M D Nalapat
As
Asian allies of the US know, in making demands - sorry, requests –of
them, Washington looks only at what it perceives to be its own
short-term advantage. Even if the recommended measure has the potential
to have very harmful effects on its ally, the US ignores such an impact,
and insists on its advice being followed. Small wonder that except for
countries that are host to large numbers of US troops, few Asian
countries uncritically follow the line given to them by the US State
Department or other branches of the administration. If India has somehow
managed to get by in a challenging neighbourhood, the reason lies in
the fact that public opinion often forces even pro-US governments to
reject advice coming from Washington.
Myanmar was an example of India going along with US and European wishes. For more than ten years, Delhi toed the line taken by these two geopolitical giants, joining them in demanding that Daw Aung San Suu Kyi be released and enabled to take over the governance of the country. It needs to be admitted that this columnist is also an admirer of the charismatic Myanmarese leader, and has been since he was in his teens. At the time - and we are talking of the 1960s - he used to stay in a government residential colony in Delhi named “Maan Nagar”, and used to watch a graceful girl clad in multicoloured lungis visit the home of the Burmese diplomat staying opposite. Even in those days, Suu Kyi was the very expression of grace and poise, who was moreover polite enough to once in a way return the greetings of the scrawny boy who used to look up from his book whenever she visited the neighbour’s quarters. Of course, despite this bias towards Myanmar’s valiant democracy warrior, he is in agreement that India’s geopolitical needs mandate engagement with the regime now ruling that country,and that the adoption of a US-style policy of sanctions would help neither the people of Myanmar nor India’s interests.
