimacy, the military has staged heavily restricted, staggered elections — widely dismissed as a sham - with the NLD dissolved and major rebel groups boycotting the process entirely, leaving Myanmar’s political crisis far from resolution.
Yet to dismiss India’s decision to host him as a moral contradiction would be simplistic. It is a bid to balance the geopolitics of the region and engage with a regime that rules an important neighbour. India shares 1,643 kilometres of border with Myanmar. Across that frontier lie insurgent groups, drug-trafficking networks, and the shadow of Chinese influence. No Indian government, regardless of its ideological persuasion, can afford to look away from Naypyidaw simply because its leader came to power through a coup. Three imperatives have consistently driven India’s Myanmar calculus. First, instability in Myanmar spills directly into India’s North-East. Managing that volatility requires engagement, not isolation. Second, India’s Act East policy — its strategic pivot towards South-East Asia - depends critically on Myanmar as its land bridge. The Kaladan Multi-Modal Corridor, the India-Myanmar-Thailand Highway, and the Sittwe Port are not abstract diplomatic assets; they are concrete infrastructure projects that India has spent years and considerable resources building. Third, and perhaps most urgently, China looms large. Beijing has embedded itself deeply in Myanmar’s economy. For India, allowing the junta to drift entirely into China’s orbit is simply not an option.
New Delhi engaged with the junta through the 1990s. History, it seems, keeps repeating itself, but it also carries warnings. By legitimising Min Aung Hlaing, India risks being seen as an enabler of a regime that has prosecuted a brutal civil conflict and conducted deeply contested elections.
The National Unity Government and exiled communities in Delhi are already protesting New Delhi’s decision to host the President. The deeper question is whether India’s engagement actually moves Myanmar towards a genuine democratic transition — or whether it merely allows the junta to garner international respectability while continuing business as usual at home. New Delhi would argue that engagement beats isolation. But engagement without pressure on the junta to restore democracy will reflect poorly on India’s standing. How New Delhi articulates its position will go a long way towards balancing its moral position and regional compulsions.
