Imagine a hypothetical scenario in the world’s largest democracy India when the Prime Minister is removed from office, Parliament is dissolved, the Constitution is suspended and the judiciary is also relieved of duties. Likewise, government offices are ordered closed and all permanent secretaries have been ordered to report to the army headquarters in place of their Ministers. While this is only an imaginary, such incidents of the armed forces taking over power from civilian rule has happened in other countries including India’s close door neighbours and most recently in Thailand.
Taking the above context and given the fact that parliamentary democracy in India has matured to the point of having a strong edifice of civilian rule, it was quite astonishing and at the same time disturbing to listen to the remarks made by the new Indian Army Chief who while stating that the bloody crackdown by Myanmar’s military junta against pro-democracy protests was an “internal matter”, went to the extent of adding that India’s army, which is battling numerous insurgencies in the remote northeast bordering Myanmar, favours a “good relationship” with the military junta.
It is quite unbecoming for a General in uniform and more so in a polity like India, to publicly project a policy stand and that too on a central issue and thereby abrogating to the military on what should in essence be the mandate of the duly elected government of the day. In this regard, even the UPA government has been extremely cautious in its response given the sensitivity of the matter and also given the future consequence for the country’s own relations with its neighbors and the stand on democracy. The timing of the statement is likewise questionable coming as it does in the immediate backdrop of the United States tightening sanctions on Myanmar’s military rulers and urging countries like China and India to do more to help end the crackdown on anti-government demonstrators.
The Government of India and the concerned Ministry must take serious note of the Army Chief’s remark and call for an explanation so that such undiplomatic remarks made by the military establishment is not allowed to embarrass the country’s standing in the eyes of the world. Such posturing by the military is uncalled for and at the same time disturbing. This definitely calls for reining in the military establishment by the duly elected government and to ensure that it does not allow the military to dictate on policy matters facing the nation. Whatever de-facto civilian control there is over the army should be firmly kept intact. The Army must not be allowed under any circumstances to challenge this cardinal principle.
In this regard, the Government of India must do a serious re-think on the military assistance being doled out to the Burmese army as this is likely to be used against civilians or in its war against ethnic national workers. It is well known that the Army establishment in India would have pushed hard the case for assisting the junta without going through the requisite political process of taking the mandate of an institution like Parliament. This is quite appalling and India only ends up abetting a regime with an atrocious human rights record and no semblance of democracy.
