THE HINDU
Suresh Seshadri
Updated:
March 15, 2019
Layered insights into Myanmar, one of our least understood neighbours
Myanmar, as Burma has come to be known since 1989, has been in the news in recent years for the persecution of the Bengali-speaking Muslim Rohingya and the crackdown on media coverage of happenings in southwestern Rakhine State.
Its civilian leader, State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, has fallen from grace in the eyes of the global community. From having been a Nobel Peace Prize-winning symbol of quiet defiance against the nation’s repressive military junta, to now being seen as an apologist for the army’s ‘genocidal’ excesses in Rakhine, the leader of the National League for Democracy remains an enigma, like her country, to most people. It is against this backdrop that Abhijit Dutta’s brilliantly researched and constructed Myanmar in the World — Journeys Through A Changing Burma is set. The book makes for a compelling read, offering as it does deep and layered insights into one of our least known and understood neighbours; and the crucial pivot for India’s ‘Look East Policy’.
