India’s Inhumanity Fuels Junta’s Terror

In the last two months, India has significantly deepened its complicity in the Myanmar military junta’s atrocity crimes, while also committing gross human rights violations itself against Myanmar people, including Rohingya refugees. India’s approach to Myanmar’s junta-caused crisis is beyond problematic—it is murderous. If genuinely interested in ensuring regional peace and security, as well as growing its influence as the world’s largest democracy and a major economic power, India must change course immediately. First and foremost, India must cease all expulsions and deportations to Myanmar, as well as cut all ties with and support to the junta.

On 6 May, the Indian government detained around 40 Rohingya refugees in Delhi to forcibly remove them from India. Days later, the Indian navy violently forced the refugees into the Andaman Sea, making them swim for their lives. The UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, Tom Andrews, condemned this violent expulsion of Rohingya as “unconscionable” and “what appears to be a blatant disregard for the lives and safety of those who require international protection.”

 On 8 May, in response to a petition challenging this inhuman deportation of Rohingya refugees, India’s Supreme Court ruled that the right to reside in India is reserved for its citizens only, emphasizing that this right does not extend to Rohingya people living in India without legal status. The court also declined to intervene in this deportation of Rohingya refugees to their homeland of Myanmar, despite the ongoing genocide against them there. India is also boasting about its policy and practice of pushing back Rohingya and other Myanmar people fleeing the military junta’s persecution and violence, in blatant violation of the principle of non-refoulement—which is binding on all states under customary international law.  

In parallel, the Indian government has continued its political, military, technical, and financial support of the Myanmar military junta—the root cause of Myanmar refugees fleeing to India—sticking to its dangerous playbook further fueling the Myanmar crisis. In November 2024, the state-funded Indian Council of World Affairs hosted a delegation including junta representatives, allegedly “to reiterate India’s message about the need to end the fighting and to return to dialogue and diplomacy to find a way out.” This message is downright hypocritical and farcical, given that India has continued to supply the junta with arms, including through multiple shipments in 2024 and again in January 2025, when Bharat Electronics Limited—an Indian public sector aerospace and defense company—sent maritime surveillance equipment to the junta. 

What’s more, in the aftermath of the devastating Sagaing earthquake on 28 March 2025, the Indian government provided direct bilateral support to the junta, whose weaponization and obstruction of aid—coupled with ongoing aerial and ground attacks against civilians—has only exacerbated people’s suffering across the country. Around the same time in early April, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi engaged with junta leader Min Aung Hlaing at this year’s Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC), lending the junta false legitimacy and deepening India’s aiding and abetting of the junta’s crimes. This is all while the India-Myanmar-Thailand Trilateral Highway—which aims to expand India’s trade connectivity—remains stalled because of the junta’s violence, fueled by India.

Let’s be clear: Above all, India must cease sending any person back to Myanmar. This means no more deportations and no more pushbacks. Furthermore, in the words of India for Myanmar, India must “immediately and unconditionally release all Myanmar refugee detainees and cease all the plan[s] to transfer them to the hand[s] of Myanmar military junta and allow them to take refuge in India in accordance with the principle of non-refoulement.” 

At the same time, if India is truly a “steadfast supporter of democracy, peace and stability in Myanmar” as it so claims, India must immediately cut all ties with the military junta, and adopt an approach towards the Myanmar crisis grounded in dignity and respect for the rights of Myanmar people. In this regard, weapons sales and transfers, military assistance, junta-related development projects, and all other engagements with the junta must stop. The Indian government must further ensure that Indian companies follow suit by aligning their practices with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.  

By failing to take these concrete actions, India will only deepen its aiding and abetting of the junta’s atrocity crimes against the people. India’s inaction will also further harm its own economic interests, such as the India-Myanmar-Thailand Trilateral Highway, by enabling the junta’s violence to continue unabated.

In tandem, the Indian government must shift its official engagement to the legitimate representatives of the people of Myanmar—including the National Unity Government, Ethnic Resistance Organizations, as well as interim federal units and governance administrations—and support these legitimate bodies in building federal democracy from the ground up. Humanitarian aid must be channeled through these legitimate stakeholders and other trusted local responders, including civil society organizations and community-based organizations, to prevent further weaponization, obstruction, manipulation, and corruption of aid by the junta.

But as of now, India is still holding the blood-soaked hands of the murderous junta. And to what end? India’s own inhumanity is fueling the junta’s war of terror against Myanmar people, which only spells more violence and instability for the region. Going forward, in the true interest of regional stability and its regional economic ties, India must align its decisions with—and robustly support—the Myanmar people’s revolution to establish federal democracy, build a sustainable peace, and end military tyranny for good.

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[1] One year following the 1988 pro-democracy uprising, the former military junta changed the country’s name from Burma to Myanmar overnight. Progressive Voice uses the term ‘Myanmar’ in acknowledgement that most people of the country use this term. However, the deception of inclusiveness and the historical process of coercion by the former State Peace and Development Council military regime into usage of ‘Myanmar’ rather than ‘Burma’ without the consent of the people is recognized and not forgotten. Thus, under certain circumstances, ‘Burma’ is used.

Progressive Voice is a participatory, rights-based policy research and advocacy organization that was born out of Burma Partnership. Burma Partnership officially ended its work on October 10, 2016 transitioning to a rights-based policy research and advocacy organization called Progressive Voice. For further information, please see our press release “Burma Partnership Celebrates Continuing Regional Solidarity for Burma and Embraces the Work Ahead for Progressive Voice.”