Editorial IFP
Burma (Myanmar) is burning once again. Triggered by a reported 500 percent hike in fuel prices, the people are out on the streets demanding the restoration of democracy. Memories of the nightmare of August 1988 in which a pro-democracy uprising by students was crushed brutally by the military Junta in the country, does not seem to be a strong enough deterrent for those behind the present unrest. According to newspaper reports, during last fortnight, nine protestors have fallen victim to Army fire in Yangon, and since then nothing much has leaked out to the media from the country, leaving the world guessing what exactly might be happening in this resource rich South East Asian Country. There are also unofficial reports claiming over thousand have died in the current uprising. But while the country is thus locked in its trouble, some interesting issues have been kicked off in the rest of the world, and more immediately and urgently in India which shares a long border with the country. The first of these has to do with the philosophical question of what exactly is the appropriate action of the outside world when the rulers of any country brutalises its own people. Is intervention, economic or military, legitimate in such cases? The corollary question is about as to which one is more primary and sacrosanct, human rights or the Nation State? To put it another way, is the Junta’s use of brute force on its own people, an internal affair of the country to be resolved only amongst the people and government of the country? The answer to these questions may seem obvious, but they are far from this, especially in the post Iraq invasion world. It is interesting that Iraq too suffered economic sanction first (which put millions of Iraqis in dire straits) and then direct military intervention. Still, the moral dilemma remains whether it would be correct for the world to simply ignore what is supposedly happening inside Burma treating it solely as an internal affair of the country. In hindsight, it may not be too far from the truth to say that US action in Iraq may have blunted a moral question and with it, world conscience, unrecognizably. Any consideration of intervention in Burma, even if it is on moral grounds, is going to come along with a liberal dose of scepticism of the nature we have just sketched.
The other interesting debate is on the issue of strategic interest of countries which are called upon to make interventions on behalf of the people of Burma. India being not just an immediate neighbour, but also a putative power player in Asian region, is one of these. At this moment, it does seem India’s response is more reactive, and determined by what the other Asian power, China, is doing. The inhibiting factor in any thought of India antagonising the military Junta on moral grounds seems to be that China may get even closer than it already is with the Burmese government and consequently the country’s resources, especially its energy reserves – natural gas and petroleum. At the rate the economies of India and China are growing, both these giants have developed a ravenous appetite for energy to feed their growth engines. Analysts have often cited another “Indian interest” in Burma. It needs the country’s cooperation in tackling northeast insurgents.
However there is a difference between the moral obligations on the two countries. China’s position is non-ambiguous. It has no reservations about an authoritarian regime, being itself an authoritarian establishment. It too have had to deal with civil unrest in a violent way as the world remembers the massacre of students, intellectuals and labour activists at Tiananmen Square in April 1989. It is India’s position which is unenviable. It is a democracy, and professes strongly by its values, and because this is so, there can be no legitimate moral ground on which it can stand to decide not to support the pro-democracy movement. At this moment, the men in the India’s corridors of power in New Delhi seem to be of the opinion that this ideological hypocrisy is a price worth paying for what they think is a policy which has “national interest” as its core. A policy statement which incidentally sounds so uncannily like that of the USA, a superpower the UPA government in India is increasingly cosying up to in the present times even to the extent of angering its Left partners. In Nepal earlier, this policy backfired terribly, when the pro-democracy movement there actually got on top of the monarchy India (and China) then supported. But, to be fair, Burma is another country, and it could well be a different political fortune we are looking at.
The Imphal Free Press
Burma (Myanmar) is burning once again. Triggered by a reported 500 percent hike in fuel prices, the people are out on the streets demanding the restoration of democracy. Memories of the nightmare of August 1988 in which a pro-democracy uprising by students was crushed brutally by the military Junta in the country, does not seem to be a strong enough deterrent for those behind the present unrest. According to newspaper reports, during last fortnight, nine protestors have fallen victim to Army fire in Yangon, and since then nothing much has leaked out to the media from the country, leaving the world guessing what exactly might be happening in this resource rich South East Asian Country. There are also unofficial reports claiming over thousand have died in the current uprising. But while the country is thus locked in its trouble, some interesting issues have been kicked off in the rest of the world, and more immediately and urgently in India which shares a long border with the country. The first of these has to do with the philosophical question of what exactly is the appropriate action of the outside world when the rulers of any country brutalises its own people. Is intervention, economic or military, legitimate in such cases? The corollary question is about as to which one is more primary and sacrosanct, human rights or the Nation State? To put it another way, is the Junta’s use of brute force on its own people, an internal affair of the country to be resolved only amongst the people and government of the country? The answer to these questions may seem obvious, but they are far from this, especially in the post Iraq invasion world. It is interesting that Iraq too suffered economic sanction first (which put millions of Iraqis in dire straits) and then direct military intervention. Still, the moral dilemma remains whether it would be correct for the world to simply ignore what is supposedly happening inside Burma treating it solely as an internal affair of the country. In hindsight, it may not be too far from the truth to say that US action in Iraq may have blunted a moral question and with it, world conscience, unrecognizably. Any consideration of intervention in Burma, even if it is on moral grounds, is going to come along with a liberal dose of scepticism of the nature we have just sketched.
The other interesting debate is on the issue of strategic interest of countries which are called upon to make interventions on behalf of the people of Burma. India being not just an immediate neighbour, but also a putative power player in Asian region, is one of these. At this moment, it does seem India’s response is more reactive, and determined by what the other Asian power, China, is doing. The inhibiting factor in any thought of India antagonising the military Junta on moral grounds seems to be that China may get even closer than it already is with the Burmese government and consequently the country’s resources, especially its energy reserves – natural gas and petroleum. At the rate the economies of India and China are growing, both these giants have developed a ravenous appetite for energy to feed their growth engines. Analysts have often cited another “Indian interest” in Burma. It needs the country’s cooperation in tackling northeast insurgents.
However there is a difference between the moral obligations on the two countries. China’s position is non-ambiguous. It has no reservations about an authoritarian regime, being itself an authoritarian establishment. It too have had to deal with civil unrest in a violent way as the world remembers the massacre of students, intellectuals and labour activists at Tiananmen Square in April 1989. It is India’s position which is unenviable. It is a democracy, and professes strongly by its values, and because this is so, there can be no legitimate moral ground on which it can stand to decide not to support the pro-democracy movement. At this moment, the men in the India’s corridors of power in New Delhi seem to be of the opinion that this ideological hypocrisy is a price worth paying for what they think is a policy which has “national interest” as its core. A policy statement which incidentally sounds so uncannily like that of the USA, a superpower the UPA government in India is increasingly cosying up to in the present times even to the extent of angering its Left partners. In Nepal earlier, this policy backfired terribly, when the pro-democracy movement there actually got on top of the monarchy India (and China) then supported. But, to be fair, Burma is another country, and it could well be a different political fortune we are looking at.
The Imphal Free Press
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