Introduction
Sri Lanka is undergoing catharsis after a resurgent
Sri Lankan army ended, on 19 May 2009, the twenty-five-year-long national
ordeal at the hands of Velupillai Prabhakaran and the LTTE. Since 1983 Sri Lanka
had waged war against the LTTE in three spells that ended in a stalemate. The
final victory came only in the fourth episode that started in mid-2006. The
victory has come at a great cost – the lives of nearly 24,000 soldiers, over
27,000 LTTE cadres and about 80,000 civilians. Millions of rupees worth of
infrastructure, material and habitations were destroyed.
At the macro
level, Sri Lanka’s success has demonstrated how a determined national
leadership can decisively defeat a strong, well-armed and globally networked
insurgent group. A dynamic military leadership managed to turn a demoralised
army into a winning force and regain control of over 16,000 sq km of territory
in more than eight districts. The Sinhala community’s ethnic pride, hurt by the
LTTE’s spectacular raid on Katunayake airbase in July 2001, destroying seventeen
aircraft, has been regained. The victory has also given rise to triumphalism
bordering on Sinhala chauvinism, and resurfacing of fundamentalist Buddhist
elements in politics. This appears to be affecting
the way Sri Lanka
looks at the unresolved issues of ethnic minorities, and global prescriptions
to resolve them.
The serial war effort has drained the country’s economy
and hobbled growth. Over 300,000 people of the Northern Province had become destitute, losing
everything – their kin, livelihood, land and housing. Billions of rupees worth
of infrastructure, public service facilities and housing have been destroyed,
often repeatedly. Over 90,000 women have been widowed. The trauma of the war-affected
is likely to linger on for quite a few years.
Sri Lanka’s
performance in the three years of peace has been a mixed success. The
rehabilitation effort has succeeded only partially because it has lacked
transparency and sensitivity to the aspirations of the Tamil minority. The root cause of the war – the feeling of inequity among the ethnic Tamil minority
population – still remains to be addressed. The visible presence of soldiers in
large numbers cramps the everyday life of the citizen. If this state of affairs
continues, Tamil Eelam has the potential to become a rallying call once again.
At the heart of it all is President Mahinda Rajapaksa.
As the chief architect of the military victory he has emerged as the unchallenged
national leader after he managed to neutralize General Sarath Fonseka, former
army commander, the other focal point of national adulation. Rajapaksa used his
immense popularity to get elected as President for a second six-year term in
2010. He reinforced his strength when he led the United People’s Freedom
Alliance (UPFA) to an unprecedented two-thirds majority in the parliamentary
poll in 2011. He used this massive strength in Parliament to pass the 18th
constitution amendment to remove the two-term limitation on the office of
President imposed by the previous amendment.
Rajapaksa runs the country with his two brothers –
Basil and Gotabaya – to execute his plans for national development and defence,
with a rubber-stamp parliament. By giving berths in the cabinet for the seventeen
parties of his coalition, he has pre-empted the temptation for them to gang up
with the main opposition United National Party (UNP). He has also successfully
neutralized the Sinhala leftist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) by attracting
its followers to his fold. As of now he remains the unchallenged, centralized
source of power, a fact which is displayed openly in the day-to-day affairs of
the country. Understanding his style of politics and governance is therefore essential
when assessing the future of India-Sri Lanka relations.
Rajapaksa is currently in his second term as
President since 2010. In November 2005 he was elected President with a wafer-thin
majority, defeating Ranil Wickremasinghe of the UNP. Wickremasinghe was deprived of Tamil votes thanks to the LTTE-sponsored boycott of the
elections in areas under its control: it has been alleged that the LTTE was
paid by one of Rajapaksa’s friends to impose the boycott.
In his
electoral campaign, Rajapaksa used to his advantage the growing public
disillusionment with the 2002 peace process promoted mainly by Wickremasinghe
as Prime Minister. He vowed to end the “ineffective” peace process and to tame the
LTTE. His predecessors
had considered the LTTE’s challenge to the State’s authority as an offshoot of
the Tamil ethnic struggle for autonomy. So their approach wavered between
military operations and peace talks aimed at addressing the broader issue of
devolution of equitable powers to the Tamil minority.
After the
war, Rajapaksa advanced the presidential election for the second term by one
year to 2010 to take full advantage of his immense popularity. Meanwhile, there
was a systematic effort to sully the image of his opponent General Sarath Fonseka,
who stood as a common opposition candidate. During the election, even as the
voting was ending, prosecution against him was launched on charges of
corruption, meddling in politics while in service, plotting to overthrow the
government and housing army deserters. The General was deprived of his rank and
sentenced to two and a half years of imprisonment.
Rajapaksa
has also shown that he does not tolerate criticism of his style of governance.
Some of his media critics have disappeared; the high-profile editor of the Sunday Leader, Lasantha Wickrematunge,
who took a critical stand against the government, was shot to death in January
2009. Mervyn Silva, Minister of Public Relations, gained notoriety in a number
of attacks on political opponents and media persons, including an assault on
Sri Lanka Rupavahini Corporation’s News Director T.M.G. Chandrasekara in
December 2007. Silva had publicly warned some of the journalists and human
rights workers that he would “break their limbs” for taking a stand against the
government at the meeting of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in
Geneva in April 2012.
In the wake of the triumphalism triggered by the
military success, there has been a steady increase in the Buddhist extremist
campaign against places of worship of Christians and Muslims. There have been
threats to remove Hindu temples also. The Buddhist right-wing party Jathika
Hela Urumaya (JHU), a partner of the ruling coalition, has been spearheading
these campaigns. The JHU was in the forefront of a Sinhala mob attack led by
monks that disrupted the Friday congregation in Dambulla mosque in May and another
similar attack on a madrasa in Dehiwala in June. The administration has been
handling such cases with kid gloves.
The Rajapaksa government enjoys overwhelming
parliamentary majority. Pandering to religious right-wing elements cannot therefore
be dismissed as “vote bank” politics. The President’s political opportunism,
rather than religious fundamentalism, probably explains the soft attitude to
these right-wing fulminations. As his aim is to maximize his Southern
Sinhala support base, one can expect more play of religious
chauvinism in politics in the coming years.
An important
aspect of President Rajapaksa’s style is his steadfast stand against external
interference in the country’s handling of the ethnic issue. He has repeatedly
averred that Sri Lanka
would depend upon home-grown solutions to its problems. He knows that such a
stand appeals to the conservative Southern Sinhala
voters.
Strategic Connotations
Eelam War IV
has shown that the Sri Lanka armed forces have graduated from a land-bound
army-dominated force to a strong multifaceted force capable of planning and
executing complex operations, utilizing large sized forces on multiple axes. If
they continue to hone their military skills in the coming years, they would be
a first-rate force. The army is about 200,000-strong, organized in thirteen divisions
and some independent brigades. The divisions are slightly smaller, with fewer supporting
arms than Indian infantry divisions.
The armed
forces are conscious that Rajapaksa’s leadership and the unprecedented support
extended to them by the government machinery enabled their success. The
President’s vindictive handling of General Sarath Fonseka caused some unrest in
the army ranks, but after his handpicked officer Lt General Jagat Jayasuriya
took over as army commander, personnel sympathetic to General Fonseka were
retired from the army. Now President Rajapaksa is likely to continue to command
the personal loyalty of commanders, who have been carefully chosen by him. This
was evident in the run-up to the presidential poll when the army commander and
senior officers came out in his support.
The armed
forces have thus undergone subtle politicization, with the potential to emerge
as an extra power centre in the country. Under ambitious commanders such a
power centre outside the democratic sphere could get involved in politics to
become the deciding factor in uncertain times. The role of the armed forces in
the future would very much depend upon how the President employs them in his
second term. The more they are involved to buttress his regime the greater
would be their politicization.
This process
appears to be already taking place in the Northern Province; even three years
after the war, nine out of the thirteen divisions of the army are stationed in the
Northern Province. This is about 150,000 troops deployed in an area with a
population of 9.97 million – roughly one soldier for every six civilians,
including women and children who are recovering from the trauma of twenty-five years
of war. It sends a wrong message particularly when the process of ethnic
reconciliation has not started fully. The President and the Defence Secretary have
justified the army’s presence in such large numbers on three counts: employment
of troops in mine-clearing operations; assisting development and reconstruction
works; and the right of the army to be present anywhere in the country.
The way Sri
Lanka waged war has a few strategic connotations for South Asia in general and
India in particular. The war eliminated the LTTE as a role model to other
militant groups. It also ended the LTTE’s potential to be a destabilizing force
in the region. Sri Lanka’s
victory should give confidence to those who are locked in seemingly endless
battles with insurgent groups all over South Asia.
Another
question is whether Sri Lanka requires such a big army. Tamil militancy in its
wake brought about militarization of society, including large-scale desertions,
proliferation of illegal arms, increased employment of military intelligence in
the civilian domain and criminal activities using firearms. This appears to
have come to stay.
The Ministry
of Defence is now entrusted with urban development, presumably to justify the retention
of a huge army and employing it on non-military duties. Soldiers have been
deployed on civic services and law-and-order duties normally performed by the police.
Naval personnel have been selling vegetables while the air force is running an air
service for civilians travelling to Jaffna.
To top it all, the army proposes to import 10,000 cows to produce milk for sale
to the public! Employment of the military on civilian tasks seems to have
become part of state strategy. This is an unhealthy trend in a democracy; it is
open to misuse in times of political crisis as an instrument of power,
particularly in Sri Lanka
where the executive presidency is vested with enormous powers.
The army also
has become an extra administrative authority keeping an eye to control the activity
of the civilians in the province. Though such deployment is ostensibly to
prevent revival of LTTE activity, in practice it interferes with opposition
political activity. This has been brought out by the US Country Report on Human Rights in Sri Lanka 2011, released on 24 May 2012. It said:
The major human rights problems were unlawful
killings by security forces and government-allied paramilitary groups, often in
predominantly Tamil areas, which led many to regard them as politically
motivated, and attacks on and harassment of civil society activists, persons
viewed as Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) sympathizers, and journalists
by persons allegedly tied to the government, which created an environment of
fear and self-censorship.
International Relations
President Rajapaksa has been aggrieved about the
way Sri Lanka was treated by the US and the West even before Eelam War IV started.
He was peeved when the US
and the European Union repeatedly took up allegations of human rights
violations and aberrations of rule of law with him. After the war, he has maintained
that the West has not given due recognition to his military success against
LTTE terrorism, though it was probably the only success story in the global war
on terror. This feeling was further exacerbated when Channel 4 videos showing
custodial killing of LTTE prisoners and other atrocities by the army were aired
and many Western political leaders called upon Sri Lanka to investigate them. When
a UN expert advisory panel found a prima facie case for such investigation, the
government took the stance that the US and Western powers in collusion with
Tamil diaspora were ganging up against Sri Lanka. This conspiracy theory
has found wide acceptance among the public and the media, who find the Western
conduct hypocritical and selective.
Rajapaksa’s abrasive relations with the US and the
West – particularly UK, Canada and the EU – turned more belligerent during the
war. The United States’
suggestion to send US marines to evacuate the LTTE leadership trapped in a
narrow strip of land in the last stages of war in April 2009 was perhaps the
trigger. Though the plan was shot down (with India
supporting Sri Lanka), it
caused suspicion about the US
agenda in Sri Lanka.
Sri Lanka’s suspicions
were reinforced by the US stance at the UNHRC demanding Sri Lanka’s
accountability for its actions in the final stages of the war. The suspicions have
been aggravated by the freedom with which Tamil Eelam sympathizers and former
LTTE cadres have been allowed to operate in the US, UK, Canada and EU despite
the ban on the LTTE.
In defiance, President Rajapaksa went out of the
way to cultivate nations known for their strong anti-US stance: Cuba, Iran,
Myanmar, Libya (during Gaddafi’s time) and Venezuela. However, Sri Lanka needs the economic support of the US and
the West, particularly in these times of global economic downturn. Sri Lanka cannot also afford to ignore the US for
strategic reasons, as India-US strategic relations are growing in the Asia-Pacific
region. The West’s efforts to improve relations with Sri Lanka have also continued.
Extension of favourable credit to Sri Lanka by the International
Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank bear testimony to
this.
China’s Role in Sri Lanka
China is on an exercise to improve its footprint in
South Asia. Its interest in Sri
Lanka is much more due to the island’s
geographic location. As vanguard of the peninsular part of South Asia, Sri Lanka dominates the Indian Ocean shipping
lanes vital to China’s
global trade. Secondly, its physical proximity to India
makes it part of any activity – strategic or commerce – relating to India and offers immense trade and military
potential when China deals
with India.
So India will have to put China’s activity in Sri Lanka in the perspective of
furthering its global ambitions, rather than as being India-centric.
However, as of now the Chinese naval capabilities
are limited. As strategic analyst B. Raman observes:
Till now,
the main driver of China’s
strategic interest in Gwadar, Hambantota and Chittagong
has been the perceived need for refuelling, re-stocking and rest and recreation
facilities for its oil/gas tankers and naval ships deputed for anti-piracy
patrols in the Gulf of Aden area. China
is not yet interested in an overseas naval base, but is interested in overseas
logistic facilities for its oil/gas tankers and for its naval vessels.
However, increase in
China’s activity in Sri Lanka, just as India, is inevitable. India has to assess every Chinese action
for its impact on national security. Such areas calling attention include
infrastructure development, exploitation of energy resources, economic
assistance, investment and military assistance. Both Sri
Lanka and China
will be careful not to give military overtones to their relationship. China has emerged as India’s number one trading partner.
Similarly, Sri Lanka has
benefited from the Free Trade Agreement with India and needs Indian investment.
So one can expect both nations to calibrate the nature of growth in their
relationship.
China has long enjoyed good relations with Sri
Lanka. However, when the peace process 2002 started collapsing in 2005, China
stepped in to provide roughly US$ 1 billion military and financial aid annually
when Sri Lanka’s military budget rose by 40 per cent to expand its armed forces
and equip them rapidly without overdependence upon Western aid. This has
endeared China to the Sri
Lankan people as a friend, in contrast to India
which had internal political problems in providing military aid to Sri Lanka.
So it was natural that China got the bulk of the
development projects, including port projects. China became the biggest donor to Sri Lanka
in 2009, with $1.2 billion worth of assistance in the form of grants, loans and
credit, representing 54 per cent of the $2.2 billion committed by foreign
countries and multilateral agencies.
China’s involvement in Sri Lanka is now colossal. China was the biggest lender in 2010, with loans
amounting to $821.4 million (India
with $483 million was in second place). China
accounted for 39.8 per cent of foreign disbursement in 2010, although India
can take consolation in the fact that with $110 million it topped the
investors.
China’s aid comes with its own strings. For instance, buyer’s credit is
extended mainly to finance exports of Chinese products, technologies and
services. Similarly, overseas construction projects that facilitate Chinese
exports of equipment, construction machinery, materials, technical and
managerial expertise, and labour services are usually considered. And Chinese
projects come with inflated cost. According to columnist Namini Wijedasa: “For
instance, the estimated cost per kilometre of a railway line constructed by the
Indians is $1.8 million while the Chinese are doing it for $4 million per
kilometre.” India has a
tremendous cost advantage in executing projects due to its proximity to Sri Lanka, which India needs to exploit.
Much has been written about the Hambantota port
project aided and executed by China as a part of China’s strategic “string of
pearls”. While this commercial port project does have strategic significance,
what is missed out is that Sri Lanka
offered the project to China
only after India
showed no interest in it. This highlights the lack of strategic integration in
policymaking in India.
If India is to match China it
needs to rectify this weakness.
India-Sri Lanka Equation
The India-Sri Lanka relationship, described as “family”
by President Rajapaksa, has had its crests and troughs. In times of crisis,
whether political, military, or international, Sri
Lanka has generally taken India into confidence for
consultation and advice. More often than not, India has gone the extra mile to
help out the smaller neighbour. Thus the unique, umbilical relationship of India and Sri Lanka due to their geographic,
cultural, religious, and ethnic proximity has continued.
There used to be three hardy perennials in India’s
relations with Sri Lanka – grant of citizenship to people of Indian origin in
Sri Lanka; strategic security; and ethnic confrontation between the Sinhala
majority and the Tamil minority. These have now been reduced to two. Thanks to
the far-sightedness of the leaders of both countries, the citizenship issue has
ceased to be a contentious one. Even in handling the other two issues, the leaders
of the two countries have continued to show a great deal of pragmatism by not
allowing the differences to override their cordial relationship. This trend is
likely to continue despite periodic dissonant notes in the relations.
Despite India’s bitter experience during its
military intervention in Sri Lanka from 1987 to 1990, it has built upon its
close political, diplomatic, strategic, and trade relations with that country.
These have become all-embracing over the years, with increased linkages in all
areas of interest. So it is not surprising that India
signed its first ever Free Trade Agreement with Sri Lanka, paving the way for their
two-way trade to grow to $4 billion. When Sri
Lanka’s internal political environment turns favourable,
it is likely to sign the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA)
proposed by India
to cement their trade and economic relations further.
The peace process 2002 created a dilemma of sorts
for India as it provided legitimate entry for major powers – the US, Japan, EU
and Norway – in the underbelly of India’s national security. However, as the
LTTE – an organization banned in India
– continued to remain an unpredictable quantity, India did not participate in the
peace process. India
lost a golden opportunity to usher in permanent peace between Sinhalas and
Tamils if only it had used the Tamil Nadu leaders to prevail upon the LTTE to
opt for peace rather than war, as it turned out later.
India’s influence that started eroding in 2002
stands further reduced in the strategic sphere. However, during the Eelam War, India
provided some of the essential military equipment and valuable intelligence
inputs that enabled the Sri Lanka Navy to track and destroy the LTTE’s logistic
fleet. Indian naval patrols minimized smuggling of essential supplies to the
LTTE from Tamil Nadu. The navies of both countries worked in tandem to prevent
hijacking of ships by the LTTE. These measures made a significant contribution
to Sri Lanka’s
operational success.
More than all this, India scrupulously avoided
taking a public stand on allegations of human rights violations, kidnappings,
custodial killings and bombing of civilians by Sri Lanka that started piling up
both during and after the war. New Delhi made
every effort to control the spill-over of emotion-charged reactions in Tamil
Nadu from damaging friendly relations with Sri Lanka.
However, India’s unanticipated support to the US-sponsored
resolution on Sri Lanka passed at the UNHRC meeting in Geneva in March 2012 has
left a bitter taste in Sri Lanka. The resolution asks Sri Lanka to be
accountable for human rights violations and to speedily implement the
recommendations of the LLRC set up by the Sri Lankan government. Sri Lanka’s disappointment is more because it
was India’s support to Sri Lanka
that led to the defeat of a similar resolution at UNHRC meeting in May 2009. The
Indian vote was largely influenced by domestic political compulsions as well as
President Rajapaksa’s failure to keep up his promises to India on ethnic reconciliation.
Many Sri Lankans belonging to the conservative
Sinhala-Buddhist nationalist segment believe that the Tamil insurgency in their
country was India’s creation, after Tamil militants took refuge in Tamil Nadu following
the 1983 anti-Tamil pogrom. They overlook the subsequent sacrifices India made during its military operations in Sri Lanka
against the LTTE to facilitate the implementation of the India-Sri Lanka
agreement. The Sri Lankan anti-India lobby, mainly supported by the JVP,
construed the military intervention as an indirect bid to help create Tamil
Eelam. This lobby, now joined by the right-wing JHU has been strengthened by
the reassertion of Sinhala superiority at the end of the war, and as a
corollary, the defeat of what they consider Indian machinations to keep Sri Lanka
divided. This lobby is vociferous and enjoys some indulgence from the
administration. So they cannot be ignored.
A major
stumbling-block in India-Sri Lanka relations is the ethnic reconciliation
issue. President Rajapaksa has not fulfilled his repeated promises made to India
at the highest levels that he would implement the 13th Amendment (devolving
powers to provincial councils) in full as part of the ethnic reconciliation
process. Before the war he constituted the All Party Representative Committee
(APRC) to evolve a framework for devolution of powers to the minorities.
However, its recommendations were put in cold storage. After the war, the
government’s talks with the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) have been stalled
after a dozen rounds as the President wants a parliamentary select committee to
evolve political consensus on the issue.
So any exercise to improve India-Sri Lanka
relations now will have to be taken up as a challenge by the national political
leadership rather than as a diplomatic exercise. Given the complexity of Indian
coalition politics, this may be a difficult task. To move forward from this
disadvantaged position, India
will have to take action to control the call for revival of Tamil Eelam issue
by Tamil Nadu politicians in tandem with similar efforts by pro-Eelam activists
among the Tamil diaspora. Otherwise, India
will not be able to create the climate of confidence required to build a
win-win relationship with Sri
Lanka.
Revival
of the Call for Tamil Eelam
The
possibility of Tamil insurgency resurfacing remains a red herring for cordial
India-Sri Lanka relations in the future. However, the chances of this happening
in the near future appear slim for a number of reasons. The LTTE’s armed struggle, waged under Prabhakaran for decades,
has failed. Sri Lanka’s
Tamil leaders who could have rallied the masses for the cause have been
eliminated in the fratricidal struggle of the LTTE. The leaders left alive
after the war have not been able to evolve a common agenda or leverage their
political strength to the advantage of Tamils.
Moreover, in the last three decades the Tamils have
been dispersed both within and outside Sri Lanka, which makes it difficult to
unite them. An independent Tamil Eelam is far from their minds; their immediate
goal is to get back to a life of dignity, and make up for the years lost in the
conflict.
Elements of the Tamil diaspora who had supported
the LTTE have been trying to keep alive the struggle for Tamil Eelam, but lack a foothold in Sri Lanka. There are also
over 11,000 former cadres of the LTTE in Sri
Lanka in addition to trained elements of the LTTE and
other Tamil militant organizations among the diaspora, including India.
Tamil diaspora is also a source of funding for Sri Lanka Tamil political
parties, including the TNA. They are also in touch with Tamil Nadu political
lobbies. However, fortunately for Sri Lanka, Tamils both at home and
abroad are in disparate groups, too involved with their own personal and
political agendas to evolve a concerted strategy.
Despite these limitations, the Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora, which had
sustained the LTTE insurgency, are not reconciled to its defeat. They are
broadly in three streams. The umbrella organization of Global Tamil Forum (GTF),
formed in July 2009, and its constituent British Tamil Forum (BTF) would like
to take the Sri Lanka
government to task for alleged war crimes and other violations of human rights.
They have been working with the Labour and Conservative Parties in UK.
The second
stream is made up of members of the LTTE’s overseas offices, particularly in
EU, UK, Canada, and the US. In a bid to revive the LTTE they are being organized
by LTTE representatives like Perinpanayagam Sivaparan alias Nediyavan of Tamil
Eelam People’s Alliance (TEPA) in Norway, and Sekarapillai Vinayagamoorthy
alias Vinayagam, former LTTE senior intelligence leader. However, their
activities have run into rough weather as the LTTE continues to be banned in thirty-two
countries.
The
Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam (TGTE), formed by the LTTE’s overseas
representative Kumaran Pathmanathan (KP) in the last days of the LTTE is
perhaps the best organized body of LTTE sympathizers. Its objective is to
struggle for creating an independent Tamil Eelam, ostensibly by democratic
means. Led by Visvanathan Rudrakumaran, US-based legal advisor of the LTTE as “prime
minister”, the TGTE has offices in twelve countries, with the secretariat functioning
from Geneva, Switzerland. It conducted an
election among the Tamil diaspora to elect representatives for its “parliament”.
The TGTE “virtual government”, apart from the “prime minister”, has three “deputy
prime ministers”, seven “ministers” and a number of “deputy ministers”.
The TGTE’s
interest in furthering its linkages in Tamil Nadu is of special significance to
India. In April 2012 the TGTE nominated five persons from Tamil Nadu as
“members” of TGTE “parliament”. A TGTE Solidarity Centre, with Professor
Saraswathi Rajendran, a TGTE “parliament” member as convener, operates in Tamil
Nadu.
Despite
their differences, these diaspora groups have made common cause to get the
alleged Sri Lankan army war crimes investigated by an international tribunal.
Their recent successes in preventing President Rajapaksa from addressing
meetings in UK
during his visits have emboldened them to come together on such occasions. We
can expect more of such coordinated activity in the future. In this context,
the joint statement issued by the GTF and the TGTE on the occasion of the
“Mullivaikkal Remembrance Day” on 19 May 2012 is of special interest to India. In the statement they said they had agreed upon several areas of joint
action. The GTF “intends to liaise with other Diaspora Tamil organizations and
representatives of Tamil speaking people in Sri Lanka in its efforts to build
similar forms of shared understanding.” The TGTE for its part “is engaged in
building a power base among the world Tamil community, particularly in Tamil
Nadu, and with sections of the international civil society.”
In the light
of these developments, the recent revival of Tamil Eelam issue as part of the political
catfight between the two major Dravidian parties – the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam
(DMK) led by the octogenarian Karunanidhi and the All India Anna DMK led by
Jayalalithaa, the chief minister of Tamil Nadu – is rather disturbing.
Support for
Tamil Eelam died down in Tamil Nadu after the LTTE’s assassination in 1991 of
Rajiv Gandhi, India’s former Prime Minister, who had signed the India-Sri Lanka
agreement. However, public indignation over the plight of Tamils in Sri Lanka
during the Eelam War and allegations of atrocities on them came in handy for Ms
Jayalalithaa to espouse the Tamil Eelam cause during the parliamentary poll in
2009. She has demanded trade sanctions against Sri
Lanka and for a referendum in Sri Lanka for the creation of Tamil
Eelam. Smarting under the electoral debacle in Tamil Nadu assembly polls in
2010, Karunanidhi has recently announced the revival of the defunct Tamil Eelam
Supporters Organization (TESO) he had formed in 1986 to pursue the Tamil Eelam
agenda. The support of these leaders to the idea of Tamil Eelam might only be
limited to political rhetoric at present; and they have low credibility among
Sri Lanka Tamils. However, their support to the separatist cause legitimizes it
and provides political space to pro-LTTE fringe parties in Tamil Nadu that
deify Prabhakaran.
If the DMK
seriously activates TESO, its link-up with TGTE would become a reality. This
increases the risk of Tamil Nadu becoming a hothouse of Tamil extremism, with
serious implications for national security. Already, Sri Lanka is seriously concerned at
these developments. It would also stoke sentiments
inimical to Indian interests in Sri
Lanka. Thus both the Centre and Tamil Nadu will have
to carefully calibrate the political moves to separate concern for Sri Lankan
Tamils from pandering to Tamil extremism before it seriously affects relations
between the two countries.
Policy Prescription for India
Sri Lanka has emerged as a strong and more powerful
nation after the success in the Eelam War under President Rajapaksa’s
leadership. He will be in power till 2016 and possibly longer. There is no
leader visible on Sri Lanka’s
political horizon to challenge him. The challenges he is likely to face in the
next five years are from economic woes and how the unsettled aspirations of the
Tamil minority are articulated in Sri Lanka politics. His continued
survival at the top will depend upon how he handles these two aspects.
Both issues provide unique opportunities for India
despite the challenge posed by China’s ever-increasing presence in the economy.
Some of the imperatives for success are as follows:
- India will have to play a more prominent role on two fronts: to continue to build India-Sri Lanka economic linkages, particularly when the stark realities of economic downturn hit Sri Lanka hard in the near term, and to help resolve the Tamil-Sinhala ethnic divide.
- Despite his strong leadership style, President Rajapaksa needs continued Indian economic and diplomatic support. He would probably take action to further improve political, economic, trade and strategic ties with India at politically opportune moments of his choosing.
- He responds to only assertive action. So while being friendly, India will have to be unequivocally firm with him about what it wants.
- At the same time, to politically strengthen him, India needs to take measures to remove Sri Lanka’s latent fear of India’s overwhelming influence subsuming its national interests. The revival of support in Tamil Nadu for Tamil separatism should be curbed by New Delhi by political strategies worked out with Tamil Nadu leaders.
- India-Sri Lanka relations need a more integrated political-diplomatic-strategic-trade strategy evolved by the national leadership. The resources at the Ministry of External Affairs are totally inadequate to execute such a strategy, even if it is devised. Perhaps creating a special task force with its element in Chennai would be the answer. Then only India can show Sri Lanka that it is serious about strengthening its relationship as an equal partner.
Written on June 18, 2012
Courtesy: Indian Foreign Affairs Journal April-June 2012
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