3 months ago
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Five years aft the February 1, 2021 coup, Myanmar’s subject sought to manufacture governmental normalcy done elections held successful 3 phases betwixt precocious December 2025 and January 2026. Predictably, the military-aligned Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) won. The result was hardly a astonishment since voting was permitted successful lone 265 of the country’s 330 townships, with a controlled governmental participation.
Polling was mostly confined to municipality wards, arsenic astir agrarian areas stay nether absorption influence. The junta claimed an wide elector turnout of astir 55% — astir 13.14 cardinal of 24 cardinal eligible voters. This crisp decline, from the astir 70% turnout recorded successful 2015 and 2020, reflects not elector apathy, but wide rejection of a military-scripted governmental exercise.
The credibility shortage was compounded by the junta-appointed Union Election Commission dissolving respective absorption parties, including the National League for Democracy (NLD), the Arakan National Party, and the Shan Nationalities League for Democracy, with elder leaders jailed. Senior General Min Aung Hlaing fielded dozens of serving and retired subject figures nether the USDP banner, which has present claimed sweeping victories. The caller Parliament is slated to beryllium formed wrong 2 months.
Elections amidst war; India’s response
Since the coup, astatine slightest 7,738 people, including activists, journalists, and civilians, person been killed, portion implicit 30,000 person been arrested. Of these, 22,767 stay successful detention, including NLD person Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and erstwhile president U Win Myint, and 11,497 person been sentenced, often connected politically motivated charges. More than 1,13,000 houses and structures person been destroyed, peculiarly successful Sagaing and Magway.
The regime’s brutality has fuelled the maturation of absorption groups, notably the People’s Defence Forces, which present run alongside long-established taste equipped organisations and power ample swathes of territory, including 91 towns.
Despite the elections, these groups exert important influence, constraining the USDP and suggesting that the struggle is apt to intensify.
For India, Myanmar is some a strategical neighbour and a gateway to Southeast Asia, important for its Act East Policy. The elections, therefore, proceed to airs a long-standing dilemma for New Delhi’s information and connectivity interests, without legitimising a profoundly contested governmental mechanism.
In repeated statements successful December 2025 and January 2026, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal has reiterated that India supports Myanmar’s antiauthoritarian modulation and that immoderate electoral process indispensable beryllium free, just and inclusive, with the information of each governmental stakeholders. This cautiously calibrated connection reflects India’s effort to uphold antiauthoritarian principles portion avoiding a implicit diplomatic rupture with Naypyitaw. During the aforesaid period, New Delhi besides clarified that immoderate Indians who had visited Myanmar during the predetermination process had done truthful successful their idiosyncratic capacity, signalling a region and lack from the governmental exercise.
High-level engagement has continued alongside this calibrated rhetoric. On the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) gathering successful August 2025, Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Senior General Min Aung Hlaing to reappraisal bilateral ties and research avenues for cooperation. While reiterating India’s readiness to enactment Myanmar’s developmental needs, the Prime Minister besides emphasised the value of conducting free, fair, and inclusive elections involving each stakeholders. The connection was clear: engagement would continue, but without explicit governmental endorsement.
Amidst this, India has continued to play its humanitarian relation by sending alleviation teams, humanitarian and aesculapian assistance, and the constitution of a impermanent tract infirmary nether Operation Brahma during the March 2025 earthquake, which allowed New Delhi to stay engaged portion avoiding legitimisation of the regime.
Implications for India
Myanmar shares a 1,643-kilometre borderline with 4 of India’s northeastern States, making instability crossed the frontier inseparable from India’s interior security. Violence and authorities illness person already triggered exile inflows into the nation. India presently hosts 90,100 displaced Myanmar nationals successful Mizoram and Manipur. The lack of a coherent nationalist exile argumentation places disproportionate burdens connected State governments, frankincense exposing faultlines successful this respect. Continued post-election instability is apt to prolong specified movements.
Indian-backed projects, including the Kaladan Multi-Modal Transit Transport Project and the India-Myanmar-Thailand Trilateral Highway, person faced repeated delays owed to insecurity successful conflict-affected regions. The junta’s claims of post-election normalisation volition beryllium hard to construe into improved implementation conditions, forcing New Delhi to reassess timelines, hazard vulnerability and engagement strategies.
Moreover, transnational information threats — for instance, the proliferation of narcotics and quality trafficking networks — person accelerated amid weakened borderline controls and fragmented authority. Of peculiar interest is the accelerated enlargement of cyber scam centres and cyber slavery networks operating successful borderline struggle zones successful Myanmar, from wherever 2,165 Indians person been rescued since 2022, but much inactive stay wrong the shackles. These developments contiguous emerging non-traditional information challenges, underscoring the request for coordinated and clearer home and determination argumentation responses.
The way for New Delhi
As occidental and determination blocs specified arsenic the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) garbage to recognise the predetermination outcomes for now, it becomes indispensable for India to support its balanced approach. New Delhi is apt to prolong constricted engagement with the authorities successful powerfulness to support halfway interests, portion simultaneously maintaining contacts with section actors, which it has already been doing successful caller times.
Myanmar’s elections have, therefore, not marked a turning point. For India, they underline a hard truth: managing relations with a fractured neighbour volition necessitate balancing principles with pragmatism — astatine a clip erstwhile neither offers an casual exit.
Harsh V. Pant is Vice-President, Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi. Sreeparna Banerjee is Associate Fellow, Neighbourhood Studies, Observer Research Foundation
