An Unexpected Connection: Prime Minister Modi and the Vipassanā Tradition of S.N. Goenka
On February 4th, 2023, the official Instagram and Facebook accounts of the Vipassanā Meditation Organization in the tradition of the S.N. Goenka posted, and apparently subtitled, a nine-minute video of the controversial Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, reflecting on Goenka’s centenary birth anniversary. Unlike most other videos that their official accounts post, they disabled “comments,” perhaps because of the many concerns that otherwise would likely be expressed in making the choice to align themselves with a controversial political figure. To examine this topic in more detail in a free and critical space, we speak to a long-time India watcher, and ask for their thoughts on the tribute paid by India’s Prime Minister. Our guest does not feel safe to either express their views on our podcast or reveal their name.
Last week, top members of the Burmese and Indian militaries met in Nay Pyi Daw to discuss closer alignment of strategy.
“The Vipassanā Organization’s promotion of the Indian Prime Minister’s speech is very much in line with an understanding of the present political dynamics: positioning itself to be able to reap the benefits of the current religious-political alignment in a BJP-led Bharat, in exchange for a willingness to become an instrument of Modi’s soft-power projection.”
Q: I think even casual observers are aware of how countries like Russia and China have provided ongoing support to the Myanmar military. But the role that India’s current BJP-led central government has played is perhaps less well known. Indeed, India did not follow other democracies around the world in condemning the coup, and it has moved towards a normalization of relations with the SAC, supplying a reported 51 million dollars’ worth of arms to the Burmese military. And while foreign investment has dramatically decreased in Myanmar since the coup, a number of Indian projects are still underway there. Can you provide a basic overview of the situation, from your perspective?
A: India engages Myanmar based on its policy of “strategic autonomy”; so, for this reason, it did not join Western-led sanctions against the military junta, and continues to chart its own path of engagement. Myanmar falls under India's “Act East” and “Neighborhood First” policies. Since 2021, India has called for ceasefire and constructive dialogue by all parties, while asserting that the military remains part of any eventual solution. The Ministry of External Affairs dismisses the notion that India is actively supporting the junta, but all its actions so far have proven otherwise, and it continues to give tacit support to the SAC. Even though more than 40,000 Myanmar refugees have crossed into India in the border areas, New Delhi does not recognize them as refugees, but rather as illegal migrants, and provides no humanitarian support. Even so, local communities in the border areas support these refugees because they are ethnically linked. The current Indian government is also worried about its own armed insurgent groups who hide and have their bases in Myanmar. For years they have sought the help of the Burmese military junta in tackling them, and they do not want to have those activities stopped, even if ground reports are revealing that the junta continues to use Indian insurgents against anti-junta groups, PDFs and others opposing them. India is also concerned that if it disengages from the current regime, then all advantage will go to China, which has got a lot of links and influence with many ethnic armed groups. India is also keen on its connectivity projects that link the relatively isolated region of northeast of India to the rest of Southeast Asia; Myanmar is the geographic center of this initiative, the land-bridge as it were. Despite the Burmese military’s huge losses over the past three years, the Indian Central Government and its military strangely show blind faith and continue to support and engage with Myanmar’s military junta. At the same time, the Indian government has shown an immense lack of knowledge and understanding of the ground reality unfolding just across its borders. It has yet to take into its calculations the tactical understanding of engaging the National Unity Government (NUG) and the long-term advantages it can gain by supporting the creation of a new federal democratic charter and a federally and democratically governed country, which would be an anathema to China.
Q: It sounds like you’re saying that India has chosen to follow this “strategic autonomy” policy, which includes supporting Myanmar’s military regime for pragmatic reasons. Can you expand on this?
A: The current positioning of India's relation with Myanmar's military junta has to be seen through the lens of New Delhi's current foreign policy blend of idealistic principles and pragmatic considerations. India's Act East Policy is intertwined with the internal security dimension of northeast India, and the various insurgent groups operating from within Myanmar - some demanding independence, some autonomy, and some additional recognition and rights from India. China and Pakistan have both provided support to many of these groups over the years since the 1950s, and China continues to do so, albeit indirectly. As a result, India has sought support from the Burmese military junta to counter those groups. India is also competing with China and its influence with the Burmese military, as well as with many ethnic groups in Myanmar. The military junta is well-aware of this strategic competition and is using it to their advantage. The regime knows that India will continue their support to them out of fear of China, and they use this to their advantage, which pits India against the anti-junta groups and maneuvers India into kowtowing to their will. This has led the Modi government to strengthen its already strong ties with the military junta, while ignoring and sidelining the resistance forces who are seeking support from Myanmar’s immediate neighbors. For the current BJP-led government (and soon incumbent as general elections are coming up in India), as I said earlier, Myanmar is the geographic key to India's efforts at connecting its relatively isolated northeast region to the broader ASEAN / Southeast Asia market. For this reason, India will continue to engage the junta, and maintain economic and military relations with them, while ignoring the developments and gains made by the anti-junta groups, and the democracy movement overall. India's actions and statements continue to show that its military-to-military relations are very strong and dominant, and these relations will continue to govern how India looks at the unfolding conflict inside Myanmar, and why it will keep on insisting that Myanmar's military junta remain central to the future of the country's unity and its political future.
Q: Thank you for setting the context. Now, I’d like to move to the nearly ten-minute talk that Modi delivered, which celebrated the late S.N. Goenka’s birth centenary. Goenka, of course, was the Burmese-born Indian who popularized vipassanā meditation around the world. We also know that the Indian Prime Minister has been adept at publicizing his own spiritual practice for political benefit, and that Goenka’s form of vipassanā has become something of a status symbol among various Indian leaders, including MP Rahul Gandhi and New Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, among others. So there are some plausible, straightforward reasons why Modi might have delivered that talk, which blend his own interest in spiritual practice with the political advantages of associating himself with a popular spiritual tradition. As someone who has followed Indian politics, Burmese-Indian relations, and Indian politics and foreign policy for quite some time, can you share your reaction to this video?
A: While the message of applying vipassanā meditation in daily life during the closing ceremony of Goenka’s birth centenary is a well-worded message by the Indian PM, I see it also as a tacit use of India’s soft power, both regionally and internationally. It is a subtle engagement of the global Buddhist community, and while making them feel proud, it is also a way of connecting them with India’s cultural heritage. It serves as a reminder that India has re-gifted this treasure to the world through Goenka’s teachings, which he learned in Myanmar and returned to his country of origin, which then furthered its global spread. By specifically invoking the connection to Myanmar, and highlighting the use of India’s soft power, and its links with this particular country, it is also a tacit way of referencing India’s upcoming elections, aimed at the possibility of electoral gains with a religious minority community in India, and invokes indirect cultural links with Buddhist communities in India and South Asia. Indeed, in one stroke, Modi has subtly linked the celebration of S. N. Goenka’s life and work with India’s “Neighborhood First Policy” and its soft-power messaging. This allows the BJP-led government to find new openings or points of entry and links with many of the Buddhist communities in the region in the near future. Finally, it must not be overlooked that the Burmese military has been promoting a form of nationalist Buddhism, and therefore the current BJP-led Indian government is aiming to make this religious link work for future political gains in its immediate neighborhood, including Myanmar - where religious monks and teachers play an important part in the daily lives of the Buddhist people.
Q: It’s interesting that you see Modi’s promotion of meditation and yoga as being examples of “soft power.” It makes me think of how the US has long used Hollywood to spread its influence; Japan uses anime, Korea promotes K-Pop, etc. It seems that many countries manipulate popularized, native cultural phenomena in the service of their strategic goals. Looking at Modi’s speech in this way also pushes back against the claim that his intent was totally apolitical, and simply represents his own interest in health and spiritual pursuits, with no other underlying meaning. I’m also interested in the other side. In other words, you’ve described the possible motivations of Modi in making this speech. But the official Facebook and Instagram accounts of the Vipassanā organization, as well as members of Goenka’s own family, have promoted this speech, and as no other version of it appears to have English subtitles, they may have provided these as well. This active promotion of a video by a political leader—and a controversial one at that—has been surprising to some meditators within the tradition, as S.N. Goenka always spoke about the importance of keeping the Organization’s mission of teaching meditation totally separate from any political engagement or even social action. So, from the organizational side, what are your thoughts about the reasons or motivations in wanting to actively highlight Modi’s speech?
A: Without a doubt, yoga and meditation have their own health and spiritual benefits, and the Indian Prime Minister does promote its benefits, as he himself is a practitioner too. However, one must not overlook the fact that the BJP’s PR team never miss an opportunity to use emerging issues and situations to their advantage! Also, let's not overlook the fact that Goenka’s Vipassanā Organization has its headquarters in Mumbai, and has numerous centers spread out over 25 states in India. While S.N. Goenka may have spoken about keeping the Organization separate from any political engagement or social action, let’s not forget that, in contrast to his own upbringing in Burma, his children were born and grew up in India, they are very well acquainted and familiar with the ongoing changes in the BJP-led “Bharat”-- the traditional, precolonial name for the country, which is being resurrected by Hindu nationalists, and championed by the present government. With the current political scenario in India, every independent and/or religious institution has to make a choice to be in the BJP's camp or not, irrespective of its religious ideology and background. Every institution that has gone against the BJP and its associated groups has faced the music, seeing its access to funds curtailed or the law being used against them. This extends even to politicians. One just has to read Indian news media and follow the political developments taking place in the build-up to the upcoming general elections. The Vipassanā Organization’s promotion of the Indian Prime Minister’s speech is very much in line with an understanding of the present political dynamics: positioning itself to be able to reap the benefits of the current religious-political alignment in a BJP-led Bharat in exchange for a willingness to become an instrument of Modi’s soft-power projection.
Q: Given all these issues, do you believe that this decision on the part of the Vipassanā Organization to highlight this video was something they were perhaps coerced into, or rather something that they may willingly have supported, as it would bring them various advantages and benefits?
A: Having the Prime Minister of a country praise your organization's founder and the work it’s currently doing in teaching meditation, well, it’s the biggest PR anyone can ask for, and promoting it will only bring you more attention! At this point, for the Organization – it’s a fantastic PR exercise that can lead to more people becoming interested in vipassanā meditation, not only in India, but globally! Similarly, for the Indian Prime Minister, this is a show of India's soft power and building connections with the Buddhist community, not only in India, but globally. It is a mutual, strategic advantage for all concerned, a multiplier effect of echoing India's soft power and the promotion of Vipassanā meditation by someone in political office… and it was done by none other than the current Indian Prime Minister. It benefits both PM Modi and the Vipassanā Organization.
Q: Although S.N. Goenka highlighted the meditation he was teaching as nonsectarian, he did grow up as an important figure in Rangoon’s Hindu community, and as a young man, was a member, along with much of his family, of the proselytizing Hindu organization, Arya Samaj— and as you point out above, the Goenka family today well understands Bharat. In addition, his family continues to have economic interests in Myanmar; for example, his grandson, Lokesh Goenka (who similarly platformed this video on his own page) owns Patain Silver, “a Mumbai-based luxury brand,” which sources silver from Burma. Whether through a shared pro-Indian Hindu nationalism or a potential financial benefit deriving from military control, do you think there could be deeper motives at play in the Organization’s decision to platform this video than simply wanting good PR?
A: The nature of Vipassanā meditation might well have been based on the principle of non-sectarianism, even though S.N. Goenka was, indeed, as an important member in Rangoon's Hindu community. It would also be no surprise if his family's economic interests in Myanmar are entangled with Myanmar's military, which has control over many of the resources in the country. For many of the businesses who were and continue to operate inside Myanmar, post-coup there was a choice: either exit the country completely, which we have seen most international entities do, or stay and be willing partners. To what extent Patain Silver is entangled with the military in Myanmar could well be a subject for inquiry. Using profits from unethical sources which crushes and kills the people is against many of the tenets of Buddhism, itself! In India, one has only to look at the Organization’s vast meditative business empire, even as many may certainly have benefited mentally and spiritually from the practice. But I see the decision to platform this video as simply wanting good PR, and as pointed out earlier, what more one can ask when a rising power like India's PM speaks about your founder, the meditation method and its overall benefit? In marketing, this is the best advertisement strategy, to tap into the public's imagination and seek engagement, and it has benefits for all parties involved.