What had started off as a low-key and largely symbolic protest march in Rangoon on 19 August by a few students against the doubling of fuel prices has now snow-balled into a countrywide ant-military-junta movement in Burma.

Infamous for its brutal suppression of all forms of dissent, the junta didn’t stop the protestors on 19 August. But, when a second protest march, considered the largest in a decade, occurred on 22 August, it pressed into service pro-regime civilian thugs of the Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA) and Swan Arrshin, who intimidated, abducted and tortured the demonstrators. Nearly 150 student activists including 1988 veterans like Min Ko Naing and Ko Ko Gyi have been arrested and detained on charges of “undermining the stability and security of the nation”. One died of torture during interrogation and many others have been seriously injured and hospitalized.

The military regime has launched a massive manhunt to nab all 1988 student leaders and, to that end, have circulated their photographs. Suspecting involvement of NLD activists in fomenting unrest, the administration has disconnected their telephone lines in many places. Surprisingly, despite these harsh measures the agitation has continued unabated. Between 20 August and 9 September, the agitation spread far and wide to Labutta (Irrawaddy Division), Buthi-daung, Taunggok and Sittwe (Arakan State), Kyakse (Mandalay Division), Pakkhoku (Magwe Division), Hakha (Chin State) and Myitkyina (Kachin State).

An ominous dimension of the current anti-regime movement is that Buddhist monks in large numbers have joined, first at Sittwe and Pakkhoku on September 6 and later at other places. At Pakkhoku they held 20 government officials hostage in their monastery for over four hours and damaged their vehicles. They also destroyed an electronic shop owned by a USDA activist.

Since then the monks have been leading anti-government rallies in Rangoon and other places. On 20 September they held massive street demonstrations in Rangoon and many other places in different regions of the country, with thousands of civilians enthusiastically joining them everywhere. Reports indicate that monks have been converging on Rangoon from all over the country on the invitation of their counterparts there.

In a pre-emptive move, the jittery administration has been interfering with train connections to Rangoon from other parts of the country. The areas around Rangoon Public Hall and other typical places for public demonstrations in the former capital city have been fenced off by barbed wire; and troops have been deployed in good strength at vulnerable locations.

Buddhist monks are the most organized and influential group in Burma after the army. In 1988, they strongly supported and directed the pro-democracy movement from different monasteries and pagodas in the country. On account of their clout in the society the generals are in a dilemma about using force against them.

The spontaneous uprising that Burma is presently witnessing does not pose a serious threat yet to the military junta that will use every means to crush it with brutality if it spreads deeper into the interior regions or if it continues for some time. The situation will be volatile if and when the military resorts to increased extrajudicial killing, arrests, disappearances and torture.

U.S. President George Bush and the British Government have strongly condemned the suppression of the people’s peaceful protests. The European Union Parliament has unanimously demanded a binding UN Security Council resolution on Burma.

The international press is abuzz with reports of the on-going public agitation against the junta, but, like our Foreign Office, the Indian media have ignored the momentous events in Burma

Ever since the abrupt reversal in 1992 of its pro-democracy policy in Burma and cozying up to the junta, New Delhi has totally neglected the democratic forces in the country. Stark pusillanimity dictates the policy of the world’s largest democracy on Burma. One example suffices to drive this point home. India had awarded its highest civilian award to Aung San Suu Kyi, but its present leaders are scared to muster the courage for so much as to raise the issue of her release – a demand being consistently voiced by most democratic countries including the tin-pot ones in the ASEAN doing business with the junta. Last year, during his state visit to Burma, President APJ Abdul Kalam raised the question of Su Kyi’s “well being” with the military strongman General Than Shwe only at the tarmac of the airport where the General had gone to see him off.

The sanctions slapped on Burma for its abysmal human rights record by the European Union and the United States have been undermined by the support given to the junta by China, Thailand and India.

Thailand, under military rule since last year, has a serious credibility problem of its own. Its present rulers are keen to amend the constitution, institutionalizing a major role for the armed forces in the future governance of the country.

India’s increasing largesse in terms of funds and military aid to the Burmese junta in the hope of getting oil and launching joint counter-insurgency operations in Northeast India and counter-balancing China’s strategic clout in Burma has come a cropper.

After holding this country on tenterhooks for the last few years, the junta has opted to sell oil and gas to China instead. Last July ONGC lost out to Petro-China in its bid to import gas from the A-1 and A-3 blocks off the Arakan coast, where India’s GAIL and ONGC Videsh together hold 30 percent interest.

Despite New Delhi’s once strong support to the democratic movement in Burma and China’s consistent record of totally backing the military junta, Beijing has emerged as the “key interlocutor” on Burma. In June this year, Eric John, U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State held talks with Burma’s ministers of Foreign Affairs, Culture and Information in Beijing. On 14-15 August 2007, United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, B. Lynn Pascoe, held talks with representatives of the Chinese Foreign Ministry in Beijing. The agenda of talks included Burma. Thus, instead of cutting into Chinese influence in Burma, which is touted as our strategic objective, India is “left in the lurch” in international diplomacy geared to addressing the issue of restoring democracy in that country.

India’s hope of military cooperation from the Burmese junta in tackling insurgency in Northeast India is unwarranted. Apart from reports of regular cooperation between the Burmese military and insurgents from Northeast India at the local level, insurgency problems of Northeast India are mainly homegrown and have significantly waned. Still the Indian army went out of its way to help crush the Rakhine insurgency in Burma through its Operation Leach in February 1998, in the process massacring leaders of an Arakan opposition group. In perpetrating this high crime a double-agent colonel in our army took the administration, including the Prime Minister’s Office, for a ride. Even that monumental act of treachery against a totally India-friendly Arakanese group could not secure effective cooperation from the junta in dismantling the residual presence of Indian insurgent groups on the other side of the Indo-Burmese border, let alone secure gas off the Arakan shore.

The reason why India has miserably failed to achieve any of its professed objectives in Burma is our lackadaisical political leadership and the incompetence of our Foreign Service mandarins in conducting multi-pronged diplomacy in the increasingly complex modern world. In the case of Burma, going by the number of reciprocated military visits, it is clear that our army and not our Foreign Office has been calling the shots. That explains the bankruptcy of our policy on Burma, which is focused on only giving and not taking anything in return.

Amid this backdrop, a report that Petroleum Minister Murli Deora would visit Burma next week has disturbed many in the country. If the UPA government thinks that following his visit Burmese oil and gas will come gushing to this country, it is living in a fool’s paradise. Except for sightseeing in that exotic country and further appeasing its military rulers, one can confidently assert that Deora’s powwow will achieve nothing.

India must support the initiative of ASEAN for national reconciliation in Burma. The foreign ministers of ASEAN at their summit in July 2007 expressed concern to Burma about its slow pace of change and urged it to “show tangible progress that would lead to a peaceful transition to democracy in the near future” and the release of Aung San Suu Kyi other political detainees.

The time is now for opposition parties and the country’s civil society to launch a coordinated movement to force New Delhi to undertake an all-party realistic audit of its policy toward Burma and to reorient its alignment with our self-interests and cherished democratic values, thus signaling to the rogue military regime in Burma that there is no free lunch in diplomacy.

(The author is former Additional Secretary, Cabinet Secretariat, Government of India.)