Dawn Over Burma?

In the midst of the murky national developments—capped by the sensational report of the movement of two Army units in the direction of the Capital without any notification (that invited a chorus of denials from the PM, Defence Minister, Defence Secretary, Ministry of Defence to the Army)—as well as major international events—like the US decision to slap a $10 million bounty on terror-mastermind and founder of the Lashkar-e-Taiba Hafiz Mohammad Sayeed—the most heartening news of recent times has come from Myanmar (Burma): election officials in that country informed on April 2 that pro-democracy leader, Nobel laureate and iconic figure of Burmese national identity Aung San Suu Kyi’s Opposition party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), had won a landslide victory in the historic by-elections held the previous day. Of the 45 seats for which the polls took place, the NLD has won 40 seats, according to the Election Commission which also disclosed that results from five constituencies in remote areas were yet to be received, whereas the NLD’s own count gives it 43 seats even as the outcome of one constituency in the distant Shan State is awaited (the party had failed to contest the remaining seat where its candidate was disqualified).

“The success we are having is the success of the people,” declared Suu Kyi while speaking to thousands of her cheering supporters gathered outside the party’s headquarters in Yangon (Rangoon). She said she sincerely hoped the vote would mark the ‘beginning of a new era’ for the long-suppressed Burmese populace subjugated since 1962 by the world’s most brutal, cruel, ruthless and repressive military junta. Suu, who studied in Lady Shri Ram College, New Delhi, where her mother was an ambassador, and has several Indian friends, herself won from her Kawhmu constituency.

It is indeed time for jubiliation. And time to remember Suu’s extraordinary, indomitable and uncompromising battle in the face of the heaviest of odds. As Bachi Karkaria has eloquently written in her inimitable style.

Aung San Suu Kyi’s victory is as goosebump-raising as her struggle. She is fashioned for iconography. Her porcelain bone structure and the spray of jasmine flowers are cliches of femininity, but for 23 years she has defied the testosterone-riddled junta. More important, she has always been not martyr but victor. The exultant images of the past week were almost a 21st century avatar of mythology’s triumph of good over evil.

We had all lapped up every bit of news that hiccupped out over the decades from behind Burma’s bamboo curtain. The 8888 Uprising—when General Ne Win stepped down after 26 years on the seemingly auspicious 8.8.88—and its violent crushing; the emergence of a pretty, young woman who seized the mantle of her revolutionary father and diplomat mother; her personal sacrifices; Cyclone Nargis tearing off the roof—and the power—in her dilapidated lakeside home, forcing her to live in candlelight; her rusty, trusty piano. And her resonating Freedom from Fear speech which began: “It is not power that corrupts, but fear…”

One was all along sceptical of the democratic reforms undertaken by the ruling Generals behind a civilian facade. And in that context one had openly criticised New Delhi’s moves to do business with Yangon in a bid to counter Beijing’s increasing influence in Myanmar. However, one should not, even while still keeping one’s fingers crossed, hesitate to welcome the obvious change one is witnessing before one’s very eyes: these by-elections mark a watershed in Burma’s chequered history. The polls were, of course, far from perfect—there were errors in the electoral lists across the country. And yet these by-elections do mark the first, preliminary steps towards genuine democracy.

The US has positively responded to the latest manifestation of democracy in the long-suffering state. It has decided to progressively ease the sanctions it had imposed in order to pressurise the junta. Such a step is intended to economically help the hapless people compelled to carry the yoke of the junta for an inordinately long time.

However, even as we celebrate the dawn over Burma it is necessary to exercise caution. What is essential is to pool all efforts to ensure that the democratic transition becomes irreversible. For only under democracy can real solutions to the ethnic insurgencies (which have assumed serious proportions, one of the primary causes for the junta’s changing priorities) be successfully explored.

After the historic May 27, 1990 elections (wherein too the NLD had won a landslide victory) this writer had observed in a commentary in this journal’s June 2, 1990 issue:

...the remarkable victory of the NLD is a tribute to the democratic aspirations of the people of Myanmar. But the NLD still faces many uphill tasks ahead. Despite its protestations, the ruling State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) will seek all means to prevent a smooth transfer of power (which anyway is conditional on the framing of a new Constitution by the legislature). The attempts to block an early drafting of the Constitution are expected to be stepped up in a bid to nullify the popular verdict. This is where democratic opinion across the world (that was instrumental in compelling the military rulers to hold the elections), and India in particular with its democratic credentials, must effectively intervene and give a fitting rebuff to the machinations of the blood-thirsty despots clinging on to power in Yangon (Rangoon).

Whatever the reasons, that ‘effective interven-tion’ did not take place and the military Generals had their way of crushing the democratic verdict at that time to take the country back to the dark age.

Once again India alongwith all democratic states is being called upon to do the needful. Our government has the bounden duty to stand by the Burmese people in general and the heroic Aung San Suu Kyi in particular in this vital juncture of democratic transition in our neighbouring nation which is now slowly opening up. The dawn that has broken out in all its resplendence in Burma must be protected at all costs so that it does not once more turn out to be false in the long run.

April 5 S.C.