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This chapter examines the Burmese project of ethnic, cultural, and religious homogeneity in the city of Naypyidaw, established as a capital by the military regime aiming to make Burman-ness a stand-in for an all-embracing national identity. Here the military regimes attempted to recreate the Burman kingdoms of old and to reimagine Burma as if much of the country's recent history never happened. To explain the political implications and consequences of establishing a new capital in Naypyidaw, as well as the regime's subsequent project of “Burmanisation” or forced acculturation, the chapter points to the characters of the two generals who have dominated Burma since 1962, Ne Win and Than Shwe, the latter being the founder of Naypyidaw.

The relationship between Ava and Pegu was a symbiotic dualism: of time, space and type. Ava was not only a reformulation of something old, and Pegu, the genesis of something new, but as one was located in the agrarian Dry Zone and the other, on the commercial coasts, each was historically, materially, and in terms of general character, distinct. Whereas the Kingdom of Ava was essentially the resurrection of an old kingdom—Pagan writ small—Pegu was a new kingdom composed of new leaders, people, and cultures. Ava was a familiar, Upper Myanmar polity: the same material environment and demographic base, the same economic, social and political institutions, the same language, writing system, cosmology, and culture. Pegu, on the other hand, was a new, independent kingdom of Lower Myanmar, led by newcomers (the Mon speakers) who had migrated from what later became Thailand. Yet, because both Ava and Pegu were built on the same foundations (Pagan), both had certain common elements. They shared virtually the same religion and thought systems; similar social customs, values, and mores; familiar political and administrative principles; a common, even if contested, history; and certainly the same writing system. Whatever the dissimilarities were, they did not produce a binary situation of two irreconcilably antagonistic ethnic entities—Burman and Mon as convention has it—rather, these dissimilarities created a dualism of geo-political and cultural differences whose energy and dynamism came from the tension created precisely by those differences. In fact, Ava and Pegu’s relationship not only epitomized Southeast Asia’s “upstream-downstream” paradigm common throughout much of its history, it continues today in Naypyidaw and Yangon.

The search for greater connectivity with Southeast Asia is driving the evolution of the relationship between India and Myanmar. A partnership with Naypyidaw could help India’s integration with the more dynamic economies of Southeast Asia as well as with the dynamic Yunnan province in China. In doing so, India also expects to contain China’s influence in Myanmar. Transport infrastructure projects, including the Kaladan Multi-Modal Transit Transport Project, are being developed in Myanmar that may help India achieve its objectives. But numerous obstacles including ethnic conflicts in the country as well as relative mistrust between New Delhi and Naypyidaw may inhibit regional integration through Myanmar. India moreover faces competition from countries with much larger capacities such as Japan and the United States, which on one hand may help diminish China’s influence but also diminish the political space available for India.