How PM Modi’s Laos Visit Will Lay The Groundwork For New Delhi’s Outreach To Anti-Junta Forces In Myanmar

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be on a two-day visit to Laos to attend the crucial ASEAN-India Summit and the East Asia Summit on 10 and 11 October.

Laos is the current chair of the 10-member ASEAN, short for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

Modi is going at the invitation of Laos' prime minister, Sonexay Siphandone. The Indian prime minister is expected to hold several bilaterals with his counterparts from Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore, Indonesia, and Malaysia. 

The East Asia Summit will see participation from top functionaries of ASEAN and its eight dialogue partners, namely the United States (US), China, Russia, India, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and South Korea. 

According to mandarins at the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), an important topic on Modi’s agenda will be the upcoming outreach by New Delhi to anti-junta forces in Myanmar.

The Indian Council of World Affairs, an MEA-funded think tank that is chaired by Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar and has External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar in its governing council, has invited Myanmar’s National Unity Government (NUG) and representatives of ethnic armed organisations (EAOs) of Chin, Rakhine, and Kachin provinces bordering India to a seminar in New Delhi mid-November.

The NUG is Myanmar’s government-in-exile, comprising anti-junta democratic parties of the country. Aung San Su Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) is a key constituent of the NUG, which was formed after the Myanmar army staged a coup and took control of the country in February 2021. 

The seminar on ‘Constitutionalism & Federalism’ will be attended by representatives of the Arakan Army (AA), Chin National Front (CNF), Kachin Independence Army (KIA), and a couple of other EAOs. 

This is the first time that India has reached out to the NUG and the EAOs, who have been making steady gains in their united battle against the junta and now control nearly half of the country. 

New Delhi has, until now, engaged formally only with Myanmar’s generals, who are not only becoming increasingly unpopular but are fast losing control of the country. 

India’s fears are centred on China, which exercises a lot of influence over the junta and provides it with financial assistance as well as military hardware. Non-engagement with Myanmar’s generals would have pushed them further into China’s embrace and would have affected India’s interests in Myanmar. 

ASEAN (Myanmar is part of the regional grouping) member countries have, for that matter, also engaged with the Myanmarese junta and have been leading efforts to bring about a truce between the country’s military rulers and the NUG and EAOs. 

But despite pressure from other ASEAN nations, the junta has refused to accommodate the NUG in the country’s power structure and come to an understanding with the EAOs to end the ongoing armed struggle that has killed and displaced a large section of the country’s civilian population. 

ASEAN nations are frustrated with the junta’s refusal to, of late, even sit for talks with the NUG and EAOs. 

The gains made by the EAOs in their bruising battles with junta forces over the last year, as well as the brutal retaliation by the junta that has claimed thousands of innocent lives and turned the country’s people against the generals, have prompted a rethink in India’s MEA. 

Foreign minister Jaishankar indicated in June this year that India is “open to all stakeholders” in Myanmar to protect its interests in that country. 

The civil war in Myanmar has stalled work on India's ambitious $400 million Kaladan Multimodal Transit Transport Project and the $250 million Kolkata-Bangkok trilateral highway project.

The two projects involve heavy construction work in territories that are now held by the EAOs. Since the intensification of the offensive by EAOs against the junta in October last year, all work on these two projects has come to a standstill. 

The fierce war between the EAOs and the junta has also destabilised the 1643-kilometre-long Indo-Myanmar border and has led to a considerable influx of war-ravaged civilians into India, especially into Manipur and Mizoram. A number of cadres of the Chin EAOs have also infiltrated into Manipur, destabilising the security scenario in the troubled state. 

New Delhi wants to engage with the EAOs of the Rakhine, Chin, and Kachin provinces to not only ensure stability at the border but also to secure the Kaladan and trilateral highway projects.

The Arakan Army and Chin EAOs control the territories through which the trilateral highway and Kaladan projects pass. 

India, a senior MEA official told Swarajya, is also keen on establishing a working relationship with the NUG. New Delhi had good ties with Aung San Suu Kyi and is keen on renewing those ties and establishing fresh ones with the other players in the NUG. 

India’s outreach to the NUG and EAOs will figure prominently in Modi’s discussions with his Thai, Indonesian, Malaysian, Laotian, and Vietnamese counterparts. 

“Our Prime Minister (Modi) will seek help from ASEAN nations, particularly Thailand and Indonesia, which have good ties with the NUG and EAOs, in facilitating the outreach and also ensuring the protection of India’s interests in Myanmar,” said the MEA official.

Modi will also offer India’s help to the ASEAN nations in collectively bearing pressure on Myanmar’s generals to sit for peace talks with the EAOs and NUGs and to put a halt to attacks on civilians in the war-torn country. 

The Prime Minister will set the ball rolling during his interactions with leaders of ASEAN nations, as well as with the leaders attending the East Asia Summit at Vientiane, on brokering a pact between the Myanmar junta and the NUG and EAOs of that country. 

New Delhi also hopes to bring ASEAN’s dialogue partners attending the East Asia Summit, particularly the US, Australia, Russia, and Japan, on the same page to prevail upon China to leverage its influence over Myanmar’s junta and get the generals to sit for peace talks. 

India, the MEA official said, is looking to catalyse concerted pressure from not only the ASEAN but also the US, China, and Russia on the junta to agree to stop attacks on civilian targets and halt all hostilities before sitting for peace talks.

“India is keen on facilitating early elections in Myanmar that will end junta rule and pave the way for a democratically elected government to come to power in the country,” the MEA official added.

One of the primary aims of Modi’s two-day visit to Laos is, thus, to set the ball rolling on restoring peace in Myanmar with the involvement of ASEAN and other major powers. Peace in Myanmar will also safeguard India’s interests in that country.