Transcript: Episode #242: The Borders of Conflict

Below is the complete transcript for this podcast episode. This transcript was generated using an AI transcription service and has not been reviewed by a human editor. As a result, certain words in the text may not accurately reflect the speaker's actual words. This is especially noticeable when speakers have strong accents, as AI transcription may introduce more errors in interpreting and transcribing their speech. Therefore, it is advisable not to reference this transcript in any article or document without cross-referencing the timestamp to ensure the accuracy of the guest's precise words.

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Host 0:07

Hi there, and thanks for listening. If you're enjoying our podcast and have a recommendation about someone you think that we should have on to share their voice and journey with the world, by all means, let us know. It could be an aid worker, monastic author, journalist, Doctor resistance leader, really anyone with some tie or another to the ongoing situation and Myanmar to offer up a name, go to our website insight myanmar.org And let us know. But for now, just sit back and take a listen to today's podcast.

Brad 1:34

And welcome back. Today we're gonna be focusing on the Indian dimension, not so much India's role in the Myanmar crisis, but rather a focus on India's internal views towards Myanmar towards the ongoing crisis and the ways in which the crisis have affected India and have affected India member relations. So my guest today is someone who has brought a phenomenal wealth of knowledge and in the discussions that we've held so far, on India, Myanmar situation in particular in the internal realities of Indian politics. So, actually, what I'd like to thank you very much for taking the time to just reach our podcast today, and I'd like to give you the chance to introduce yourself for our audience.

Angshuman Choudhury 2:17

Thank you. Thank you for having me on this podcast. I've been a regular listener of your podcasts and I've learned so much from from all the as you said phenomenal wealth of knowledge that people have brought in your guests brought in. My name is Sherman. I am a policy analyst and researcher currently based in Delhi, but I'm originally from Assam in northeast India, which is pretty close to Myanmar. I work currently work as an Associate Fellow at a New Delhi based think tank called the Center for Policy Research or CPR. And my work mostly revolves around Myanmar, northeast India, the border that the share Myanmar's foreign relations, especially with the region, and I also I also write on political and security dynamics in South Asia with a focus on northeast India. So these are basically what I work on. Excellent. I

Brad 3:11

mean, that's quite a lengthy resume. And I'm glad that you specifically mentioned northeast of India, because it seems to be that whenever Myanmar is, is mentioned or is brought up, the internal politics of the northeastern parts of India seem to be inextricably linked to the way that India as a whole views and discusses Myanmar and the Myanmar crisis. So can you start talking us through? What are the sorts of dynamics because I know that different states in the northeast of India have very, very different attitudes and relationships towards Myanmar, and to refugees who have come from Myanmar? So can you give us an overview of what are the realities on the ground in the Northeast? Sure.

Angshuman Choudhury 3:51

I think geography really speaking given the Northeast is quite close to proximity to Myanmar. And they share a very long border, which is a 1640 kilometer long border land border, I think that automatically makes the northeast of India quite important to in Delhi's mind or in Delhi strategic calculus as far as Myanmar is concerned. So, as you said, the security and political dynamics seem to be very, very intrinsically linked, and very closely knit with with with Myanmar. In that sense, you know, the several the some of the political issues and ethnic armed conflicts that we've seen in the Northeast are actually quite similar to the issues and challenges and the conflicts that have in many ways ravaged Myanmar for decades now. So as as regions and as political sort of entities. They are also quite similar. But I think it's not just to northeast that guides in many ways. The Indian government's outlook towards Myanmar, there are also broader concerns relating to the geopolitical and geostrategic sort of landscape of South and Southeast Asia and which which have undergone tectonic shifts over the last few decades. So, and these concerns are also to do with what is called a good known as national security interests of India. I mean, I'm always I'm always keen to debate on this term. What does this really mean? What does national security mean? Is it a static hole? Or is it something that can be you know, defined by a wide range of stakeholders and can be changed from time to time. But there are, as I said, broader political, strategic and economic interests that India has with Myanmar, which which which go beyond the northeast, but as far as the Northeast is concerned, I think that that particular border is the pivot in many ways India's pivot to Myanmar. The word that India used over the last few years since 2014, when the Narendra Modi government launched the act is policy, the phrase that was used for, for for both northeast India and Myanmar, in fact, is landbridge to Southeast Asia. Right. So, you know, northeast ism is in many ways seen as a springboard to Myanmar and onward to Southeast Asia. And that's why under the actus policy, the Indian government invested a lot of money and diplomatic assets and political assets into sort of into northeast India to build seamless in many ways seamless west to east connectivity, overland connectivity to improve People to People contacts, to improve the economic relationship, bilateral trade, including the border trade, which is quite dismal between India and Myanmar. So, these were some of the Express motivations that they had. But beyond that, I think one motive in many ways that record only appears in India's bilateral India's narrative on Myanmar is the security of the India Myanmar border, which runs along in the US northeast, right. So, from over the last, I would say three to four decades, you know, insurgent groups who are based in the Northeast who have been waging war against India have found shelter in many cases in western Myanmar, particularly in the Rhine region. You know, this could be Assamese rebels, may the rebels from Manipur also border rebels from Assam. So, various ethnic rebel groups or insurgent groups, the official term in India is AIG or Indian insurgent groups. So, they have they have found safe haven in Myanmar in addition to other countries like Bangladesh and Bhutan. So, I think that has been on the on Delhi's mind for for a long, long time, that, you know, because of the porous border and the border, as I said, it's porous, it's unfenced. Now there are talk serious talks of fencing it I think we'll come to that later. But because the pole at the border is always important, these insurgents have been able to find cross cross over and you know, build some of their camps in Saigon region, in many ways, transforming parts of the gang region into the strategic backyard. So over the over the last few years, Delhi has tried to tell the Myanmar side to take action against these groups to flush them out. But this has happened sometimes sometimes it hasn't happened. At times, it has happened only notionally. But that security and in many ways, integrity of the border, is one of the major factors pertaining to northeast India that have shaped India's policy with Myanmar.

Brad 8:33

Okay, so it seems that in the northeast of India, we do have a lot of different political interests and a lot of complicated situations. You mentioned rebels specifically and I do understand that there is a degree of cross border criminality that that occurs along a reasonably porous India Myanmar border. Can you can you delve a little bit more into that, that situation? How, how intense and how serious is this? Rebels situation in Northeast?

Angshuman Choudhury 9:07

Right. So I think it used to be quite, I mean, more serious, I would say than it is now, in the early 2000s, in many ways, in the early 2000s, leading up to in fact, the late 2000s, which was two decades ago almost, you know, a bunch of rebels based out of Assam based in the summer of you know, belonging to Assam. And Nagaland and Manipur, mostly these three states were were being pushed out because of operations by the Indian Army in the northeast, so they were trying to find other safe havens and shelter. So first, many of them went to Bangladesh, but when the government changed, the situation became unfavorable, so that they found shelter in Bhutan. But in 2003, the Bhutanese government also conducted operations against them, so they were flushed out of Bhutan. So that's when basically they crossed over and found Shelter in Myanmar. In fact, by by the late 2000s, they were able to create a proper sort of strategic Coalition, in in western Myanmar in the Rhine region, particularly in a in a place in a specific place called Tonga where a bunch of I think, a motley group of some seven to eight Indian insurgent groups. And a Burmese group, the nscn K or the National Socialist Council of Nagaland Copland faction was based in many ways that coalition was led by Sen K. And at any CNK sort of became the mothership, or the kind of the godfather of the other rebel groups in that particular region. So the other other other insurgent groups from India, they found, they were able to sort of build some of their bases in, in and around Tonga in the green region. And in the south of Sagaing, the medium groups such as the UN LF, the PLA, the KY, kl, and some seven or eight of them, group, eight of them, eight of these media groups also created their own sort of area of operational strategic backyard and build some of the camps. And they were organized into a coalition which was which was known as which they call as core command or core calm. In the north, those under the NSC and Kay had a different name. Something to this to the to the tune of it is very long and rambling name, but something that you love united front of Western Southeast Asia, something like that. So, so, these were the two big sort of insurgent coalition's in, based in Sarang region, which largely included insurgent groups based from operating out of India. So many, many times, you know, what used to happen was that they used to use those bases as a launch pads for attacks against Indian security forces on the Indian side of the border. We saw this happening as recently as in 2015, when there was a when there was a major ambush against an Indian army convoy in Manipur, in chandelle, district of Manipur, where some and one of main rebel groups insurgent groups involved in that was the UN LF, which was the which was a medium group based in as I said, Southern Sudan region. So there is a shuttle right across the border, conduct their operations against the Indian security forces and then go back to Myanmar. So that became a big problem. It also happened in 2021 when there was major ambush against Assam rifles. Conway Assam rifles is a paramilitary force that guards the India Myanmar border. So there was a major ambush against some reference convoy, which led to the killing of a commanding officer, his wife and is very young child. And again, insurgents. Manipuri insurgents and Naga insurgents based in Sarang region were allegedly involved in that ambush, the crossover conducted the ambush and went back. So you see, you know, this kind of shuttling back and forth across the border has been a concern for the Indian political and security establishment for the longest time in order to fix the situation. I think what they only did for the longest time was, you know, maintain a working relationship with the Myanmar military. And not just that, but also on the Myanmar military. I think in the first decade of the 2000s, India supplied some very transferred some very heavy military platforms like even tanks, assault rifles, mortars to the Myanmar military, for them to act against to use them to act against these Indian insurgent groups. Now, it's an entirely different matter that the Myanmar military has largely did not use these weapons against Indian insurgent groups rather, they use them in other France, for example, in the Northern Front, to fight their own dirty wars against the armed organizations. So the Myanmar military never really honored in that sense in their security interests around the border. In the last decade, there was closer cooperation. You know, we saw joint counterinsurgency operations along the border. The Myanmar army managed to dismantle the nscn K camp after the death of clang. In return India, the Indian Army mobilized some assets along its border to help the Myanmar army conduct Myanmar military conduct operations against the Afghan army. So we saw this kind of quid pro quo coordinated core counterinsurgency campaigns along the border in the last decade. So, you see a lot has been happening around this border as far as the security domain is counterinsurgency domain is concerned. I

Brad 14:38

mean, this this may be a non factor for India, but I do wonder, was India paying attention to the Rohingya genocide and more specifically, the fact that some three quarters of a million refugees crossed out of Myanmar into neighboring Bangladesh was there a You need degree of consideration on the on the Indian establishment side to think, well, this military, the Hunter does not care about their neighbors in Bangladesh, they're happy to burden their neighbors with hundreds of 1000s of refugees. They could just as easily turn around and do this to India. Was there was there a cooling of relations in in reaction to to what had occurred? Or was it sort of believed that? Well, maybe they would do this to Bangladesh, but they would never do this to India? Right.

Angshuman Choudhury 15:31

So I think I think the key issue here is that India has good relations. I mean, the key dynamic here is that the India has good relations with both the Bangladeshi Government and the Myanmar military. At that time, even the Suchi government was in power. So it had very good relationships with the relationship with the Soviet government, in Abu Dhabi at the time. So, you know, counter intuitively and contrary to what you say, India has never really bothered so bothered about the Rohingya crisis in the sense, or along the logic that you said, you know, that if the Myanmar military could push out so many refugees, millions of refugees to nearly a million refugees to Bangladesh, it could do the same to India at some point. But that wasn't really as I said, counter intuitively, that wasn't really the logic driving India's policy towards Myanmar or its outlook towards Myanmar military at the time. In fact, we saw that Indian Prime Minister Modi visited Myanmar in September 2017, which was just barely a month after the violence in violence as a Rohingya in Rakhine state began. It was Prime Minister Modi's first bilateral visit to Myanmar. And during that visit, he actually made a very soft, kind of muted, some would say, bilateral statement without mentioning anything about the military violence against the Rohingya and merely mentioning, you know, the, you know, condemning terrorist attacks jointly with the switching government at the time. So we see that there was a there continue to be a congruence of, you know, strategic interests and political sentiments between Delhi and EPA, even after the Rohingya violence in 2017. So there wasn't really concern that there could be ripple effects. But the Rohingya expulsion, the forced expulsion into Bangladesh, the refugee crisis itself, did play on the minds of New Delhi and Indian media circles, but not in the sense that you set in but rather in the sense that the Rohingyas might now come to India. Right. So and we've seen over the last few years, under the government under the government of the Bharatiya Janta party, that, you know, there has been a sharp increase in anti Rohingya narratives in Indian media, social media circles, and even political circles, you know, that the Rohingya have been routinely cited or routinely projected as a threat to national security as criminals as terrorists, etc. Essentially unwanted outsiders. So I think it is that concern that played on Indian minds and even I clearly remember when the when the refugee crisis began in 2017. There were headlines in Indian media, and there was a chatter in the media circles that there is a need to offensive India Myanmar border, although it wasn't really the near Myanmar border that the Rohingya were using to come into India. And most of the movement happened along the Myanmar Bangladesh border and secondary movements happen along the Bangladesh India border, rather than the India Myanmar border. But I think some of the state governments also along the border states in northeast India also request a New Delhi to fence the border in light of the crisis. However, that didn't happen. Really, the fencing never happened. In fact, in 2018, India and Myanmar bilaterally formalized the free movement regime, and we can talk about that later. But yeah, I think the Rohingya crisis is largely framed in those terms. And

Brad 18:56

so, what makes it interesting is that if we fast forward to the post coup reality, we do have quite a few refugees who have come across from Myanmar into into India, my understanding is in the majority of cases, we are talking about people from from Qin state in Myanmar, crossing into Mizoram state where the ethnicities are very I've heard some people's described them as the same, but at the very least, the ethnicities are very, very similar. But nonetheless, this does mean that there is a large influx of refugees as a result of this crisis as a result of what the Myanmar junta have done. Has this had an effect on the way that India views the hunter? I think

Angshuman Choudhury 19:40

Donnelly there is there is certainly that thinking, but we haven't seen a sort of expression or iteration of that in public statements really, except for the limited sort of, you know, requests or points that the Indian side has made to the junta that you know, you need to ensure the security of The Border unit that we are concerned about instability across the border. And the Indian, the Indian Home minister last year late last year, stood up in the parliament and blamed and linked the current crisis in Manipur, the current conflict in Manipur with the inflow of kooky refugees from Myanmar. So, you know, senior figures within the government have stated it in different ways, but not in as many clear words as you know, as you said, for example, or as the logical way to frame that, which is that the refugee crisis is purely a doing of the Myanmar military's actions, including the coup in 2021, that if the coup wouldn't have happened, and the violence that ensued, as a result won't have happened, the refugee crisis would never have taken place. And so many refugees wouldn't have entered India. But we haven't really seen India blame the junta for the crisis. In fact, we haven't really seen India blame the junta for anything at all. Since the coup or any of the violence. Wherever India has condemned the violence, it has been sort of in generic terms in vague and generic terms, for example, asking for secession of violence from all parties. And you know, generically asking the junta to ensure stability across the border without specifying what the you know, stability means or what the source of that instability is. So I think I think India is why they're pushing the buttons on those things.

Brad 21:22

Interesting. And, and I understand that there are very different approaches to the refugees themselves if I'm correct. The Federal establishment in Delhi views the refugees from Myanmar very negatively. But the the government in Mizoram state themselves are defending the refugees. Is this causing a bit of a political difficulty for the federal government in India?

Angshuman Choudhury 21:51

It is a complicated relationship between Delhi and Mizoram, in that sense. You know, it's, you know, as I've used, as I didn't want my articles, you know, the term that comes to my mind is kind of a delicate dance of federalism, you know, between two, two centers of power at the provincial and federal level. The fact is that the Muslim state government has been very steadfastly supporting the Myanmar a few refugees from Myanmar, particularly the Qin refugees from Qin state who have come after the coup. So and Delhi initially wasn't on board. In fact, one month after the coup de li asked, issued a directive to the border states along the Myanmar border to seal the border, and also return the refugees push the refugees back, I think redeployed additional additional forces of the Assam rifles to make sure that no refugees enter, but the Muslim said government at that point, which was then back then led by Chief Minister busanga, when he openly defied this order, he wrote a letter to pm Modi, telling him that this is a humanitarian issue, and they cannot unfortunately, they cannot follow these orders on this and they will shelter no matter what they will give shelter to the refugees. So it was kind of a very rare defiance of Delhi's directive by a state level. Chief Minister that to achieve me so we belong to a party that is a member of the BJP led coalition at the national level, which is the National Democratic Alliance. So here's a coalition Musa this party was a coalition member of the BJP coalition ally of the BJP. So it was quite a unique, unique, unique, unique kind of political event at the time. But now we have a new government in miserab, which is led by a party called those FPM Zoram people's movement, which came to power in December. But even this party is equally supportive of the Myanmar refugees. And what we've seen is that since actually put around hungers, refusal to you know, to listen to Delhi, I think the federal government, the Modi government has given that space to Missoula to informally support the refugees right in return for you know, sort of political and political in return for good political relationship with with ISIL which Delhi very much wants. ISIL given its position is a is an important sort of playing in northeast India and also with respect to various players within Western Myanmar right, because the chins and the measles come from the same ethnic group. So the chin civils, the measles, civil society and the political class have historically entrenched relationships across the border. This makes them a valuable asset to Delhi in many ways. So I think that he recognizes that very well. Delhi recognizes that it cannot push the museum government to a corner over this issue. So it has allowed the Mizo civil society and the state government to do whatever it wants to in many ways to support the refugees. But in one one complication here is that Mizoram is a small in many ways cash strapped state it's a financially constrained state and and museums capacity to to prop up this mechanism of humanitarian support for the refugees is I would say limited because of its financial constraints. So the Muslim state government has been asking Delhi to monetarily help out or logistically help out in many ways, in this in their endeavor to support the refugees. Delhi hasn't been very forthcoming on that it hasn't really publicly supported the financially supported the Muslim government in that sense, except for some money that has provided on off, but very little, in the larger scheme of things pocket money, pocket change, in many ways. So I think government would like Delhi to support it support more support its efforts more, because if it reaches the capacity of, you know, providing humanitarian aid financially, I think things could, you know, things could start, the boat could start rocking in that sense.

Brad 25:48

But then, because of these very financial situations that you talk about, we've seen that many of the refugees have tried to leave Mizoram, and have traveled further to the west, trying to find opportunities for themselves in in larger urban areas. And this, of course, now means that they're moving out of the territory in which they are, at least morally being supported, and then moving more towards regions that are dominated by people who don't feel an inherent kinship to the chin slash middle people. So what impact is that having on the rest of India?

Angshuman Choudhury 26:28

Yeah, I think as far as I'm aware, there have been movements of fresh refugees to the cities like cities in India, like Northern mostly northern India, like Delhi. But you know, those movements, I would say, the content of those movements has still been lesser than movements in the previous waves refugee waves in the 90s and 2000s. It's not very easy for the new chin refugees, who have arrived in Mizoram to move to Delhi to travel all the way for Delhi, Delhi is quite far away from Israel very, very far away almost on the located in the other end of the country. So, you know, to travel they would need in many ways. If they want to book a flight ticket, for example, or a proper train ticket, they will need to show an ID right. That's the first challenge the systemic structural challenge that refugees face while traveling to Delhi. This challenge is further compounded by the fact that UNHCR India doesn't have an office in Mizoram, or it doesn't have a refugee registration facility or what is known as an RST facility or refugee status determination facility in Mizoram, which makes it even more difficult for the refugees to travel out of Mizoram and go to Delhi because if there was an ISD office, they would likely get refugee cards, although that's very difficult. But they would have something get something, for example, a pre refugee pre refugee registration card, or document some document of assaults, which they could probably show to the travel authorities and potentially travel. But in the absence of any documents, it becomes extremely difficult for them to you know, afford or get access to traveling means of travel. The museum government has issued certain ID cards to the refugees. But those ID cards don't mention that they are refugees. The word refugees is not mentioned because in the indian legal doctrine, the word refugees is not recognized per se. Because India is not a signatory to the refugee convention or it's optional protocol 1967 optional protocol. So there India doesn't have a refugee national refugee policy or refugee framework. So the ID card says the displaced nationals from the Myanmar. But the problem is that that ID card is simply for identification of those asylum seekers and asylum seekers. And they do not really are of no use to those refugees in traveling out of the state. In fact, those the the ID card user and local ID system bars, those asylum seekers from using those cards to travel outside the state. So that becomes a big issue for those based in Milan. But there are community networks which often support these refugees in traveling to Delhi, because simply because of the fact that in Delhi, in cities like Delhi, there are existing pre existing and very old asylum seeking asylum seeker networks, refugee networks, including chain refugee networks, there are support groups or NGOs who helped these refugees in Delhi. And this This creates this kind of support system for the refugees and of course, you know, delivering a big city has so many so much more employment opportunities and ways to earn money for these refugees then in Mizoram, so that's that's those are some of the complicated dynamics, I would say.

Brad 29:43

And so let's let's think contrast the Mizoram situation where as you say the these refugees are receiving the support as much as possible of the state government to Manipur, which I know is a very, very complicated situation. Question is and is a very sensitive topic. But it seems to be that they are very close to each other. And yet there is a very stark contrast between the way that these refugees are being seen in Islam and the way that they're being treated in Manipur. Can you can you explain that sort of dynamic to us?

Angshuman Choudhury 30:19

Again, the dynamics between Mizoram and Manipur, I would say differ significantly, because of a few reasons. And the first reason is state support. In Mizoram, there is state government support for the refugees. in Manipur, it's completely opposite. The state government is not just not supportive of the refugees, but it's hostile. In many cases against refugees, especially after the conflict. The ethnic conflict between the Matey and the cookies or groups began in May 2023. Before that, I think the Manipur government was trying to put in place some kind of very small but informal review refugee or asylum giving system for example, it was contemplating opening camps, some some kind of shelter, refugee sell shelters around the borders, and providing some limited humanitarian aid. But at the same time, the Manipal government was also detaining many of these refugees and putting them into detention centers. Because, you know, anyone who enters India without papers immediately becomes in the legal sense an illegal immigrant, because we don't have a refugee policy or a policy of refusing of recognizing asylum seekers, until a state government uses their executive discretion to do so. So, in Manipur, they were treated the government treated effectively treated them as illegal immigrants and use this discretion to detain many of these immigrants and conduct many of these asylum seekers and can even conduct very pervasive house to house searches to find asylum seekers. This is you know, this was backed by a larger feeling among the or the larger sentiment among the dominant ethnic group in Manipur, which is the multi ethnic group, about, you know, the sentiment about very adverse sentiments about refugees from Myanmar, you know, wherein there was seen as illegal immigrants, interlopers, Poppy cultivators, drug smugglers, and criminals in general. So there was a very sort of disparaging kind of outlook from within the dominant civil society based in in fall in Valley, towards the, towards the refugees in many ways. So that I think, drove the state government, which is also you know, which is which is dominated by, which is largely dominated by males, including the chief minister to, in many ways respond to that situation, and, and move or act against the refugees. But the interesting, I mean, the notable point here is that the border areas are in Manipur, are actually dominated by the cookies or population who, who share ethnic ties or familial ties with the cookies or population on the other side of the border. And many of the refugees actually belong to the cookies or community. So the local communities have been supportive in that sense, you know, some, you know, probably villagers have harbored many of these refugees. But because of this hostility and action by the state government, I think the space for humanitarian support and Relief has been much more constrained in Manipur, as compared to a noose around where both the civil society and the state government are in sync with each other in supporting the refugees. So I think those are the two critical differences, I would say. And

Brad 33:30

so focusing on the border itself, you you mentioned before, the free movement regime and the free movement regime was was just recently suspended by India unilaterally, what was the free movement regimes purpose, what what are the terms of this?

Angshuman Choudhury 33:47

Yeah, so the free movement regime, essentially, at its core, it's designed to allow the tribal communities living along both sides of the border to travel across the border, without visas for for daily activities for P for trade, or to meet their family members. Now, this is this is underpinned by two realities. Number one, is that the border that separates India and Myanmar is a is a colonial cartography creation. It's not a natural line. It's an artificial boundary that divides entire ethnic life worlds that have existed in that region for centuries. So it is that definition that both the Indian government and the Burmese Government right after Indian independence and Burmese independence, named for the recognized and in many ways, felt that in order to correct this colonial cartographic history or colonial history of arbitrary border making, we have to accord some flexibility to the ethnic groups living along the border who have ties across across this artificial line to move or to or to have have some kind of some kind of visa free mobility regime. That was the original logic of the hammer in many ways, in fact, when Burma became independent in 1944, it immediately enacted something called the Burma passport rules. One of the provisions of the Burma passport rules clearly enshrine this provision, or in Chinese rule that ethnic communities sharing border with with Myanmar's neighbors can travel within a 40 Kilometer band into Myanmar and stay for a day and then go back, you know, without visas. Immediately, the Indian side also enacted a similar provision to mirror the Burmese sides, free movement regime in many ways. And at the time, you know, it was it was 40 kilometers, which is a long, which is a long band in a wide band, I would say, except that the Indian side allowed to allow the people crossing over from the Burmese side to stay for three days, the Burma side allowed those crossing over from the Indian side to stay for just one day. In this was further formalized in the 1967 land boundary agreement between India and Myanmar. But in 2004, what India did was it reduced the 40 Kilometer band to a 16 Kilometer zone. Right, because, you know, they were concerned they were, as we talked about before insurgency was was it was at its peak Indian intelligence for using the porous border to shuttle back and forth. So New Delhi thought that it's time to review the FMR. But the free movement regime and not but not completely withdraw it. So what it did was essentially revisit the whole regime and reduce the mobility space to 16 kilometer and that that stayed on for the next almost two decades, until 2018. When India, the Indian government, the Modi government, and the constant switching government on the Myanmar side, came together and for the first time, bilaterally formalized the free movement regime in a bilateral land boundary agreement. And because so far, it was just basically two unilateral regimes on both sides, often out of sync. But for the first time, they formalize this regime on bilaterally agreeing on the 16 Kilometer band, right. And the Express logic given by the Indian side was to facilitate more people to people contacts, better trade connectivity, etc. And at the time, remember that India had just a few years ago in 2014, launched the Act East Policy. And one of the key drivers of the access policy was to build better trade connectivity, better people to be building bridges between India and Myanmar. And also, of course, build better roads. So in many ways, that was the zeitgeist of the time, right to have an open border policy, you know, to look east in and not just look east, but also Act East. And Lucas came in 91. So the Modi government even took it one step further. So that was what the mood was back then. But things changed completely after last May, when the multiple conflict began, and demand from the Manipal political class, including the state government, and the military, civil society, to fence the border and revolt, the FMR became even louder. And it's to be noted, you know, what's interesting is that the media civil society had been asking for revocation of this free movement regime for many years now, actually. But, but the government did not do that. Because, you know, the government recognized the importance and the value of the free movement regime, in facilitating better people to people contacts. But the main conflict, the ethical thing that began in May last year, I think, was a crossover point, even for New Delhi. And since then, the pressure to close this border from the maytee civil society and political class has been a mounting and yesterday, India's Ministry of Home Affairs announced that it was suspending the free movement regime. In many ways. It's a unilateral suspension of the regime. Because because the FMR was formalized bilaterally by the 18. And we haven't heard anything from the Myanmar civilian side yet. So in the effectively unilaterally walked out of that regime. Now, this could, you know, sharpen tensions along the border, because the ethnic communities who live along the border really value this open border policy, and they see this revocation as a challenge to their ethnic life or to their political culture, their sort of social culture of, you know, crossing the border and coming back. So I think this might create some serious medical complications for Delhi.

Brad 39:19

And so I just want to get a clearer picture of this with the free movement. Did you still have to cross at a specific border checkpoint and get your passport stamped? Or was it sort of unregulated movement across the border with no record keeping? Yeah,

Angshuman Choudhury 39:35

so before 2018, they could cross from any point. So in 2018, as part of the basically the formalization of the bilateral agreement that in Myanmar, some additional checks and regulations were introduced, which is that people could cross with certain permits, you know, they could apply for like an annual pass or annual permit, which from the local authorities, and they could they were, you know, couple of checkpoints are established one of them was a Morita mo checkpoint. The other was the secretary called checkpoint in Mizoram. So these formal border crossing points are established, which would be used by the people along living along the border using the permits to cross the border, and then come back. Right. So I think in 2018, those additional checks were introduced in many ways. So, you know, the FMLA is already quite heavily regulated. It's not like people could just cross, cross and come back. But informally, crossings were happening all across the border, because simply because of the fact that it's a very, very rough border. It's difficult for the Assam rifles or the state police forces to man that border closely because it passes through such difficulty later in many of the terrain is completely inaccessible, because you know, they run through very densely forested hills, river valleys, etc. So it's quite difficult to police that border. Secondly, that border isn't and for the same reason, that border remains completely, almost completely unfenced except a 10 kilometer stretch in Manipur. So because of the lack of fencing, you know, local communities is shuttled back and forth. And I think they need establishment, including the security forces along the border, were aware of these informal crossings, but there was no proactive attempt to really stop them. Because, you know, there was an understanding and informal a very profound understanding that, look, this is an open border. These people have been living here since time immemorial, they have been crossing back and forth. What's the sense in stopping them and creating sort of new waves of discontent along the border? So I think that kind of informal understanding was embedded in the Indian security establishments, psyche, I would say.

Brad 41:41

But so then, the closing of the border, I presume, that you mentioned the Assam rifles. I presume that there is no level of control by state level governments, for example, the government of Mizoram, over the protection of the border, which is to say, it seems that although the federal government was unable to convince Mizoram to turn their refugees around, by closing the border in this way, and by deploying extra reinforcements to the Assam rifles, they may be trying to just sort of cut out the mess around government entirely and just stem the ability of refugees to get to Mizoram in the first place. Is that, is that what's going on here? Technically,

Angshuman Choudhury 42:24

yes. I mean, on paper, that that would seem to be the intent. But in reality, I don't think Delhi would really do that go to go that far to sort of impose its its remedy by force, along with Iran, because ultimately, I think Delhi two understands that. By doing so it could create new challenges new headwinds and new political complications in Mizoram, which it absolutely doesn't want it. The BJP wants a good relationship with a new party in Mizoram, that pm you know, for for political and tactical ends. So I don't think it's going to push too many buttons in ISIL in Mizoram, that sense. You know, least of all by redeploying or deploying heavy forces of the Assam rifles, because remember, the Assam rifles is also they have several bases in Mizoram, they operate within Mizoram, so they also have to maintain a careful relationship with the local population. In fact, they need the cooperation of local measles to effectively manage that border, which is, you know, which is in many ways a theoretical truism for any state that wants to effectively manage multi ethnic Borderlands. So I think I think that ethnicity recognition is certainly there. Legally speaking, or administratively speaking, yes, the New Delhi has all the rights in many ways to deploy the Assam rifles and impose its own remedy over the border and close the border. But that won't happen. Why it's why it would happen in Manipur, though, is because the Manipur state government is also a BJP government, right. So the balancing government is, in many ways completely in, in harmony or in sync with the BJP government in Delhi. So Delhi wouldn't have any political problems in it's not that we incent government to oppose deployment of additional forces along the border or fencing of the border, in fact, mincing categorically wants that. So I think in Manipur, the political dynamics make it easier for Delhi to fence the border. That's not the case in not just Missoula, but also in other another another body state such as Nagaland because you know, the Naga is especially the Eastern Nagas in Nagaland have very, very deep connections with the Burmese Nagas in the Rhine region. And they also value the open border. In fact, over the last few days, the Naga civil society, including the suit, including several students unions, and also Muslim have vehemently opposed new Delhi's decision to fence the border and revoke the FMR. So my best guess is I don't think that he's going to take the risk of Um, you know, steamrolling this initiative in Nagaland and Mizoram, it'll probably just happen in Manipur.

Brad 45:07

And I think the refugee crisis itself is just one dimension of the ongoing Myanmar crisis in general, but it's already offering us this fascinating insight. If, if it is not the intent of the federal government in India, to try to force its will on its various state governments, then it feels very much like the Indian government's position towards the Myanmar crisis is an isolationist position, close the border potentially fence the border and simply don't let the Myanmar crisis bleed into India. But it doesn't sound like India is particularly interested in getting engaged in the Myanmar crisis or is particularly interested in trying to alleviate that crisis. So, is it the case that the Indian attitude towards the crisis in general is one of non intervention and if so, why does India not not see it as pertinent to take action on a crisis that is so close to its border?

Angshuman Choudhury 46:06

It is it is as you said, isolationist, unfortunately, I would like it to be something something else, but I think this this policy of non interventionism and at best, maintaining just a very light footprint or influencing Myanmar in the current context is is hardwired in the Indian states, psyche foreign policy psyche, as far as Myanmar is concerned, beginning from the 1990s, when it started working with the Myanmar military, side, you know, along along strategic political and economic domains, the idea was to you know, we just just got to maintain a working relationship with the junta because they are in our in Ecuador, back then in Rangoon. And we'll just wait and watch what happens, right? We see this had to do very much. So after the 2021 could also that, okay, the probably the military is facing extraordinary levels of resistance across the country, but eventually it will probably, you know, come back and you know, stabilize the country and crush the restaurants properly. And, you know, things will go back to normal, I think somewhere deep down, that has been thinking in Delhi, which is, which is kind of, as I wrote in one of my recent articles kind of a path dependency from the past of working with the Myanmar military and seeing past protests or demonstrations in Myanmar being quelled or brutally crushed. So I think that kind of memory remains that memory of the legacy remains very much entrenched in the in new Delhi's thinking and that that is exactly why we are seeing this kind of wait and watch risk averse kind of non isolationist or non interventionist policy Myanmar. But yes, there is a grain of truth in the argument is that and again, I wrote this in my recent article, which is that it seems like you know, senior levels of the government in Delhi, are interested in Myanmar only insofar as the spillover effects into India are concerned, rather than the effects of of Myanmar's of the junta as brutal regime on the people of Myanmar. So that doesn't seem to be uppermost on Delhi's mind. You know, fence the border center a few years back, or you know, only only admonished junta, maybe just lightly, when there is a direct spill over into the Indian side. For example, last year, January, the junta bombed the Qin National Front headquarters can Victoria in Indian state along the Indian border. And at that time, India gave a statement a muted statement, but it gave a statement that they are concerned about certain developments on the Myanmar site. So without really blaming the junta for it. So, we know we see that India remains very hypersensitive to the junta sentiments in many ways that it believes that if it gives a strong statement, it might lose access to the junta it might lose access to the so called Power holders of Nebula, and then things will go all wrong and the junta will, you know, push move deeper into the lap of China. I think this is a this is an anachronistic reading, misleading kind of reading of the situation. Because if India really wants to maintain a footprint in Myanmar, the right way to go about it would be to diversify its strategy and relationships with other parties in Myanmar, most prominently and usually the PDFs and the emails along the borders to start. So I think I think this is largely the kind of lens the passive lens that India looks at the crisis in Myanmar right now.

Brad 49:38

And so what you're saying is really interesting, because you're saying that the government the Indian government's policy towards Myanmar is not so much Oh, I don't care and it's not so much Okay, close the border, and and just sort of wait for everything to fix itself. It sounds like the Indian government is very much interested in what is going on because they are very concerned about how the junta is going to see Indian statements. So they clearly have a vested interest. What what are the Indian interests? Generally speaking, in Myanmar? Well, you've touched on security concerns and security interests. I assume that there are also security interests with related to Chinese influence over over Myanmar being so close to the border. I assume there would also be Indian economic interests, I would assume there would also be Indian political interests, especially as Myanmar is a member of ASEAN. What are the Indian government's goals? With its relationship with Myanmar?

Angshuman Choudhury 50:40

Yeah, I think I already mentioned as you said, one, one part of the story, which is the security, the security drivers of the relationship that stabilize the border regions, but beyond that, I think there are two other explicitly explicit reasons why, you know, basically, India would want to maintain a good relationship with whoever is in power in in the Burmese capital, which is, number one, a geopolitical interest of maintaining footprint in Myanmar, and at China's doorsteps, especially in light of China's rapid Ascendance since since early since the early years of the last decade, under President Xi Jinping and the and pushing the Xi Jinping pushing the PRI to Myanmar. So I think it has become even more important now in New Delhi xi is to maintain a geopolitical fit footprint and geopolitical influence or presence rather, in Myanmar, especially in Rakhine State, where the Chinese have the chalk for project. So, that is sort of the overall geopolitical motivation the other is economic motivation, I would say. India has seen, you know, a significant portfolio of economic investments in Myanmar, from oil and gas to connectivity projects, like the Culloden project, and then the Myanmar Island trilateral highway project, and other smaller projects which India funds from its own budget. In the asset develop budgetary developmental aid program for its neighborhood and Myanmar is one of the top recipients of Indian aid grants in what is known as grants and loans, grants in aid and loans. So within India uses that money from its budget to to fund projects in Myanmar such as you know, health clinics, education centers, rice Park, one rice Park, which is inaugurated a couple of years ago in the Hudson, agrarian Research Center, vocational training centers, etc. So these are the kinds of sort of macroeconomic investments that India has then they're also there was also very high interest on the end of Indian private companies to invest in Myanmar, we saw that Adani had invested in Myanmar in a riverboat terminal project with the Myanmar marshalling company mjhl If I wasn't wrong, if I'm not wrong in Yangon, but that project didn't work out, but that just showed that Indian Indian companies were very much invested in commercial engagements with Myanmar entities. In fact, after the coup, we have seen that the Indian Embassy has hosted several business conclaves between the Indian Chamber of Commerce and UN FM UNFCC which is the Myanmar Chamber of Commerce also linked to the junta and India, India also remains in addition to these private investments, India also remains a trade partner bilateral important bilateral trade partner with Myanmar. In fact, very surprisingly, rather very fascinatingly, despite the cool bilateral trade levels between India and Myanmar haven't really dipped significantly, in their input pulses and rice from Myanmar. And since a bunch of raw materials and finished products, including electronic goods, automobile parts to to Myanmar, so they have a they have a decent trade bilateral trade relationship. So, this is sort of the ecosystem of the economic relationship between both countries. And all of this is framed by the larger motivation of India building political battle political and economic relationship with Southeast Asia in general. First, with the integration of the Look East policy in 1991, and then upgrading of the Lucas policy into active policy in 2014. So there is a larger sort of geopolitical framework which is guiding this kind of outreach. Also remember that Myanmar is part of the bimstec, which is the Bay of Bengal initiative, multi sectoral initiative. Myanmar is one of the two only two Southeast Asian countries, ASEAN countries, in addition to Thailand were part of the bimstec initiative. And over the last decade, India really focused a lot on mainstay. It's a different matter that the outcomes have been stagnating haven't been very encouraging, or very broad, but India does consider Mian As an important regional partner in its own outreach to the neighborhood.

Brad 55:06

Okay. But I know this is always a very difficult question to pose. But is there any quantification like, even if not necessarily in dollar terms, but is there any way to measure the significance of Myanmar to India's broader economic and strategic and political goals? Especially considering that India is so enormous and has so many crises that it deals with? I mean, Nepal has as many crises that India has to keep an eye on Pakistan, obviously, famously tense situation there, not to mention the long standing rivalry with China. Within the scope of of what's on the plate of the Indian federal government, how, how significant would Myanmar be to them?

Angshuman Choudhury 55:55

Yeah, I think, economically, to be honest, I don't think you know, Myanmar is extremely significant in that sense, especially if we look at border trade, for example, you know, border trade between, according to various estimates, border trade between India and Myanmar is so negligible that it's almost, you could ignore it, it's probably down to 0.1% or something, I think one estimate said 1%, or one point of India's overall border trades with other countries. So it already is quite useful in that sense. So the economic the political economy of the border, is not based on formal trade, it's a different matter that informal trade between both which cannot be quantified, is massive, much larger, at least in the formal trade, but the formal formulation of trade actually hasn't worked very well in favor of India. So there is no unfortunately, there's no economic incentive to sealing or not sealing that product. So it's more of the strategic and political logic I would say. But, but, as I said in the larger scheme of things, as far as India's Developmental Profile development aid profile to the neighborhood goes, Myanmar is certainly an important player. I'll just give you one quick figure which will put things into perspective. Yeah, so, I think as I was talking about the about India's Developmental Profile to Myanmar, in for example, in 2022, in the financial year 2020 to 2023, India allocated nearly 600 Crore Indian rupees, which is around 70 to 2 million US dollars to Myanmar, for for development for various development projects. You know, according to estimates is the third highest allocation amongst all of India's neighbors, the SOC Member States and of all the Sox essentially on the SOC member states. So, an Myanmar being an additional additional country outside of the SOC. So, it is a third highest allocation in in the last financial year. In total, India is dispersed in the eyes are located some $720 million to Myanmar since since 2014 2015, which is when pm Modi came to power. So, you see in terms of aid allocation, India has consistently sort of prioritized Myanmar in terms of development aid, at least the bilateral trade levels also remain significantly high and estimates are floundered. But one crucial thing to know is that the trade balance in many ways remains in India's favor. What is what is interesting to note is that recently since the coup, India and Myanmar military and junta have had several discussions to and they have almost formalized the agreement to do trade in the local currency, which is INR and Cha, rather than in US dollars. So, there is a there was an attempt to localize trade, one really wonders whether that will do that will change the game or that will take you know, you know, elevate levels of trade or upgrade levels of trade. But there is a kind of D dollarization or bilateral trade attempt to do trade in local currencies, which is which also kind of falls in line with the junta does attempt to decolonize the Burmese economy and introduce more and more local currencies, which also shows the flailing economy under it. So I think in many ways, both me and Myanmar have been working, have been working towards strengthening the relationship, economical relationship. And after the coup, as I said, we see that India remains keen on taking that forward.

Brad 59:36

Interesting. I want to just jump back a little bit to something that you said a while ago, you I don't know whether you were just speaking off the cuff or whether you were choosing your words very carefully. But you did say that the Indian government is interested in working with and I quote, whoever is in Naypyidaw and I want to see you know, how you meant turn of phrase, are we to understand that the Indian government is not fundamentally ideologically married to the junta, that they would be willing to work with any functioning government in Myanmar, as long as they can see, benefit in doing so as long as they can see India's interests being furthered. And in doing so? Or is there still as you as you referenced earlier in the interview, this, this old style of thinking, where the belief is that well, the junta the people that we work with, because the junta are the people that we've always worked with? What's the what's the attitude, if things were to change?

Angshuman Choudhury 1:00:36

It is it is I didn't, I didn't use those words, just sort of out of I mean, in random terms, but I basically use this word, because it is really it is that Indian policy, it is that policy in Delhi, which is which is often termed as pragmatism and the shift from supporting pro democracy forces, to working with whoever is in power in Ecuador, and who at the time was in fact flagged as a shift from idealism to pragmatism. So, this idea of working with whoever is in power is often as I said, in the Indian system, and within the foreign policy commentariat characterized as a pragmatic foreign policy, I mean, I often differ on that, I disagree on that characterization, but this is how generally pragmatism is understood, which is a very kind of utilitarian way of looking at foreign policy. And very utilitarian at best and selfish, it was straight, so in many ways. So it is, it is it is that policy, that you know, as long as we are able to maintain our working relationship with the main sort of the key power center in Myanmar, then then we are sorted that we can take our own interests. And really, this came to being you know, what this came to being in the last decade during the period of democratic transition where there were two key power centers, the civilian government and the Myanmar military. But the fact that India not just maintained its relationship with the Myanmar military, but also upgraded and came became much closer to the Myanmar military, even through the years of the democratic transition, really showed the fact the thinking in Delhi that the Myanmar military is not going anywhere, anytime soon, they really saw the Myanmar military as a formidable political force, not just a security actor, but a key political force in Myanmar. So that was the thinking that look, we have to engage with the Myanmar military, no matter what transition or whatever is going on. The Myanmar military could probably pull the plug at any point, which happened, but please try to. But this was kind of the conservative orthodox thinking in Delhi at that time. So so they made sure that they maintained a working relationship with Obama generals, in addition to working with the Saudi government, because yes, the sushi deli knew that Aung San su chi is quite popular in Myanmar, she's a she's a tour de force as far as the bad mass political spectrum is concerned. And that technician was very much there in India's mind. And that is exactly why they really embraced also the Sochi government, and was comfortable working with the switchy government in many ways. So I think I think this this is the dynamic or this is this is sort of the thinking or ideology that that has guided us policy.

Brad 1:03:24

So this pragmatism or we might even term it, real politic. This is something that we see coming out of China as well. And we have seen for quite some time. But one very important distinction is that recently, it seems that Beijing has looked at the military junta and said, These people are not only incapable of delivering the strategic, the economic and the political circumstances that we need, they are also interested in bringing about stability in the country. And you know, liberating people from from the scam centers, for example, kick Apoc, for example, shrinko. And yet, from talking to you, it sounds like the Indian establishment has not yet come to the conclusion, I would say actually the realization that the military junta is not going to bring about the stability, the political partnership, the economic partnership, the political partnership, that that India requires of Myanmar. Why? I mean, surely they can see the same things that the rest of us can see the same information is available. Why is it that India does not seem to have come to this conclusion? Yeah,

Angshuman Choudhury 1:04:41

I think regarding the Chinese comparison, it's interesting comparison because ideally, real politic would a policy of real politic would mean that you also adapt yourself to the changing situation in order to fulfill or protect your own strategic political and economic interests. It doesn't really mean? You know, very conservatively sticking to your old diplomatic playbook no matter what happens on the ground, in fact, that's contrary to real politic. So I think it's a misnomer to characterize India's policy as either pragmatic or, or real politic because a very good argument could be made. That pragmatism in the current sense from the Indian point of view, looking from new Delhi's vantage point would be to diversify its relationship and start working with the pro democracy side. But that's not been happening. Why does Furman happening again, it goes back to what I mentioned earlier, right? There is this very deeply hardwired path dependency in that is mine are in Delhi, of working with the Myanmar military, which was even you know, we just fortified in the last decade. And this belief is very, very strong belief based on past events, or based on recent history that whatever Myanmar is going through right now, whatever the Myanmar military is facing right now is perhaps temporary, and things would come back to the center or come back to the median status quo in the near future. Having said this, I think operation 1027 and the events that have followed including the capture of large swathes of the tree in June state and including southern state in northern Shan State and northern Rakhine State, and also Sarang region right across Indian border have triggered some subtle shifts in new Delhi's mine in the new in the system that in the Indian system. Regarding Myanmar, I think there is for the first time a serious realization that the Myanmar military is really collapsing, it's really falling and the ground reality shifting. And what you said about the same information made available to you and to India is also an important point because I don't think the problem in India is of intelligence collection, I think Indian intelligence has a very deep and broad network, including a very diversified network, including India's foreign intelligence and India's military intelligence, which is quite active on on Myanmar. So I think they have all the information on the ground, they have very granular information, detailed information on what's going on. And the security and defense establishment property definitely probably even knows very well that the junta is rapidly hurtling towards a total collapse. You know that battalions of battalions are surrendering and into, you know, in today's in today's day and age, you don't even have to have a proper intelligence or setup to know what's happening in Myanmar, you just go on Twitter, you find out right. So I don't think that they don't know that the problem is whether that intelligence adding up to a political decision making or whether that intelligence is being interpreted in the right context. And with the right conviction. So I think the problem is the traveling of intelligence upstream from bottom up to the highest levels of the political decision making structure in Delhi, or the highest strategic decision making structure within our defense forces. So probably it is at that level, that the intelligence is either being under read. And I hope it's been under read rather than being misread completely. So and this this kind of inertia, or passivity, of working and doing something, or going out of your old playbook to do something new, I think is most reasonable in the topmost levels of the administration. And this is quite a paradox. I must say, this is quite a paradox in today's times, because this is a government, the Modi government. This is a government that has routinely sort of exuded a sense of extraordinary activity and proactivity. In going out of its way to protect its national interests in different parts of the world, it has senior figures within the government have even talked about conflict mediation, mediation, you know, mediating conflicts between various warring parties. Let's say in West Asia, there was talk of even brokering a peace between Russia and Ukraine, India brokering between Russia and Ukraine. But the big iron in paradox here is that when there's a there's a conflict raging right next door, India seems to be the most passive on the Trump.

Brad 1:08:55

I mean, this is a very strange, dynamic. And at the risk of sort of taking the interview in a in a direction, we weren't anticipating the idea of mediating a conflict. It seems to be very popular. It seems to be, you know, something that we've heard China could talk about, we've heard a sound talking about it. We've heard a lot of commentators talking about things like mediating, mediating bringing everyone to the negotiating table and finding compromise. But that notion, doesn't recognize that that is not what is currently occurring in Myanmar, there is no space for mediation or for for compromise the military. Anytime they get any level of compromise, they will eventually leverage that compromise to take more and take more and take more. And if the people don't voluntarily give them the whole cake, the military will just have a coup and take the whole cake or at least attempt to sow it. Even that the the notion that this could be a case a call for mediation, to me indicates that there's not so much a realistic understanding of what is the most efficient path forward for Indian interests. And still that sort of back of the mind urge to go back to something familiar, go back to the status quo, go back to a situation where you can continue to deal with and talk with and trade with the business partners, the stakeholders, the counterparts that you've cultivated relationships with over the coming, you know, previous years and decades. Like, maybe I'm wrong. But that's, that's how I, I feel, that's how I would interpret the move the call to say, well, let's mediate this type of a conflict.

Angshuman Choudhury 1:10:44

And certainly, I think that's a part of the conservative foreign policy thinking that's very much entrenched, not in Delhi, but also in parts of the West, I would say, particularly Europe, you know, in many ways, this sort of liberal idea of peacemaking between two equal to seemingly equal parties, which is certainly not the case in in Myanmar. So, it tends to take out it's, it tends to take out the power dynamic between the two, two sides, and more than that the history of violence, disproportionate violence that one side has heaped upon the other, and this kind of, you know, idea of peacemaking and mediation, I think it's a product of the post cold war era, in many ways, when you when we saw massive investments by big donors towards this, this idea of peacemaking, suddenly, you know, courses on conflict prevention and mediation, which, by the way, is my master's on that in the Western world, and then quickly, it was also adapted in the, in the so called Global South universities in the global south. So I think that kind of engineered the idea or sowed the seeds of the idea that no mediation can be done in practically all conflicts. And sometime back, I didn't push back against this idea of un style, liberal peacemaking on why that doesn't apply to Myanmar, but I think that very much also is the thinking. In in Delhi, there is also a kind of, I would say, arrogant, patronizing attitude, that many of them many of these, many of the notaries of this idea of peacemaking have, which is that, okay, we're like the Big Brother or the parent, and we've got to an A to two our kids are fighting, and we've got to just make them sit down and talk to each other and things will be fine. Probably, you know, give them some SOPs on both sides. On this, I find, I find there's an inherent arrogance in that sort of cultural and political arrogance in that idea, especially when it comes from the west. But even from the Indian side, I think some of the older, you know, bureaucrats who probably have served in Myanmar, for example, are very much taken with this idea of probably mediation. But there is also a section of those diplomats who would say that we don't need to mediate in Myanmar. You know, it's a problem that the people of Myanmar need to resolve themselves. Right. So, which is also a fair argument to make that, you know, basically, we don't have to We don't interfere, like do no harm in many ways we don't interfere in a disruptive manner, in solutions to Myanmar's crisis will come from within Myanmar. But my problem is that those arguments when they come from the Indian side, they come from a very self considered, in many ways, inward looking selfish point of view that we won't do anything even as the Myanmar military memes and bombs and burns, burns on villages, I think that is where we I think there has to be a red line in in every foreign policy or moral red line in my view, where where you put your feet down and say okay, this is, of course, our strategic interests are getting affected, but you know, hundreds of people are dying on a weekly basis right next door and we can just sit and watch the bloodbath, because India stated position has always been that we are a country that care for the people of Myanmar, you know, just pick up any random bilateral statement from the last 10 years or any Indian Foreign Ministry press statement or media briefing. And you will find this particular phrase in almost nearly all of them, which is that you know, our investments are the people of Myanmar, we care for the welfare of the people of Myanmar. But while seeing that you cannot just my argument is that when you say that, and then go out and formally engage with just a junta which is, which is hardly anything. But the people of Myanmar, then you contradict your own stated policy. So my point is that engaging with the pro democracy side and diversify your engagement with people centric groups of people based groups, including many of the CSOs and CBOs, would not be something that that would fall outside your stated India's own stated policy. Right. So this is what I would say,

Brad 1:14:56

to further sort of pour salt in the wound, is the fact that in The East is herself a democracy. And this is a conflict. At its heart. It's a conflict between many different diametrically opposed things a conflict between your freedom and control and the conflict between your prosperity and massacres. But it is also very, very, to the for a corporate between dictatorship versus democracy. And it would seem like this would be a very on brand thing for India to support the democratic movement, it seems like this would be very easy to sell to the Indian people to say that, you know, we are a successful democracy with the world's largest democracy. And we're very proud of this fact. And here we are assisting our neighbor in developing a flourishing and successful democratic regime, which the people themselves wanted, it feels like this would be, you know, a PR dream. As far as the the Indian establishment is concerned, and yet there just doesn't seem to be that desire to to go against the junta and even with the national unity government, there is a national unity government office in India. And yet the Indian government seems to be quite hesitant to create any sort of formal connection with them. So is there? Is there something that we haven't touched on? Is there something blocking this? Is there something that the Indian government just doesn't like? Or doesn't trust about the pro democracy establishment? Or is it purely that they're afraid of, of burning bridges with the hunter? Right,

Angshuman Choudhury 1:16:40

so I think there are a couple of moving parts in this, which is that, firstly, the idea of rooting for democracy in another country, simply because India is constitutionally at least a democracy doesn't have traction in the country in India, within the popular psyche, or within the people. It is very much seen as a Western liberal idea of disruptive interference. So you will often hear officials in Delhi say that, you know, we cannot we cannot intervene to bring in democracy, that's what US and Europe has done and failed in the past. So and particularly experiences of Iraq, Afghanistan, etc, I think has had a significant ripple effect also on alien psyche that, yes, we are democracy, we will flaunt our democracy, we are proud of our democratic credentials. But that's it. We're not going to do anything to mobilize or mobilize a new democratic Atos in some other countries against against their wishes, or more than that, you know, on our terms in many ways, but this is, what is interesting is that this does not mean that India hasn't done anything on the Democratic sort of cooperation front in the last one decade. And during the democratic transition. India used to run a program of what is known as democratic capacity building in Myanmar, which is that you know, it used to train pilots it is to bring parliamentarians from Myanmar, political figures from Myanmar and train them in parliamentary values, in parliamentary norms, and, you know, in federalism, etc. Because India as much as democracy, it's also federal democracy. So in that sense, it's quite the model of Indian federal democracy is quite an asset for those in Myanmar, who are currently sort of drafting the idea of the vision of a future democratic Federal Democratic Union, in Myanmar. And if you if you read Indian statements, recent statements in the emphasize this particular phrase repeatedly in the federal that it wishes to save our federal democracy union, Myanmar, right, so pretty much in line with what the revolutionary forces are saying or have been saying, since even before the coop right many ways. So I think that model on paper definitely exists. So as well, and it ends at capacity building level cooperation, rather than normative cooperation, in a sense. So India remains hesitant of that kind of normative push, pushing, push normatively pushing the idea of democracy in another country. That's one thing. The other thing I think is important to understand is that democracy in the conventional liberal sense of the word has lost steam in India today, in many ways. We are very much constitutionally, as I said, a democracy and, and Indian leadership, including Prime Minister Modi, you know, routinely goes abroad and talks about how in many ways democracy was born in the Indian subcontinent, that ancient Indian kingdoms are stateless, or were some of the first democratic polities in this part of the world, probably the entire world. So he talks about the ancient credit democracy credentials of India Indian culture, and he even used a word which has since kind of Become a lexicon for the ruling party which is the mother of democracy, India's a mother of democracy, quote unquote mother of democracy. But ironically, we have also seen a sharp democratic backslide in many ways on political freedom, civil rights, media rights, etc. And more more importantly on, on, on on pluralism of secularism in India. So from a purely liberal, secular constitutional democracy, at least on paper, I'm not saying India was always a purely secular democracy, there were serious problems even before BJP came to power, but we have seen a more visible sort of shift from a constitutional liberal democracy or secular democracy to kind of constitutional majoritarian democracy. So I think in that sense, this this liberal idea of the standard idea that we understand or when you say, of democracy, when when the government would try to sell that idea to the Indian public, especially on exporting that idea to Myanmar, I don't think there would be a positive response. So I think that's, that's the other driver.

Brad 1:21:06

And I'm glad you mentioned that sort of majority majoritarian element, because there is a slightly strange and awkward link between politics and society, in Myanmar and in India. And that is in India, we've seen the rise of Hindutva nationalism, and Myanmar has seen a rise in Buddhist nationalism. Most famously under the Mahabharata group and the winter, the different names previously headed by by Willa to who, you know, was the face of Buddhist terror, and Time Magazine, all of these sorts of things. These are two different religions, Hinduism and Buddhism, although Buddhism, from my understanding, and I'm not a theologist, Buddhism, did ultimately come from a Hindu environment and evolved out of many of the elements of, of Hindu thought and Hindu culture, and is itself a religion that comes from India proper, and was exported to most of Southeast Asia. Is there a link between these these movements? They seem to be some similarities in the ways that they they carried themselves and in in the groups that they they seem to focus on, but do they have any sort of links? Yes,

Angshuman Choudhury 1:22:29

that's a very interesting question. In fact, it's a complex question. And there are two layers to it. As I said, the wonder is that the Indian government, awfully the Modi government has been very proactively using what is known as cultural diplomacy to to fortify its linkages with with Southeast Asian countries. In fact, cultural diplomacy has been a very, very significant pillar or pivot within this policy. So, we see in the emphasize Buddhist links between India, which is kind of the fountainhead of I mean, it is the fountainhead of Buddhism in many ways put this thought the Buddha attained nirvana in India. So, you know, in many ways, India has been emphasizing or highlighting that connect those connections and between India and Southeast Asia does cultural linkages particularly around Buddhism, also, because, you know, Buddhism was exported to Southeast Asia from India and so, was Hinduism in the, in the around around the late and 11th century, beginning from the around eighth century. So, leading up to all the way leading up to 12th and 13th centuries, after that, there was a shift in many ways to Buddhism, but, in many ways this these were all cultural exports from India. So, India has been trying very hard over the last few years to to emphasize those connections. And they have also created something this company has created something called the Buddhist circuit, you know, which which encourages monks from Southeast Asian countries, including Myanmar to travel to India, for pilgrimage, particularly to both Gaya in Bihar, we have seen several flights from Myanmar to both Gaya in recent times and people traveling and particularly amongst traveling for pilgrimages to both. So, and we have also seen the Indian government, finance, the reconstruction, not just finance but actually literally physically held to the Archaeological Survey of India to reconstruct and in many ways to restore Buddhist sites across Southeast Asia, including in Siem Reap, in Cambodia, and in pecan in Myanmar, S and Myanmar. So, I think also think bubble region if I'm not wrong. So, in India has been investing in those kinds of cultural linkages of late, which which fall within this broad and, I would say, a vague spectrum of cultural diplomacy. I mean, we're not really sure what really entails what are the contours of cultural diplomacy in that sense, but that is One layer. The other layer is along a more sort of non government, bottom up and organic connection between Hindu nationalist thought and right wing Buddhists, ultra nationalist thought in many ways, so we have seen that many Hindutva activists and provocateurs in the last few years have used the Buddhist nationalist example, ultra nationalist example, especially on the Rohingya front. The violence against the Rohingya and the provocative speeches hate speech that were made by many of the Buddha's Ultra nationalist monks, including Renato against Rohingya Muslims, they have referenced them made direct references to those to kind of rile up sentiments within their own followers. In India, we saw this happen in 2021. In December 2021, there was this kind of what is known as thumb censored, or in English, it means a religious parliament in the holy pilgrimage town, North Indian town of Haridwar, where, you know, huge, massive crowd of Hindu series like monks gathered for two days, and gave very, very provocative speeches, including, you know, I mean, it's all reported in the media. And during those speeches, I think one of the monks made a very clear reference to the Rohingya Muslim violence in the Rohingya Muslim in Rakhine State, referring to that as a positive example, in many ways, an example to be followed by Indian Hindus against Muslims. So and he directly use this example in media. So I think there are those kinds of organic connections, which are not really at a formal state level. But many of these figures have been photographed with senior figures within the ruling party, for example. So they're close to the sort of Hindu nationalist ecosystem, which currently is the dominant political framework in the country. So these are the two sort of levels of connection that we see between kind of Hindu political thought and Buddhist political thought.

Brad 1:27:08

So what is sort of tells us other than the terrifying passion for for Islamophobia. But what this seems to tell us is that there are a lot of different independent layers that are that are at play here. The connections between various socially and religiously interested groups. The we've spoken about the economic interests, and you spoke about groups like Adani? I mean, Adani is an independent person. He's not as far as I know, within the political establishment, he's just phenomenally wealthy. And he starts a lot of businesses. You know, media public opinion, there are a lot of different layers of this. The question that I have is, is there conflict internally within India, with different groups who have different views and different perspectives with Myanmar conflict? Do we have a situation where someone will be lobbying for one type of a governmental response because they want a specific economic circumstance to be brought into existence, other people will be lobbying for a different type of governmental response because they have an ideological or theological sort of objective that they're trying to pursue is their internal conflict or our most stakeholders across India reasonably aligned in their thinking?

Angshuman Choudhury 1:28:26

I think there are serious internal differences within within the political and ideological spectrum in India and although as I said, the dominant framework seems to be a international framework today a political framework, but there are various groups, social groups, economic groups, and political groups, political interest groups, in many ways, pressure groups in many ways, who do not agree with this dominant framework and have been pushing back using various means to various in various platforms. But that those differences I feel haven't really spilled over into Myanmar into the Myanmar issue, rather. So the people or the groups who would be arguing for a democratic government in Myanmar, or return of democracy in Myanmar, or, you know, ousting, the junta from political power in Myanmar would be very, very small. They're a very, extremely tiny clique of let's say, scholars or activists or old friends of letdowns Han Soo Ji, who who have who would write and talk about this on and off, but as far as Myanmar is concerned, I think there is almost an across the board consensus, which is the dominant consensus that we've got to play safe. You know, we need there is a there is an understanding that we need stability, political stability in Myanmar in order to ensure economic development and economic relationship with India and also to prevent the spillover of the conflict into law. India, but the treatment or the resolution that is offered for that is often that, okay, we've got to wait and watch and probably just work with the junta. In fact, in that sense, there is a bipartisan consensus between India's ruling party and opposition parties over this issue. The Congress really doesn't the Congress, which is on the main opposition parties in India, today hasn't really spoken up for democracy, Myanmar, you know, it hasn't also openly disagreed with with the Modi government. It openly disagrees with the moving government on a host of other issues. But on Myanmar, we haven't heard him heard it make any whisper even so you'll see. Either it's a case of sheer indifference, or it's a case of agreement with the government.

Brad 1:30:48

Okay. So it's a very, I don't know, yeah, it almost sounds like the countries is, on the extremes. There's not a lot of middle group, there's not a lot of how should I put it like normally you, you would hope to have a large group of people within any given dynamic, who can be readily swayed, who are sitting in the middle who maybe don't have super strong opinions one way or the other. But it sounds like in the Indian system, people tend to be reasonably strongly committed to a position. And it doesn't sound like it's particularly easy to shift people away from that position. Is that accurate? Yeah.

Angshuman Choudhury 1:31:30

So I mean, I wouldn't say the center space, or the the space for centrist ideology, or thinking has completely disappeared. But yes, it has significantly shrunk in the last few years, we are seeing greater ideological polarization and political polarization across the entire spectrum. And people are being neatly divided into two camps. It's either this or that black and white. Even even the so called fence sitters have over the last few years, probably moved to one side or the other. And usually, we see that it's the side of the government in many ways with the dominant political framework. So the whole scale is a political scales are being tipped towards one side, which is I would say, it does a disservice to the national discourse, or the the dominant intellectual discourse that should ideally govern a country's thinking, especially a country as diverse multi ethnic, multi religious, as India. But yes, I would agree that that center space has diminished.

Brad 1:32:32

Okay. And so this brings us then to, you know, the billion dollar question, if we have the situation where India's interests in Myanmar and India's interests more broadly, across Asia, are better served by economic prosperity, stability, peace, and, and a government that is open to international collaboration and cooperation. And a government that is looking to have a diverse portfolio of partners, instead of as many people feel falling under the influence of of China and Chinese debt traps. What needs to be done or what could be done or what should be done, to try to bring the Indian government to the conclusion that supporting the junta is actually getting in the way of India's interests not just is an inherently unethical thing to do? But he's actually working against India's own interests? How would it be possible if at all, to change the Indian position with regard to Myanmar? Right.

Angshuman Choudhury 1:33:44

So it's a it's a pretty obvious but difficult sort of argument to make in that sense that the opposition, the Democratic side, particularly new G, and probably the UCC, and some of the other groups along the western border, need to convince India more actively or more proactively that it is them that can protect Indian interests and not the junta? Because otherwise, you know, it is it is quite clear, it's quite conspicuous in the sense that the junta is not being able to is completely has completely failed to protect Indian security and economic and political interests, especially along the border. I mean, you know, troopers of the SEC are fleeing across the border into India, Bangladesh, China and whatnot. This is a this is I mean, it no longer even looks like a professional standing army. Not that it has been it has been acting like that for a while now. But we didn't even see this kind of cross border, you know, being troopers fleeing across the border, even during the peak of the Civil War, let's say in the 70s or 80s or 90s. So it's quite unprecedented. I'm pretty sure the establishment in Delhi can see that. So there is nothing that the opposition side the Democratic side It can really add in terms of information, I think it's it's the kind of interpretation or analysis that they can add on, which is an on the on the argumentative side, which is that you know, look, it is us it is by working with us that you will be able to protect your border, stabilize a border, including the projects that you must care about include, such as the golden project, which passes passes through northern Rakhine State onward from sickbay and southern state. And this is territory that almost completely controlled by the American Army and the National Front at the moment, it is by working with the CNF, that you will be able to protect the border crossing points, it is by working with the second groups, including the gang forum that will be able to stabilize the border crossing points in the Morita mo area or other places in Manipur. So I think those arguments need to be made more forcefully and more articulated more clearly, from the energy side and needs to be articulated at the highest levels of the democracy or the democratic sort of formations within within Myanmar. So from the highest levels of the energy from the highest levels of the NOCC and other smaller groups, provincial level groups directly to the highest levels in Delhi, that communication, even if, you know, even if they face some kind of challenges or headwinds from Delhi in terms of communication, which is lacking, they would do, I would still say they would they should persevere and make those points very clear. The other thing is, at a more national level sort of macroeconomic level, I think the idea would be to convince a convinced rally that the new G has the actual material capacity to ensure economic stability and political stability for Indian Commercial Investments to prosper in Myanmar. And, you know, I'm saying all of this as a template as a theoretical template, because I know I know that a new G and parts within a new G and a new CC have already done these things they've already communicated to tell you their concerns. They've already tried to convince Delhi that they are the site to invest on. But I would say these communications need to be more frequent, scaled up and done at the highest levels on the boats on both sides. So I think I think one thing that has been on my mind for a while regarding Myanmar, is that I think we need more regional regional scholarship and regional knowledge systems around Myanmar, you know, because, you know, I believe the Academy's researchers in the South and Southeast Asian region, understand the local dynamics better than many others. And I'm not, let me be clear, I'm not discounting scholarship from beyond the region. For example, the West, I know some very, very brilliant researchers and analysts who are also very, very emotionally invested in Myanmar, who are not from the region. And I regularly read their work and I respect the work but it's always stuck to me to continue. Sometimes I haven't realized that scholarship on Myanmar, the regional scholarship on Myanmar is actually quite sparse. You know, we need more investments, intellectual investments in Myanmar in the right context, and not just from a purely securitized political point of view, but also from the cultural and social, economic social points of view, social vantage points and something that I've been doing very often these days, which is rigorously revisiting history, the history of Myanmar, of course, but also the history of Myanmar's relationship with its surrounding regions, including Thailand, India, and China. And that has given me a better perspective on the present. So I would encourage, I think all listeners to constantly keep in touch, even if lightly with how history has panned out, I think there are lessons and also counter lessons from history that could be very valuable to understanding today. And this also brings you know this connection, my larger point that once we immerse ourselves in, in historical connections, we might realize that Myanmar was very, very closely linked, had multi dimensional and profound links, with regions including India that need to be restored and revived. And in order to get over the compulsions of a heavily securitized way of looking at Myanmar, that we see unfortunately, have seen in the last few decades coming from the region.

Host 1:39:28

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