Communal prejudice shapes India’s relations with Myanmar and Bangladesh. An extract
Avinash Paliwal
But under the public radar, the politics of the India-Myanmar bilateral underwent a huge shift. The mainstreaming of Hindu nationalism in India and potency of Buddhist nationalism in Myanmar offered a unique, often understated, majoritarian glue. It went back to Myanmar’s silence on the Babri demolition. The politics of Hindu and Buddhist majoritarianism pinned separatism in the borderlands on the spread of Islam and Christianity. If Western missionaries had not uprooted animist customs of local populations straddling the border, there would be no separatism in these regions, in their worldviews. A telling explication of such undercurrents came from an unlikely source: an RSS pracharak posted to Yangon as liaison with the Sanatan Dharma Swayamsevak Sangh (SDSS). Though unwilling to be identified, this pracharak not only blames China for fomenting violence in India, but equally blames the West. In his version, the ‘church and England work together in Myanmar, northeast, and other parts of the subcontinent to spread Christianity and capture business’.
The Hindu-Buddhist compact in this context is both safe and desirable. On the question of the relationship between Buddhist nationalism and Hindutva, both the SDSS chief Ram Niwas and the RSS pracharak were clear that they accept Buddhist hegemony in Myanmar. As someone who spent years in Mumbai, Niwas is a trusted RSS inspired ally in Yangon. He has acted as translator for visiting Indian leaders including former vice president Bhairon Singh Shekhawat and Prime Minister Modi. Connected to the All Myanmar Hindu Central Council, an umbrella body for all Hindus in Myanmar, Niwas ensures that the Hindu community continues to be accepted and supported by the junta. ‘In India the RSS has rashtravaad (nationalism), but here we’re trying to make our people good citizens of Myanmar with full nishtha (devotion), and the [Myanmar] government trusts us’, he says. This compact is different from how Hindutva views itself in relation to other religions with territorial sources in the subcontinent (Sikhism, Buddhism, Jainism, etc.).
India’s response to the Rohingya crisis demonstrates how communalism shapes geopolitics. There are two elements here. From a foreign policy perspective, the Rohingya crisis tested India’s relations with Bangladesh. Dhaka wanted New Delhi to pressure Naypyidaw to halt the exodus. Karim, Bangladesh’s envoy to India, sought New Delhi’s support but realised this was futile. Rohingya influx to Bangladesh began long before 2017, when, Karim notes, ‘the dam burst’. Dhaka could have started to ‘scream high heaven’ sooner given its inability to undertake military action against Naypyidaw, he notes. Mahfuzur Rahman concurs:
The Myanmar army undertook several military operations starting from 2016 and early 2017 before launching a full scale attack against the Rohingyas. These operations were meant to test how Dhaka and international community would respond. Neither Dhaka nor the international community responded in a way to deter Myanmar, and Naypyidaw saw that as an opportunity or green-light for a larger operational drive in north Rakhine.
Instead of pressing Suu Kyi to contain the exodus, India launched Operation Insaniyat (humanity) to offer relief to those who crossed over into Cox’s Bazar.
In Rakhine, New Delhi offered tents and other relief material, rationalising it from a humanitarian perspective. Even when Beijing became involved and Myanmar suggested a four-way dialogue between China, India, Bangladesh, and Myanmar, India distanced itself. Aung Tun Thet, former economic advisor appointed chief coordinator of the Union Enterprise for Humanitarian, Resettlement, and Development in Rakhine in 2017, clarifies that India was more ‘understanding’ of Myanmar’s response to the worsening security situation in Rakhine. Firm in his belief that India understood the complexity of the Rohingya issue, he maintains that India’s approach was appreciated in Naypyidaw. But, adding with candour and ‘mischief’, he argues that India’s actions against Bengali Muslim migrants in Assam ‘helped us… if India could get rid of three million citizens in Assam then don’t come and talk to us about citizenship of 700,000. It gave us a cover, that look if the world’s largest democracy can do it then …’ Fear of regional Islamists in the context of the 25 August 2017 attack against the Myanmar army and police by the ARSA (an incident Aung Tun Thet was investigating), featured largely in his views.
Parallel to India’s limited response to anti-Rohingya violence was communalisation at home. On 9 August 2017, Rijiju, then Minister of State for home affairs, notified the parliament that the central government ordered all state governments to identify and expel Rohingyas residing illegally in India, including the 16,500 registered with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Rohingyas living in slums of Jammu, New Delhi, and Hyderabad became a target of Hindu-right propaganda and attacks. Branded ‘terrorists-in-making’, the Rohingya became essential to Indian communalism. Despite the fact that most Rohingyas in India arrived before 2017, their situation became so precarious that by 2022, many left for camps in Bangladesh, becoming twice displaced. Communalisation of the Rohingya issue helped the BJP mobilise electoral support. The impact was such that even avowedly secular parties such as the Aam Aadmi Party targeted Rohingyas to outbid the BJP’s religious majoritarianism.
India’s response to this crisis underscores another contradiction in its ‘Act East’ policy. New Delhi wants to develop infrastructural connectivity, but limit cross-border mobility, largely because of communal politics. Though communal undercurrents existed even before, the BJP’s rise ensured that the Rohingya issue was viewed primarily from a communal angle. The Rohingyas living in India for decades suddenly found themselves to be unwelcome. India’s response has historical precedent and deeper ideological roots: it has always shared Myanmar’s perspective on this issue. In 1949, Indian officials worried about unceasing movement of Pakistani Muslims into Arakan and the violent methods of the Mujahid Party (a mid-20th-century precursor to ARSA). Five years later, in November 1954, when Rangoon claimed that it killed 128, wounded 103, and captured 23 Mujahids in an operation against 400 Mujahids, the Indian defence attaché considered the claims ‘grossly exaggerated’ but admitted that ‘this operation provided one of the very few really contested engagements that have taken place with the insurgents. As a result, the Mujahid menace was at least temporarily completely liquidated. Some 100-150 were reported to have escaped to East Pakistan.’ In 1958, when the Mujahids revived the insurgency under the ‘notorious … ring leader’ named ‘Cassim’ and ‘Abdul Raschid’, Indian officials noted that Pakistan ‘encouraged and aided’ their ‘depredations’.
In 1968, Indian intelligence reported that 4,000 Pakistanis (Rohingyas) ‘entered Arakan [and] since most of them know Burmese and also have connections in the area, it has proved difficult to detect them’. It was noted that these migrants, along with armed Mujahids, engaged in large-scale rice and timber smuggling from Arakan to East Pakistan. The focus and tenor of India’s reports on the Rohingya issue didn’t change after 1971. In 1976, India noted that Burma-Bangladesh relations were marred by a ‘degree of distrust and fear’, due to ‘illicit influx of Bangladeshis into Arakan and from there to places all over Burma’. Such migration from Chittagong coupled with ‘separatist rebel movement of the Muslims in Arakan’ complicated the situation. What made it worse was Libya’s interest in this movement, and Muammar Gaddafi’s sponsorship of rebel ‘camps on Bangladesh territory, just across the border from Burma, where Burmese Muslims are kept ready to move when the time comes.’ Such Indian assessments—that the Rohingyas seek separation and groups such as ARSA enjoy links with Pakistan and Pakistan-tilting governments in Dhaka—continue to inform India’s reluctance to support the Rohingya.
But such a response generated friction between Dhaka and New Delhi. To be clear, Hasina’s rise has brought strategic dividends for India. Her targeting of opponents in the International Crimes Tribunal, giving in to the 2013 Shahbag movement’s demand to execute Jamaat-e-Islami preacher Abdul Quader Mollah, and counter-terrorism operations fit with India’s objectives. Hasina’s response during the 2009 BDR mutiny was worthy enough for India to back her again in 2014 when the opposition boycotted elections that were compromised. Soon after, in 2015, India received a breakthrough on the extradition of ULFA-I leader Anup Chetia, something it had sought since Chetia’s 1997 arrest. Post-2009 Hasina put a lid on northeast insurgents operating from Bangladesh. Saran says: ‘Hasina has a great sense of history. In 1996-2001, she wasn’t her own boss … during 2008-2013, she was consolidating herself and strengthening relations with India. But after 2013, she really went for the trials’ of the 1971 war criminals. Expectedly, in 2018, when the opposition did participate in the elections only to find they were compromised, India continued to support Hasina.
INDIA’S NEAR EAST: A NEW HISTORY
Avinash Paliwal
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