Parrikar's swipe at Pakistan aside, Myanmar strike delivers unpleasant PR lesson for Modi govt

A day after the Minister of State Rajyavardhan Rathore’s over the top bluster  made headlines after the Indian Army’s operation against militant camps in Myanmar, the government has been quickly forced into dialling down the rhetoric. The reason: instant backlash from not just Pakistan but also Myanmar.

India’s normally outspoken defence minister Manohar Parrikar tried to deflect some of the criticism from Pakistan.

“Those who fear India’s new posture have started reacting,” Parrikar said at an event on Thursday.

But even while praising the Indian Army’s operation, he stayed well clear of controversy by refusing to go into the details of it. It was a wise decision.

Likely furious at the attempt to paint the operation as a symbol of Indian muscle, Myanmar government on Wednesday strongly denied reports that Indian army forces had crossed its border to carry out the operation.

In a Facebook post Wednesday Zaw Htay, director of Myanmar’s presidential office, wrote, “According to the information sent by Tatmadaw (Myanmar army) battalions on the ground, we have learned that the military operation was performed on the Indian side at India-Myanmar border.”

“Myanmar will not accept any foreigner who attacks neighbouring countries in the back and creates problems by using our own territory,” he added, however.

Despite an agreement between the two nations, the response from Myanmar comes as no surprise given it doesn’t want to be seen as country that will compromise on its territorial integrity.

The response from Myanmar was also in keeping with the official statement of the Indian Army which merely stated that its forces had engaged with militants “along the Indo- Myanmar border at two locations along the Nagaland and Manipur borders”,  but did not mention having crossed it. It was Rathore who played up the fact that the operation had taken place in Myanmar territory.

“And it involved our Special Forces crossing the border and going deep into another country,” Rathore had told the Indian Express.   It was Rathore who led the PR effort to paint the operation as an expression of Indian machismo, employing hashtags on Twitter such as #ManipurRevenge and #56inchRocks. And he is the one who enhanced the significance of one strike, drawing Pakistan into the picture, declaring, “This is a message for all countries, including Pakistan, and groups harbouring terror intent towards India. A terrorist is a terrorist and has no other identity. We will strike when we want to.”

Worse, it now turns out that Rathore wasn’t just another motormouth in the Modi sarkar who made incautious statements without sanction. According to an Express article published today,

“When the government decided to field Minister of State for Information & Broadcasting Rajyavardhan Rathore Tuesday night to talk about the Indian Army’s strike on terrorist camps in Myanmar, it was because it felt he could send the message across louder and clearer than the Army could. Sources said a political intervention was felt necessary at the “highest level” and that’s how Rathore, a retired Army colonel, was chosen to give out details the Army couldn’t.”

Nothing that Rathore shared with the media was a coincidence. He was part of a deliberate PR effort on the part of the government to claim political credit for the military operation.

Unfortunately, the move backfired. The careful diplomatic groundwork laid by Indian officials with Myanmar to make the raid possible turned to naught in the chest-beating that followed afterwards. The Indian government is now in the postion of being publicly contradicted by its own ally – even as Indian officials have been instructed to convey their gratitude to Myanmar for its cooperation.

But it’s not just Myanmar that’s seething over our government’s rhetoric. Pakistan expectedly didn’t take too kindly to Rathore’s statements that barely concealed which nation India could target next.

Pakistani Interior Minister Nisar Khan said that it should be clear to India that “Pakistan is not a country like Myanmar”.

“Those having ill designs against Pakistan should listen carefully that our security forces are capable of matching response to any adventurism,” he said.

Pakistan would never accept India hegemony and that the “Indian leaders should stop day dreaming”, Khan said, adding that they would not be cowed down by threats.

The resultant diplomatic furore has led to further backpedalling with the Modi government telling its officials to tone it down.   According to the Times of India , “Sources said although the Modi government had responded to provocations from Pakistan by using disproportionate force, it does not want to create an impression that it is spoiling for a confrontation.”

The Indian Army’s no stranger to covert operations across borders and has in the past crossed the border in Myanmar to strike at Indian militant groups camped there. As this DNA report points out , in January 2006, the Indian Army attacked the same militant group in Myanmar after striking a deal for arms supply to the Myanmar Army. But none of these operations were ever tom-tommed in public by the government.

The Modi sarkar in hot pursuit of publicity may have complicated further such operations. According to the Telegraph , the Indian ambassador to Myanmar spent most of yesterday in a series of meetings with Myanmar officials: “By late evening, an official said, Mukhopadhyay had been told by the Myanmarese authorities they were unhappy with the ‘way the operation had been presented’.”

Simply decoded, it means that if the Indian Army wants to go into Myanmar the next time round, it may not get a warm welcome from the Myanmar Army.

The bottomline is that the government was tempted of portraying the Myanmar strike as a Osama-like helicopters carrying special forces deep into another nation’s territory to punish terrorists, without the full knowledge or cooperation of the local government and without a single military loss of life. The desire to paint a Modi-led India into a take-no-prisoners nation that acts unilaterally and without apology undermined what was, in essence, a sound military operation. As Firstpost’s R Jagannathan pointed out , the operation is just the first in what is likely a long-term strategy which may well be hugely effective in combatting terrorism. But to turn one strike into a chest-thumping PR exercise is “unwarranted and counter-productive.”

with inputs from agencies

(Editor’s note: The copy was modified from its original version to incorporate Defence minister Manohar Parrikar’s statement on Thursday)