By Karan Thapar

The elections presently underway in Myanmar can only be described as a sham. Conducted in three phases, starting end December and concluding at the end of this month, a sentence from a recent report by the BBC pithily explains why this exercise will not restore the country’s democracy snuffed out by a military coup in 2020. “With major political parties dissolved, leaders jailed and with as much as half the country not expected to vote because of an ongoing civil war”, this is a pointless exercise.

Six parties, including the military backed Union Solidarity and Development Party are contesting elections nationwide whilst another 51 parties and independent candidates are only fighting at the state or regional level. But Aung San Sui Kyi’s National League for Democracy, that won sweeping majorities in 2015 and 2020, is banned. That one fact alone nullifies this election. Without her contesting this is a farce.

Sui Kyi is in jail or house arrest and has been for nearly six years. Many of the other leaders of her party are in exile. The charges against Sui Kyi are politically motivated and designed to ensure her incarceration. She faces cumulative sentences of well over twenty years.

Yet Sui Kyi, for all her lapses and faults and the disappointment many have expressed with her performance as State Councillor before the junta takeover, remains the most popular politician in the country. She spent fifteen years under house arrest, separated from her husband and sons, struggling to restore democracy. That has not been forgotten. Nor the fact she is a Nobel peace laureate. Her countrymen still call her ‘Ma Suu’.

Recently the United Nations Special Rapporteur for Myanmar, Tom Andrews, criticised the election that is underway. It’s worth recalling his words. They express the anger of friends of Myanmar who can only helplessly observe this electoral pantomime. “An election organised by a junta that continues to bomb civilians, jail political leaders and criminalise all forms of dissent is not an election - it is a theatre of the absurd performed at gunpoint.”

Of course, the country’s military rulers dismiss such criticisms. They’ve told the BBC the voting will be free and fair. The junta’s chief, Gen Min Aung Hliang, denies he wants to continue to rule after the results are announced. “I am the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, a civil servant. I can’t just say that I want to be president.” But believe me he does. And it’s highly unlikely he won’t be.

The silence from New Delhi suggests India has no reservations if Gen Aung Hliang continues to rule. If that’s true it would be unbecoming of the world’s largest democracy, which, in fact, claims to be the mother of democracy. Our government has repeatedly and loudly expressed its concerns about the election that will be held in February in Bangladesh - it has criticised the banning of the Awami League - but it’s kept silent about the ludicrous sham in Myanmar.

This can only damage our vaunted democratic credentials and lower our standing in South East Asia. Nothing that the junta in Myanmar has done or may do to restrain and curb militant groups that act in our north east warrants our silence and justifies the impact on our country’s image. Indeed, as a neighbour with Myanmar’s best interests in mind, we should be supporting the forces that stand for democracy.

Once upon a time, when we gave Suu Kyi the Nehru Prize, we did. But in later years we distanced or, at least, lessened our support. When she came to power in 2015 she said that had hurt her. After all, India is like her second home.  She studied at the Convent of Jesus and Mary and Lady Shri Ram College. But she was willing to overlook this slight. Are we now repeating the mistake all over again?

One day Myanmar will regain its lost democracy. Military rule cannot last indefinitely. But when that happy day dawns will it’s people look upon India as a firm friend that stood by them in their years of trauma and tribulation or as a neighbour that closed it’s eyes to keep it’s peace with the country’s dictators?