India’s options as Myanmar junta collapses in Rakhine

New Delhi, which engaged solely with the junta to the exclusion of all other political actors until recently, is now face-to-face at its northeastern doorstep with two powerful ethnic armed organisations.

At the end of 2024, a significant power shift took place in Myanmar's Rakhine state, potentially having far-reaching consequences for the region's geography and security.

Rakhine, in western Myanmar, shares a border with Bangladesh. It is where India is developing a flagship infrastructure project connecting Kolkata to the north-east. It has been in the news since 2017 for the exodus of its Rohingya people escaping the atrocities of the Myanmar army. On December 20, the Arakan Army (AA), a Rakhine Buddhist ethnic armed organisation (EAO), announced it had captured the Myanmar Army's western command. 

The Myanmar Army now controls only three points in Rakhine — Sittwe, Kyaukpyu, and Munaung. All three points are on the Rakhine coastline on the Bay of Bengal. Soldiers there have no overland access to the rest of the Myanmar mainland. The AA is asking them to surrender as there is no exit except by sea.

The Myanmar military took power in a coup on February 1, 2021. From the start, the junta faced a fierce pushback from armed civilian resistance groups of the majority Bamar Buddhists. These People's Defence Forces were joined by more than a dozen EAOs, demonstrating a rare unity in Myanmar's otherwise fractious ethnic mosaic. 

By late 2023, the Myanmar Army lost control over chunks of territory, including along the Chinese border in the north-eastern Shan state to an EAO coalition called the Three Brotherhood Alliance, which included the AA. To protect its own interests and the large Chinese population in Shan, Beijing stepped in to broker a ceasefire between the EAO coalition and the junta.

Now the AA has all but wrested control of Rakhine, with 14 out of 17 townships in the state in its hands. Additionally, it has also taken control of Paletwa in the neighbouring Chin state (which shares its border with Mizoram).

The AA's successes are a potential game-changer in Myanmar. The wisdom in New Delhi so far has been that a strong force like the military was necessary to keep Myanmar from splintering into a couple of dozen ethnic states. But the Myanmar military is now too weak to exercise central authority. In fact, its power grab, and obdurate refusal to return Myanmar to its interrupted democratic transition, may have only increased the probability of fractures across the country along ethnic fault lines. All EAOs now control swathes of territory along Myanmar’s international borders.

The United League of Arakan, of which the AA is the armed wing, is already speaking in the manner of an independent government. In a statement it declared it was fighting for “the freedom of the people of Arakan and achieving the liberation of all the ethnic groups within the region”. The “Arakan People's Revolutionary Government”, the statement declared, “welcomes and recognises all foreign investments that will bring development to the Arakan region and assist in its development and progress”. This is a nod to both Chinese and Indian investments in the region.

The Indian multi-modal Kaladan project envisages a sea-river-land transit through Myanmar to India's North-East states. Ships departing Kolkata will unload goods at the Essar-developed Sittwe port. While some of these are exports to Myanmar, goods will also be transported north from Sittwe up the Kaladan river into Paletwa in Chin state, and thence by road to Zorinpui in Mizoram. With battles raging in Chin and Rakhine, India has been struggling to finish the last leg of the road link. China, meanwhile, has developed a port at Kyaukpyu. Two parallel pipelines start at Kyaukpyu, one for gas from an offshore field in the Bay of Bengal, and the other for oil brought to the port by Chinese ships, traverse the breadth of Rakhine, mainland Myanmar and Shan state, where they exit into China's Yunan province. The armed conflict has so far left the pipelines unharmed.

These two projects may explain why the AA has held off from attacking Sittwe and Kyaukpyu, instead offering talks and citing the example of the Chinese-brokered ceasefire in Shan. 

The junta's hold is also tenuous over Chin state, where two rival groups of Chin are battling the junta separately. One is the dominant Chin National Army affiliated with the recently formed Chinland Council. The other is the Chin Brotherhood Alliance, allied with AA. Three weeks ago, the Chin Brotherhood Alliance said it had captured Min Dat and wrested control of all of southern Chin state with the AA’s help. The Chinland Council and the Chin National Army are unhappy at the AA's creep into Chin state, and its claim on Paletwa. For now though, the two sides are operating in different areas. 

New Delhi, which engaged solely with the junta to the exclusion of all other political actors until recently, is now face-to-face at its doorstep with two powerful EAOs that believe this is their chance to wring substantial political autonomy from the junta, with the AA also nursing a desire to break free. New Delhi may soon be compelled to engage directly with both. Both groups keep good relations with China. With the Chinese presence in Kyaukpyu, New Delhi wants to complete its own connectivity project that assumes importance due to coldish relations with post-Hasina Dhaka – access to the north-east via Bangladesh, which India got in 2023, cannot be taken for granted. The AA also hold the cards to the fate of the Rohingya.

In March, soon after the armed group seized Paletwa, Rajya Sabha member K Vanlalvena, contacted AA leaders and travelled to the area. It is not clear if New Delhi has continued the Mizo leader's outreach to the AA. But members of some other anti-junta organisations, including the National Unity Government, Myanmar's ‘government in exile’, and the Chin National Front (CNF), were invited by the MEA think tank ICWA in November. All this may mean that New Delhi is finally seeing the writing on the wall in Myanmar. At this stage, fencing the 1,600 km border with Myanmar, a plan that gained momentum due to the ongoing ethnic conflict in Manipur, would be self-defeating.

(Nirupama Subramanian is an independent journalist. X: @tallstories.)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.