When Indian National Security Adviser Ajit Doval attended the signing ceremony of the cease-fire agreement between Myanmar government and representatives of ethnic rebel groups in Naypyitaw last October, sources reveal, he was armed with intelligence dossiers linking Myanmar’s ethnic Muslim population with dreaded terrorist groups having international outreach.
At a time when the peace deal was aimed at creating conducive atmosphere for the critical general elections, what was the Narendra Modi government’s top security official trying to achieve? A highly placed security source confirmed that in the “presence of global diplomatic corps and hardcore intelligence operatives, who have gathered to witness this milestone event, expected to permanently halt the world’s longest running civil conflict, India wanted to warn the international community about the growing risk of extremist organizations like Daesh fishing in Myanmar’s troubled and muddied ethnic waters.” Indeed, religion has hugely impacted ethno-sectarian relations in Myanmar.
Most of the minority ethnic groups, disgruntled with the Myanmar state, have faced persecutions due to their religious belief that is at variance with that of the majority Buddhist population. In an extremely volatile sociopolitical environment, similar to the one prevailing in a Hindutva-dominated India today, there is mobilization of hard-line elements and inculcation of radicalism throughout Myanmar’s society to suppress, what radical Buddhists say, the spreading influence of Muslim minorities in Myanmar’s polity. Just like Hindutva fanatics, who cannot reconcile with India’s deeply entrenched pluralism, reactionary Buddhists have virtually destroyed the rich tradition of Buddhism and Islam co-existing harmoniously in Myanmar since ages.
Most worryingly, rabid anti-Muslim sentiments spreading across Myanmar has not only gripped ordinary people but mainstream politicians too. No wonder why, Myanmar’s most noted political personality and Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi too has fallen prey to the lure of majoritarian politics even as she continue her struggle for a political comeback after years of confinement. Notwithstanding repeated requests from Buddhist religious leader like Dalai Lama to condemn “persecution of Muslim minorities unequivocally,” Suu Kyi had discouraged Muslim members of her victorious National League for Democracy (NLD) from filing nomination even as ethnic Muslims have been deliberately barred from participating in the recently concluded democratic exercise, either as candidate or voter.
Moreover, adding to the woes of the ethnic Rohingya Muslims, whom the Myanmar government does not even accept as sons and daughters of the soil, Suu Kyi advised the media “not to exaggerate Rohingya plight.” This despite the Rohingya Muslims living a life of an animal in congested displacement camps with restrictions on employment and travel.
It is a pity that Suu Kyi, who many believe is key to Myanmar’s political destiny, is not at all moved by the violent mob attacks, death and disappearances that the Rohingyas face at regular intervals. Neither could the Yale Law School’s 80-page legal analysis, detailing strong evidences of genocide being committed against Rohingyas, help awaken her sleeping conscience. Suu Kyi is adamant that there would be no “flaming words of condemnation” from her end, either way.
Just like the secular political parties, including the Congress in India, who are forced to play the soft Hindutva card to counter Modi’s discreet majoritarian communal politics, Suu Kyi, many believe, is doing a perfect balancing act. As she herself said, “My role is not to set one community against another, but to try to bring reconciliation between them. I cannot do that by condemning either community.”
Suu Kyi stresses that she is deliberately ignoring the call to admonish Buddhist communalism unequivocally because there is a long future ahead. But the big question is, has the once firebrand Suu Kyi started crawling only to appease the hard-line majorities so that her political rebirth is not vitiated? Why else is she reticent to take a strong stand on an essentially “Muslim-free” poll or rising aggression against minority Muslims? Though the Muslims constitute approximately five percent of the population, no member from the community appeared on ballots for either the ruling party or the opposition in an election that has been touted as the fairest one held in Myanmar ever since democracy returned in a twisted form after decades of martial law. Suu Kyi’s NLD does admit that Muslims were purged following pressure from the increasingly powerful ultra-nationalist Buddhist forces.
Intriguingly, the big powers, especially the Americans, having discreetly pressurized the Myanmar military leadership to include Suu Kyi in any post-poll political permutations and combinations in return for some form of international legitimacy for the ostracized country, are quiet too. Does the international community really believe that this election will push Myanmar forward on a path to an egalitarian democratic union? Are we to presume that the cries of the ethnic Muslim minorities in Myanmar will evoke no sympathy so long as the global powers’ geopolitical and economic interests are not hampered by the barbaric butchery of human being by fellow human beings?
Will business and strategic interests, as usual, overshadow human rights concern? How democratic an election can be if it ushers a parliament without any Muslim representation from a five million strong community? As long as there is alienation due to disenfranchisement and dispute over identity, among the ethnic Muslim minorities, Suu Kyi’s unified-Myanmar dream will never materialize. Rather, registering Muslims as Indian sub-continental settlers will only make these hapless people vulnerable to the poaching of hawk-eyed intelligence operatives like Doval, always scouting for strategic assets.
