Myanmar's multiple stakeholders for aid

The March 28 earthquake in Myanmar couldn’t have come at a worse time for India’s embattled neighbour in the grip of civil war since 2021. India, China and ASEAN were the first responders, sending relief supplies in the form of Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR) materials, and forces for disaster management. The West has been slow to respond, stating its reluctance to give aid to a military junta that took power in a coup in 2021, and which has been sanctioned for over five decades now.

There’s an irony to this. On March 21, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, the head of State and of the Tatmadaw, as the Myanmar military is called, had acknowledged at the ‘Forum on Myanmar Beyond 2025: Challenges and Opportunities in the Multipolar World’ held in Naypyidaw, that sanctions were ruining the country. Immediately after the March 28 earthquake, for the first time since the 2021 coup, the General sought international humanitarian aid in response to the earthquake that has devastated the country.[1]

This is significant because within Southeast Asia, Myanmar is one of the most vulnerable countries to tropical cyclones and seismic activities along the Bay of Bengal coastline and the Sagaing Fault in the Ahnyar region (central dry zone in Sagaing Region) respectively[2]. Since the first military coup in 1962, the country has been affected by at least 29 tropical cyclones and 24 earthquakes; yet the Tatmadaw had been reluctant to allow international aid following these natural calamities.

With the exception of the decade of ‘discipline-flourishing democracy’- featuring a delicate power-sharing between the Tatmadaw and the Aung San Suu Kyi-led National League for Democracy (NLD) between 2011 and 2020 – the decades of Burmese socialism between 1962 and 1988 which ostracised the country from international developmental and relief aid has adversely affected the country’s disaster preparedness, [3] rendering it vulnerable.[4] Since the 2017 atrocities on the Rohingya in northern Rakhine state and their migration to Bangladesh, much of the Western aid for strengthening civil society organisations and youth and women-led initiatives that flowed into Myanmar since 2012 was diverted to Bangladesh. This negatively impacted the pace of economic development in the NLD’s quasi-civilian administration.

The period after the 2021 coup has been marked by violence and civil war, crippling Myanmar’s economy. Countries like the U.S., EU, UK, have imposed bilateral sanctions on the State Administration Council (SAC) – the military’s government – and also individuals in the Tatmadaw leadership, the Central Bank of Myanmar and state-run companies like the Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE). It has constrained hundreds of millions of dollars in gas revenues and disrupted Myanmar’s access to international financial systems.[5]

The fault lines in the country’s administrative and diplomatic landscape are now completely exposed. Post the 2021 coup, there are now multiple stakeholders in Myanmar. This includes the SAC, the exiled National Unity Government (NUG), People’s Democratic Forces (PDFs), People’s Liberation Army (PLA), Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) and militias like the Pyu Saw Htee in the Ahnyar region. Additionally, several Ethnic Armed Organisations (EAOs) and Ethnic Revolutionary Organisations (EROs) like the Arakan Army (AA), Kachin Independence Army (KIA) and the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) operate along Myanmar’s fragile borderlands.[6]

Each of these occupy different parts of Myanmar, leaving the country’s neighbours and the international community concerned about which stakeholder to engage with for provision of humanitarian relief, particularly those areas beyond the writ of the SAC and in non-SAC administered areas.

India shares a 1,634-km-long border with the Sagaing region, and the Kachin, Rakhine and the Chin states of Myanmar. Since the early 1990s, domestic politics in northeastern India and regional contestation with China in Southeast Asia forced India to depart from its traditional policy of supporting democratisation in the neighbouring country.[7] India’s recognition of, and constructive engagement with, the Tatmadaw leadership was also visible in its abstention from a U.N Security Council resolution criticising Myanmar’s military in 2022.[8]

In the aftermath of the recent earthquake, India was among the first responders through Operation Brahma to provide aid – cautiously channeling all official relief through the SAC. It gives Senior General Min Aung Hlaing control over relief materials that are critical to rescue operations and rehabilitation. Should India have solely disbursed its aid through the SAC when the regions impacted on the Indo-Myanmar borders are also administered by other stakeholders, further exacerbating the humanitarian situation? Reports have emerged about SAC aerial attacks in northern Shan State and Sagaing Region amid ongoing rescue efforts and power outages.

In the absence of a mechanism for relief distribution to affected areas, India’s “good neighbourly” policy demands serious scrutiny. There is a way. In November 2024, the Indian Council of World Affairs (ICWA) hosted a 17-member delegation from Myanmar to foster dialogue and consultations on a Myanmar-owned and Myanmar-led solution to the ongoing conflict.[9] Once again, India can provide a consultative platform for Myanmar and the international community, to ensure aid supplies are available to all major stakeholders in the country, and offer relief to a devastated land.

Dipannita Maria Bagh is a Researcher, International Law Studies Programme, Gateway House.

This article was exclusively written for Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations. You can read more exclusive content here.

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References:

[1] Myanmar junta asks for international aid after earthquake, Mizzima, 28 March 2025. https://eng.mizzima.com/2025/03/28/20560

[2] Myanmar: Natural hazard statistics, Climate Change Knowledge Portal. https://climateknowledgeportal.worldbank.org/country/myanmar/vulnerability

[3] Kyungmee Kim, Katongo Seyuba, Nadine Andersen, Kheira Tarif, Thor Olav Iversen, Ingvild Brox Brodtkorb, ‘Climate, peace and security factsheet’, Norsk Utenrikspolitisk Institutt, 2024. https://www.nupi.no/news/climate-peace-and-security-fact-sheet-myanmar#

[4] ‘Myanmar’s enduring polycrisis: Four years into a tumultuous journey,’ United Nations Development Programme, 27 January 2025. https://www.undp.org/asia-pacific/publications/myanmars-enduring-polycrisis-four-years-into-a-tumultuous-journey#

[5] Myanmar junta leader admits sanctions impact, seeks economic solution, Mizzima, 23 March 2025. https://eng.mizzima.com/2025/03/23/20365

[6] Purvi Patel, Charuta Ghadyalpatil, India-Myanmar: Borderland Dynamics, Gateway House, 31 October, 2024. https://www.gatewayhouse.in/india-myanmar-borderland-dynamics/

[7] Renaud Egreteau, Wooing the generals: India’s new Burma policy, Author Press, 2003.

[8] Suhasini Haidar, India abstains from UNSC vote on Myanmar, calls for constructive diplomacy, The Hindu, 23 December 2022. https://www.thehindu.com/news/india-china-russia-abstain-on-unsc-resolution-on-myanmar/article66291314.ece

[9] Kallol Bhattacherjee, Talks with Myanmar junta and rebels will help find a “Myanmar-led and Myanmar-owned solution to conflict: MEA, The Hindu, 7 November 2024. https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/talks-with-myanmar-junta-and-rebels-will-help-find-a-myanmar-led-and-myanmar-owned-solution-to-conflict-mea/article68842331.ece#