New Delhi: A news report on The Wire, on the supply of ammunition by the government-owned Munitions India Limited (MIL) to Israel through the time that Gaza’s civilians were being bombed, has given India the dubious distinction of being associated with one of the worst ongoing theatres of war in Asia. There have been reports from Gaza of over 30,000 civilians, including children, being killed, maimed and displaced.
However, prior to the May 7 news report which uses publicly available data to establish how the government-owned Munitions India Limited (MIL) is supplying military goods to Israel which is pounding the Gaza strip, the Narendra Modi government was named in reports including one by a United Nations (UN) special rapporteur, for militarily equipping Myanmar’s notorious junta too. Junta’s military actions, both on the ground and by air on civilians of that country, have reportedly already killed nearly 5,000 and displaced over 2.5 million civilians.
In May last year, Tom Andrews, the United Nations special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, stated that Indian companies which included government-owned entities, supplied Rs 422 crore worth of arms and related material to Myanmar’s junta since it deposed the civilian government in February 2021. The report had categorically stated that junta used them “to commit atrocities” on civilians.
The report which took into account supplies till December 2022, also named Russia, China and Singapore, adding that “the military has killed a minimum of 3,500 civilians” and the number of political prisoners has swelled to 20,000.
“These weapons and the materials to manufacture more of them, have continued to flow uninterrupted to the Myanmar military despite overwhelming evidence of its (junta’s) responsibility for atrocity crimes,” the UN report had stated.
India, the world’s largest democracy, was shown to be the third largest supplier of arms and technology to the junta. The Modi government responded by stating that those supplies were met as per “prior commitments”.
Close on its heels, on June 21, 2023, a report based on an investigation carried out by Justice For Myanmar (JFM), a covert group of activists which has campaigned to “dismantle the Burmese military’s business practices and systemic corruption”, had named Indian public sector giant, Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL), as one of the suppliers of military end-use goods, technology and technical documents to the Junta between November 2022 and April 2023.
“BEL, which maintains a branch office in Myanmar, transferred the equipment knowing that the Myanmar military is the end user, and that it is committing ongoing war crimes and crimes against humanity with total impunity,” the group said.
The shipments made by BEL which is under India’s Ministry of Defence, “may aid and abet the junta’s international crimes” and are a “continuation of India’s flagrant disregard for its obligations under international human rights and humanitarian law and its commitments under the Wassenaar Arrangement”, JFM had said in a press note.
In October 2021, another JFM investigation showed that BEL sold “a gun mount and an optical device” to Myanmar in July of that year, about four months after Junta had seized power from the civilian government.
The report last year had said that the supply by BEL was uncovered through the database of Panjiva, a global trade data company that stores details of global commercial shipments.
In July 2023, in an open letter, JFM had urged French President Emmanuel Macron to raise concerns with Modi regarding the sale of arms and technology to the Junta during his visit to Paris.
This past April, in an interview to Deccan Herald, NUG’s acting president Duwa Lashi La, living somewhere in exile after the coup, said, “If India wants to put its words into practice and help its neighbours, we would urge it to stop providing any political legitimacy for the illegal Junta through bilateral or multilateral engagements. India should end all sales of weapons and related materials to the Junta. India is the third-largest military supplier to this Junta, which is only using those weapons to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity…”
Impact on India
In spite of military support by countries including India to the junta, several areas along the Myanmar-India border including towns like Paletwa that are key to India-funded projects in that country, have been snatched from them by militias supported by the NUG.
The war has also pushed a considerable number of refugees to flee to some northeastern Indian states bordering Myanmar. A May 6 report by The Mizoram Post has stated that as many as 40 young people from Myanmar have entered the Indian state because of a conscription bid by the Arakan Army fighting the junta.
India may be supplying ammunition to the Israeli military but thousands of Indian workers sent to that country as part of a bilateral agreement signed prior to its war, have been exposed to danger due to the ongoing war.. This past April, the Indian government had urged Israel to ensure their safety.
While in Myanmar, the Modi government’s military supply to the junta has made its elected government in exile to question the world’s largest democracy, in Israel too, similar actions have also affected India’s historic commitments in the region including to the state of Palestine.
