New Delhi: Mohammed Salim is watching a video of Myanmar’s Senior General Min Aung Hlaing shaking hands with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, with a dozen cameras flashing at them, capturing their smiles. The video is from their bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in China in August 2025 — one of the few international fora where Myanmar’s isolated junta leader has appeared since the 2021 coup he led. Barred from ASEAN, unwelcome across much of the region and wanted by international courts for atrocity crimes against the Rohingya, Min Aung Hlaing’s limited travels only sharpen Salim’s discomfort.Salim’s day begins at 7 am, picking up waste plastic from various colonies and dumpsters in Delhi. Though Salim graduated with a degree in political science from Myanmar, his life in India is largely governed by the status his existence has been reduced to – a Rohingya refugee. Salim fled Rakhine State in 2015, years before the military’s 2017 campaign that drove more than 700,000 Rohingya into Bangladesh. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights later described those operations as a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing”, a characterisation echoed by UN Special Rapporteur Tom Andrews in 2025. The Rohingya have been rendered stateless under Myanmar’s citizenship laws since the 1980s — a condition that shapes every part of their lives. Rohingya people like Salim have been stripped of their rights, including the right to vote.Today, as he breathes amid garbage to make ends meet, even in his country of asylum the shadow of Min Aung Hlaing reminds him of the home, the family members and the identity of belonging to Myanmar which was robbed off of him.Scripted ‘democracy’ dramaMyanmar’s military regime has portrayed the December 28, 2025 general elections, the first in a three-stage process extending into January 2026, as a return to “disciplined democracy”. In reality, the vote is unfolding under the junta’s control: the National League for Democracy has been dissolved nationwide, its leaders imprisoned or in exile, electoral laws rewritten, political parties handpicked, and large parts of the population displaced. As of March, 2025, more than 3.6 million people are internally displaced within Myanmar.The vote is staggered largely because the military does not control the entire country. Across vast stretches of Sagaing, Chin, Kayah and Rakhine, resistance authorities and ethnic armed organisations govern areas inaccessible to the regime. Even where polling stations exist, movement is restricted, surveillance is pervasive, and entire communities have been uprooted.But these elections, though deeply skewered, have won the support of the Narendra Modi government. Prime Minister Modi has repeatedly said he “hopes” the polls will be fair, inclusive and involve all stakeholders, language that stops short of questioning the junta’s legitimacy but signals acceptance of its political roadmap. In his meetings with Min Aung Hlaing, Modi has stressed that there is “no military solution” to Myanmar’s conflict and has urged a “Myanmar-led, Myanmar-owned” transition through credible elections, a formulation echoed by the Ministry of External Affairs in official readouts. India has been in continuous talks with Myanmar on the elections. On December 15, India’s Ambassador to Myanmar, Abhay Thakur, and Military Attaché Jaswinder Singh Gill met Myanmar’s military No. 3, General Kyaw Swar Lin, in Naypyitaw.Angshuman Choudhary, a researcher and writer from Assam who works on Myanmar and Northeast India, views India’s support to the junta and its sham elections as not surprising, as it has been maintaining formal relations with the military regime since the 2021 coup.Choudhary, currently doing his doctoral studies jointly at the National University of Singapore and King’s College London, told The Wire, “India has also been engaging with some resistance groups, including the NUG [National Unity Government], but the thinking in Delhi very much favours a conservative policy of engaging with whoever is in power in Naypyidaw. This is primarily to maintain privileged access among the old military elite in Myanmar and also counterbalance China’s rapidly rising influence in the country.” But, he says, as the region’s largest federal democracy, India’s support for the junta does betray its own professed values of democracy, peacebuilding and harmony.Rohingya refugees working as wastepickers in New Delhi. Photo: Tarushi AswaniIn recent months, the Myanmar military has intensified its attacks on civilians, relying heavily on airstrikes across resistance-held regions. On October 28, 2025, a junta airstrike on a school in Kachin State killed students and teachers, underscoring a pattern of deliberate assaults on non-combatants. Independent monitors record such violence almost daily: the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) documents thousands of civilians killed or detained since the coup on its public dashboard, while UN reports warn that airstrikes in Sagaing, Chin and Kachin have driven mass displacement and rising civilian casualties. Against this backdrop, India has not stated whether it will recognise the results of the junta-run elections — a crucial question, as the military intends to use foreign acknowledgment to recast itself as a “civilian government”, even while continuing its attacks.India’s hardened stance on the RohingyaSabber Kyaw Min is one of the thousands of Rohingya refugees who once called India his home. Min, who fled Myanmar 20 years ago, has seen India turning hostile towards his own kind, with zero safeguards to insulate their being. According to UNHCR, around 23,300 Rohingya people live in India as of mid 2025, though community members estimate the number could be significantly higher.Historically, India provided space — if not formal asylum — to generations of people fleeing Myanmar, including those who escaped the 1988 military crackdown. But under the Modi government, that posture has hardened. Rohingya community leaders and rights groups report a rise in detentions, restrictions on movement, and growing fear of deportation, particularly after 2023. “For Rohingya, India has become frightening,” says Min, founder of the Rohingya Human Rights Initiative in Delhi. “Earlier, we could survive with difficulty. Now the hostility — from authorities and from the public — is increasing.”The fear intensified after a chilling incident in May 2025, when around 40 Rohingya — some holding UNHCR refugee cards — were allegedly forced by Indian authorities onto a naval vessel near the Andaman Islands and ordered to jump into the sea toward Myanmar. They survived the swim, but their whereabouts remain unknown. Rights groups called the act a grave violation of the principle of non-refoulement. After this, the Rohingya in India began feeling an increased sense of vulnerability, and with Modi batting for the junta’s elections, their fears are growing multifold.“India is making it clear that we are not wanted,” Min says. For him, the junta’s elections are a distraction tactic: “If they wanted democracy, they would resolve the Rohingya crisis first — restore citizenship, deliver justice, stop the violence. Instead, they commit war crimes and then hold a vote.” He estimates that the military has lost around 70% of territorial control, though such figures are contested.Children of Rohingya refugees in New Delhi. Photo: Tarushi AswaniMin believes these elections are intended to divert the attention of the international community, especially as increasing pressure is being placed on the regime and as the world focuses on the pain and suffering of the Rohingya community. He argues that the military is far weaker than it claims, saying he “estimates” the junta has lost control of roughly 70% of the country — a figure that is difficult to verify and widely debated among analysts, given the fluid nature of frontline shifts and the lack of independent access. What is clear, however, is that large stretches of Sagaing, Chin, Kayah and parts of Rakhine remain beyond the military’s administrative reach, with resistance groups and ethnic armed organisations running parallel systems that make a uniform, nationwide election impossible.According to him and the several Rohingya refugees he has met over the years, “Such a military cannot be trusted to oversee a fair election.”Regarding the human impact of the junta’s offensives in Myanmar, Kim Jolliffe, an independent researcher who specialises in security, development and humanitarian affairs in Myanmar, told The Wire that this causes huge challenges for the region. “Neighbouring countries have become adept at keeping a lid on the most immediate shocks through local response and strict regulations on accepting refugees and migrants. But over the medium- and long-term, the region suffers greatly due to expansion of transnational crime and human trafficking networks linked to junta-backed militia, narcotics production and trafficking, reduced trade, public health issues and many other strains on human development,” Jolliffe explained.Ergonomic economicsIndia’s policy toward Myanmar is shaped by a combination of geography, security dependence and economic interests that do not always align. The two countries share a 1,600-km border, and for decades New Delhi has relied on cooperation with the Myanmar military to manage insurgencies in India’s northeast — a relationship that has included the sale of military hardware such as heavy torpedoes, sonar systems and naval equipment, as well as training support for Tatmadaw officers. These ties continued even after the 2021 coup.Alongside defence engagement, India has continued pushing strategic connectivity projects. The Kaladan Multi-Modal Transit Transport Project aims to link India’s landlocked northeast to the Bay of Bengal via Myanmar, combining sea, river and road routes through Rakhine and Chin states. The India-Myanmar-Thailand Trilateral Highway, meanwhile, is designed to connect Manipur to Thailand via central Myanmar, forming a backbone for India’s Act East trade ambitions. Both projects have stalled repeatedly due to conflict but remain central to New Delhi’s long-term regional strategy.At the same time, India has received more than 65,000 Myanmar nationals displaced by fighting since 2021, adding to older waves of exiles who fled after the 1988 crackdown, some of whom were eventually granted citizenship. Yet the current government has taken a sharper turn: border controls have tightened, a 1,600-km fence is being accelerated, and incidents such as the June 2025 killing of Myanmar rebels by Indian forces near the border have heightened fears within refugee communities. These overlapping security, economic and political pressures illuminate why New Delhi engages the junta even as the humanitarian fallout grows.India’s economic stakes in Myanmar have quietly grown even through the post-coup collapse. Bilateral trade, which reached $1.74 billion in 2023–24, is expected to go up to $2.1 billion in FY 2024–25. According to India’s MEA, a rupee-kyat settlement mechanism has been set up to reduce reliance on the dollar and ease cross-border trade. Indian investment is also significant: as per Myanmar government data, $782.8 million has been approved across 39 Indian companies operating in sectors like pharmaceuticals, energy, textiles and manufacturing. Additionally, New Delhi has committed Lines of Credit and grants worth hundreds of millions of dollars to infrastructure and connectivity projects.A Rohingya refugee camp in New Delhi. Photo: Tarushi AswaniBut perhaps most strategically, India’s interest in Myanmar’s rare earth minerals is sharpening. Northern Myanmar, especially Kachin State, is rich in heavy rare earths like dysprosium and terbium, critical for renewable tech and defence. These deposits are increasingly controlled by non-state actors such as the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), and New Delhi has initiated direct engagement: the Ministry of Mines is reportedly working with both state-run and private firms to source samples from KIA-held mines. There are more than 370 active mining sites and thousands of leaching ponds in Kachin, most of which expanded after the 2021 coup. As a result, India’s engagement has become fragmented and transactional: New Delhi maintains formal ties with the military government while also exploring indirect or technical channels to access resources in non-state-controlled areas — a reflection of its broader hedging strategy amid Myanmar’s fragmentation.Ultimately, Jolliffe believes, the junta is only interested in its own survival and profit, and has no realistic plan to ever restabilise the country. He added that the constant war suits the regime as long as it still has access to global finance and arms trade and a moderate degree of international recognition and legitimacy. “It can achieve this through constant bombing and terrorising of civilians to prevent revolutionary groups from consolidating their areas and launching more advanced offensives,” Jolliffe told The Wire.On this, Joanne Lin, co-coordinator at the ASEAN Studies Centre, ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute, feels that India’s calculus is ultimately driven by pragmatism. Lin explains that New Delhi recognises that its connectivity and economic interests – i.e. the Kaladan project, cross-border trade corridors and broader Act East ambitions – are tightly intertwined with whatever stability it can extract from Myanmar’s deteriorating situation.Lin also expands on how ongoing border clashes, refugee inflows into Mizoram and Manipur, and the risk of spillover mean that India cannot afford a policy of outright disengagement. “This is especially so when China’s footprint is expanding in the vacuum. Even though India is fully aware that the junta’s election will be deeply flawed and lack credibility, it views the exercise as at least a potential inflection point, after years of paralysis, an imperfect process that might create marginal room for recalibration, rather than a solution in itself. In that sense, New Delhi’s engagement is not an endorsement of the roadmap, but a pragmatic hedge in an environment where there are hardly any alternative solutions,” Lin said.For refugees like Salim and Min, New Delhi’s diplomatic calculus is not abstract. It shapes whether they are seen as people or problems. In the end, India’s embrace of the junta’s election script says less about Myanmar’s future than its own. How New Delhi balances power and principle will decide which image endures.This article is produced under the ANFREL Media Fellowship on Election Reporting.