The visit to India by the President of Myanmar, Thein Sein, comes at a time of change in his country. His last visit was in 2008, as Prime Minister of the military junta that called itself the State Peace and Development Council. The SPDC has been replaced by a government that was elected in November 2010 but remains predominantly military in composition — President Sein and most of his cabinet members were high-ranking military officers in the SPDC; and the election rules were engineered to ensure that the military-backed United Socialist and Democratic Party won. While the junta prevented the main democratic opposition, represented by the iconic Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League of Democracy, from contesting the elections, the new dispensation has sent up smoke signals for political reconciliation with her. President Sein invited her for talks, and she has been allowed to tour the country unobstructed. But more remarkably, the government has bowed to popular will for the first time by suspending the Chinese-assisted Myitsone dam project on the Irrawaddy river. In an open letter to the government some months ago, Ms Suu Kyi highlighted the displacement the project would cause and its feared impact on the environment. At the risk of straining ties with China, President Sein told Parliament earlier this month that the government had “a responsibility to solve the worries of the people so we will stop construction of the Myitsone dam.” Also significant is the inclusion of 300 political prisoners in an amnesty to over 6,000 others.
Over the last decade or so, India played down a longstanding friendship with Ms Suu Kyi as it assiduously courted the junta, to the extent of making an assessment — exposed by WikiLeaks — that her “day has come and gone.” Countering China's influence and securing the SPDC's cooperation to crack down on safe havens of insurgent groups from the North-East were the two main reasons cited for building ties with Myanmar's junta. President Sein's October 12-15 visit to New Delhi is likely to shine some light on how far the military is willing to travel in its rapprochement with Ms Suu Kyi. For New Delhi, the shift in Myanmar's political landscape is an opportunity to reinvigorate its engagement with Ms Suu Kyi and other pro-democracy forces. It can no longer remain diffident about doing this.
