In the two-and-a-half years for the reason that navy seized energy in Myanmar, the junta has confronted an more and more vital West, an ambivalent ASEAN, and a far much less vital India and China. New Delhi, specifically, has maintained a relationship with the navy’s State Administration Council that operates de facto on the stage of regular bilateral ties with a recognised authorities. India has not condemned the coup and its officers have made repeated trips to Myanmar, attending junta-facilitated public occasions and reaffirming sturdy bilateral ties.

A RAND report in July this yr categorized India’s relationship with the SAC as a part of its rise as an influence in Southeast Asia. However, as dangers to Indian investments in Myanmar have grown, analysts inside New Delhi have extra categorically highlighted a rising “normalisation” of India’s ties with the SAC – even dropping references to “restoration of democracy” in some bilateral conferences. Recent reports have additionally alleged the provision of arms by an Indian agency to the junta.

Such ties between New Delhi and the Myanmar navy are unsurprising. Some of this displays concern concerning the junta’s closeness to Beijing. But it additionally demonstrates New Delhi’s “strategic autonomy”, a key pillar of which is India not joining Western-led sanctions regimes.

India has well-established ties with the Myanmar military, the Tatmadaw. This is very because of the open India-Myanmar border traditionally being utilized by rebel teams from India’s Northeastern states. While the Indian Army has unilaterally mounted cross-border raids in Myanmar in opposition to such teams with Naypyidaw’s tacit assist, it performed a joint operation with the Tatmadaw in 2019 to dismantle a lot of rebel camps. In basic, the Indian Army’s Eastern Command has maintained a cordial relationship with the Myanmar navy, given India’s strategic pursuits and safety vulnerabilities in its northeast.

India’s deep engagement with the SAC throughout the final two years may presumably permit it some leverage over the junta. 

On the opposite hand, India has maintained minimal contact with the National Unity Government in exile since 2021, dealing primarily via back-channel processes, if in any respect. A number of closed-door conversations hosted by assume tanks in New Delhi that includes representatives of Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (round which the NUG is organised) have confirmed {that a} channel to speak exists. India’s rationale for such a stance has been to stop undermining the SAC, and to proceed its coverage of working with whichever regime is in energy in Naypyidaw – proscribing its assist for democracy to the rhetorical stage.

But with the junta reportedly struggling to keep up effective control over all of Myanmar’s territory within the civil battle, India itself has contemporary causes to be cautious of the SAC’s present place. A variety of the anti-India rebel camps destroyed earlier by joint India-Myanmar efforts are reportedly now operational once more – albeit with some nourishment from the junta, whose new precedence is regime preservation.

India has needed to re-evaluate its border policy with Myanmar. India’s defence secretary visited Naypyidaw in July to “raise matters relating to India’s security with senior leadership of Myanmar”. Moreover, an older spectre has returned to hang-out New Delhi – of a attainable Chinese listening post on Myanmar’s Coco Islands permitting the People’s Liberation Army some capacity to spy on the Indian navy’s tri-service command within the Andaman and Nicobar Islands (even in the face of analyst doubts). As the Indian authorities has attempted to probe the SAC on the problem, the variety of strain factors within the bilateral relationship has evidently elevated.

So, it’s in India’s curiosity to dilute its one-sided strategy and discover potential contact with the NUG. This turns into extra important in gentle of China’s growing public contact with the NUG in current months; Suu Kyi herself was seen by New Delhi as having overseen increased ties with China when Myanmar was beneath democratic rule. The Indian Council of World Affairs (the Indian External Affairs Ministry’s assume tank) hosted a discreet Track 1.5 dialogue in New Delhi this April, which featured representatives from states together with Bangladesh, Indonesia (as then ASEAN chair), Cambodia (as former ASEAN chair), Thailand, China and the SAC. Held as a comply with as much as a gathering in Bangkok and with one other assembly deliberate sooner or later, India presumably seeks to nudge the SAC in the direction of having NUG representatives within the room. For New Delhi, this strategy is the most secure because it includes the SAC in any try and ultimately attain out to the NUG, as an alternative of undercutting it and opening its personal formal strains of communication. As the junta treads nearer to India’s pink strains by co-opting anti-India rebel teams in its struggle in opposition to pro-democracy teams, India’s endurance may be sporting skinny.

India’s deep engagement with the SAC throughout the final two years may presumably permit it some leverage over the junta. Yet for a rustic that has been as volatile as Myanmar’s throughout the final 5 a long time, it’s counterproductive for India to interact with solely a single occasion at any given level. New Delhi is conscious of the immanent risks to its present Myanmar technique. However, the diploma to which it could actually adapt to new realities in Naypyidaw is an open query.