Min Aung Hlaing begins India visit

Myanmar’s military leader Min Aung Hlaing arrived in India on Saturday for a five-day visit that began at the Mahabodhi temple in Bodh Gaya, according to The Independent and India’s foreign ministry. It is his first trip to India since 2019 and his first foreign visit since becoming Myanmar’s president after a military-backed election held after the 2021 coup.

The itinerary is heavy on symbolism and light on concessions. India’s foreign ministry framed the trip as an expression of “spiritual, historical, and people-to-people ties,” and the visit began at one of Buddhism’s most important pilgrimage sites. But the substantive meetings matter more: Min Aung Hlaing is expected to hold talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and also meet President Droupadi Murmu, The Independent reports. For a leader whose officials have been kept away from ASEAN summits after the coup, photographs in New Delhi function as a substitute for formal regional rehabilitation.

India has largely kept channels open with Myanmar’s generals despite Western sanctions and diplomatic isolation, and the reasons are concrete. The two countries share a long land border, and New Delhi has an ongoing security relationship with Myanmar’s military focused on insurgent groups and intelligence-sharing in frontier areas. Trade routes and resource access sit behind the protocol language: former Indian ambassador Gautam Mukhopadhaya told The Independent that India’s interest includes raw materials and rare earths, a sector where China dominates much of the regional supply chain. Myanmar, meanwhile, has tried to balance between its two key neighbours while relying heavily on China’s influence.

The timing also reflects the junta’s vulnerabilities at home. Myanmar’s civil war has displaced millions, according to the United Nations, and fighting has shifted around trade corridors and resource areas. The Independent notes offensives in Kachin, Chin and Karen states as the military seeks to regain territory lost to resistance forces, with clashes reported near rare-earth mining areas and major routes linking Myanmar with India, China and Thailand. When a government’s control is contested on the ground, foreign visits become one of the few arenas where it can still look like a normal state.

Aung San Suu Kyi’s continued detention hangs over any claim to political normalisation. The military barred her party from contesting the election that installed the current leadership, and voting was cancelled in several conflict-affected regions, according to The Independent. The government has said her sentence was reduced in an amnesty and that she was moved to house arrest, while not disclosing her location.

Min Aung Hlaing’s first stop in India was a temple visit in Bihar. His most consequential stop is likely to be the meeting room, where border security and access to minerals can be discussed without mentioning the prisoner whose whereabouts are still officially undisclosed.