MYANMAR’S planned tryst with democracy came to an early end after the country’s military detained senior politicians including State Counselor Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi and President Mr. Win Myint and seized power. A coup d’etat, third in Myanmar’s political history, was on cards once the political class and the Election Commission started ignoring the military’s allegations of an electoral fraud in last year’s general elections. The timing and audacity of the military junta, also called as Tatmadaw, to overthrow a democratically-elected government has now raised a haunting political specter in Southeast Asia.

 

The takeover came on a day when Myanmar’s new parliamentary session was to begin with a hope to bring necessary amendments to the Constitution that had a pronounced stamp of the Tatmadaw. It proved the last straw for Commander-in-Chief Senior General Ming Aung Hlaing as he decided to walk the oft-tread path of his predecessors. Gen Hlaing has attributed the coup to electoral frauds committed by Ms Suu Kyi’s National League of Democracy (NLD) in last November’s elections. The polls were conducted in the shadow of the coronavirus pandemic and the clean sweep for NLD had not gone down well with the military leadership. Electoral setback to the Tatmadaw proxies is emerging as the prime reason for coup. Despite commanding big influence over the government with 25 per cent seats reserved in the parliament, the military leadership was extremely uncomfortable to see the rising popularity of Ms. Suu Kyi in certain sections. A combination of many such factors deepened the military’s suspicion that she was out to alter the civil-military balance of power with constitutional amendments.

 

It is an irony that the Nobel laureate, who shielded her military at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on its role in the Rohingya Muslims’ massacre, is now facing a bleak future under its detention. World leaders, including the Biden administration in the US, have come out in support of Ms. Suu Kyi. The US has threatened sanctions on the country but the Tatmadaw seems to have prepared for all repercussions. It gives rise to the suspicion that some outside force is working covertly for another military rule in the country. Who benefits from the military ruling Myanmar is an intriguing matter for the region’s geopolitics but at the moment the country’s dalliance with democracy seems to have ended. And that is a dangerous portend for the entire world.

 

Developments in Myanmar are of critical interest for India as the nation shares border with many north-eastern States. Military at the helm of affairs can potentially destabilise relations between the two nations as New Delhi was among those to engage positively with Ms. Suu Kyi. India has rightly called for restoration of democratic process in Myanmar. However, at the parallel level it has to secure its borders in the N-E States, especially after discovering growing presence of China in the restive provinces of Myanmar. The Myanmar situation also brings into focus an often underrated fact that Indian leadership has managed to achieve since Independence. Almost every country in India’s neighbourhood is afflicted with problems that are of the making of the military. Pakistan is ruled by its military, Sri Lanka has a dominating presence of its army in political sphere, Afghanistan is fighting a battle with things that are military, China’s military wields big power in the civil decision-making. India remains the only nation in the region to find a fine balance between its political as well as military leadership. It is a tribute to India’s political class for creating respectable compartments for all its constituents. Over the years, India has never seen a friction between the military and the political leadership nor there has been a turf war. Respecting each other’s space has remained the highlight of the civil and military relations. There could have been difference of opinion on some occasions. But that is the privilege of a democracy!