Historical Shift - India, Sri Lanka and the Tamils

Guest Column by Ramu Manivannan

There is a kind of moral stagnation facing us in this country regarding India’s foreign policy towards Sri Lanka. There are historical shifts taking place with profound implications for the future. Indian government’s complicity to the present status of Tamils in Sri Lanka is only comparable to a situation which the historians of twentieth century lament about the early European indifference and the British appeasement policies towards Adolf Hitler and the resultant impact of systemic State violence against the Jewish minorities in Nazi Germany. Neither the horror of mass civilian deaths during the final stages of the military conflict between the Sri Lankan armed forces and the Liberation Tigers of the Tamil Eelam(LTTE) nor the homelessness and internment of the Tamil civilians had made our government and the civil society to ask “ why and how did this catastrophe take place in our neighbourhood?” A major transition has been underway in India’s foreign policy towards Sri Lanka in the last two decades as a result of influential opinions propelled through persuasion than an assessment of the ground realities. The Indian dualism has finally surfaced after a long period of self denials. Truth remains, though weak and very insecure.

India, on the one hand, had long been advocating a political solution to the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka. On the other, India had also been an active part of the Sri Lanka government’s war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) through covert political, economic, military (surveillance and intelligence networking, supply of small weapon, radars, select technical and combat training) and diplomatic facilitation of the ways of war in the island nation. It is crucial to know that the Sri Lankan government war against the LTTE was a multilateral exercise of involving at least eight nations at the surface including China, Israel and Pakistan. But we cannot remain oblivious of the fact that India has been the lynchpin of the consensual polygonal strategies. The result is before us to see.

The political, economic, military and diplomatic support extended by the Indian government to the Sri Lankan governments in its approach to military solution has consistently been acknowledged by the international community. More particularly by the now estranged Sri Lankan war trio, Mahinda Rajapakse, Gotabaya Rajapakse and Sarath Fonseka in several national, political and diplomatic forums. Basel Rajapakse shuttled between Colombo and New Delhi during the final phase of the Eelam-IV like a viceroy’s nominee in the imperial era, while his brother Gotabaya Rajapakse engaged the Chinese military delegations at home. India has now become increasingly shy of acknowledging the Sri Lankan moral obeisance resembling Benito Mussolini’s famous gesture to Adolf Hitler after the Spanish Civil War in 1936.

The Congress leadership and its loyal mandarins at South Block may have settled the score with the LTTE and particularly with its leadership but they have unintentionally dragged the nation into shame at the internment of 300,000 Tamils in the camps under inhuman conditions and death of several thousand innocent Tamil civilians at the end of the war in May 2009. The Indian waiver during the final push resulted in indiscriminate bombings, routine violations of the ‘No Fire Zone’, the use of nerve gas, chemical bombs and ultimately the loss of enormous human lives. Today the Indian government is at the edge in hearing about its unintended complicity to the genocide of Tamils in Sri Lanka which is no longer a vague phenomenon. This choice of military solution has been under way ever since the return of the Congress in 2004 and with the appointment of Mahinda Rajapakse as an Executive President of Sri Lanka in 2005.

This was not only a historical coincidence but also the most crucial and lasting development in their joint strategy of ‘fight to finish the LTTE phenomena’. There are other factors such as the US inspired counter-terrorism measures after the twin towers strike by Al-Qaeda in 2001. The US factor became the global catalyst in Sri Lankan government’s drive against the LTTE. Ironically, the challenges emanating from Persian Gulf, West Asia and South Asia (read as Pakistan) has not diminished for the United States. Pakistan had never fully cooperated as the Front Line State of the US led strategy against global terrorism. The challenges faced by the US in Afghanistan are the best revelation of the Pakistan factor and the deep rooted connection between the Islamic fundamentalists and the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan. India on the other hand has become an indispensable rebound space to keep Pakistan under lid. This unearthing American strategy has brought political dividends for India but exposed the vulnerability of its internal security while US tightened the bolts of its homeland security at home. Indian government had unfortunately ended up guarding Sri Lanka in the region like the Americans infamously got entangled in the domestic politics of Latin American countries in the 1970s. Sri Lankan State and its ruling elites have been the major beneficiaries of this significant shift taking place both at the regional and international arena since the beginning of this global drive against terrorism. Historically, the State lexicons have had no mention of State terrorism and the extraordinary violence and brutality committed in the name of counter-terrorism.

The Indian government is at sea again with its renewed old and familiar role in Sri Lankan politics. It is under pressure once again to protect the Sri Lankan State and its ruling elites from the extraordinary challenges like it did in the early 1970s and later in the mid eighties. The emerging evidence about the Sri Lankan government’s request to the Indian government in August, 2009 to keep its troops in alert as Mahinda Rajapakse feared a military coup led by Sarath Fonseka, the former Chief of the Sri Lankan armed forces. This has been revealed by none other than Sarath Fonseka himself though at a less convincing occasion for spelling truth – the 2010 Presidential Elections. There is no doubt about the location of Indian sympathy as no one would expect the Indian government to walk away, at this stage, from Mahinda Rajapakse even we may have reservations about his dictatorial rule and family oligarchy as alleged by Sarath Fonseka. It was no coincidence that the Congress party chose to send two of its Rajya Sabha members as delegates to attend the 19^th Convention of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) in November 2009. The visit of the Congress Rajya Sabha members need not have raised eye brows anywhere under normal circumstances but for the emerging political/electoral scenario then in Sri Lanka and the crisis of the Tamils inside the island nation. This was the another opportunity for consolidation of the political and diplomatic ties, as the Congress Party and its leadership perceived, between ruling entities in both India and Sri Lanka. This is also a part of the major transition which is under way for sometime, yet another daring reaffirmation of the paradigm shift.

There are major changes taking place in the geo-strategic environment of South Asia and in the politics of Indian Ocean. Both India and China are vying for a competitive edge over one another. The Chinese who have been long been obsessed with an idea of creating a ring of military and strategic watch posts around India have now acquired a new grip due to their growing influence within the Sri Lankan government. The traditional Chinese modus operandi are all here for exhibition such as development aid, military supplies and the traditional road constructions besides the well anchored Hambantota Harbour project. All these developments indicate that the Indian government must now learn to live with the greater Chinese presence across the Palk Straits. Gwadar in Pakistan, Hambantota in Sri Lanka and Sitwe (Akyab) in Myanmar have become part of China’s strategic triangle. The rationale, hence, is that India must respond and the Indian response would always imply to ‘appease’ the foe.

India is also a part of the larger assessment in the US worldview, as the potential check and balance to the China factor in the Asian theatre of geo-politics. There is an active politics of containment in the Indian Ocean region between Indian, China and USA. There is a mutual suspicion and competition among these powers. However, there is certain gloom and uncertainty in India’s bilateral ties with its neighbours in the recent period. On the one hand, Pakistan continues to be the major obsession with the policy makers in New Delhi and on the other, Sri Lanka has emerged as its Achilles heel. The uncertainty of stable ties with Nepal and the politically embarrassing support to the military junta in Myanmar are further revelations that the South Block is engaged in a shadow boxing with the Chinese foreign policy establishment.

The disappearance of an influential Tamil opinion in the island politics and the loss of traditional bargaining chip of the Indian government done in the name of Tamils are major set backs that Indian government is not able to gauge at this stage. Tamils, both historically and culturally viewed of India as a natural ally and an eternal protector. This attitude of Tamils had been the source of Indian legitimacy in the Sri Lankan ethnic conflict situation. The Tamils in Sri Lanka and Tamils Diaspora abroad during their interaction with the outer world in the recent past had expressed a common position that they are at pains to reconcile with the truth of Indian betrayal. Indian government has at last found ‘something better than the rights of Tamils in the rights of its own national interests’ to persuade the Sri Lankan government to accommodate. This is the historical shift that the Tamils in Sri Lanka and Tamils Diaspora abroad are preparing to understand.

The relationship between the Indian government and the Sri Lankan government has long been conditioned by the survival instinct of the Sri Lankan State and its traditional ruling elites. Indian government is also aware of the strategic potential of Sri Lanka in the Indian Ocean region and its vulnerability as well as the conflicting demands from major powers such as China and USA. India has simply overstepped in its strategic zeal to destroy its cultural vessel of Tamil community in a strategically crucial Indian Ocean state. It has lost the trust of Tamils in Sri Lanka. The radical Sinhala elements have always dreamt of dismantling this Indian influence with the Tamils. Indian government has undone what has taken several centuries to build this natural bond and mutual trust. Tamils now look up to an external guarantor for their survival in Sri Lanka given the nature of political democracy practiced in that country. India will not be trusted to play the role of moderator or mediator for at least another two decades or until the memory of Indian betrayal lasts in the minds of Tamils in Sri Lanka.

Under the present circumstances India can no longer be trusted to play this role. This is another dimension to the paradigm shift in island politics. This brings the US and other Western countries as advocates of Tamils rights and dignity in the island nation. The Indian government must contend with defending the Sri Lankan State and its political elites while the form and content of the Sri Lankan democracy remains the enigma of the military dictators around the world. Zia ul-Haq of Pakistan had famously wondered at the extraordinary powers enjoyed by the then President Junius Jayawardane of Sri Lanka in an elected democracy, which he had never managed even through the military coup. Mahinda Rajapakse had gone further to convert the Executive Presidency into a family fiefdom. There is a history before us that some of the worst dictatorial regimes in the world have been elected by the people and the appalling dictators have also come through the front gates of democracy.

Sri Lanka’s problems are more serious than the worrying ‘Tamil Question’ and they will not disappear by ignoring or denying them as the Indian government wants to do. Sri Lanka must get ready to face and accept more fundamental challenges surrounding its polity revolving around the bigoted political system. India, on its part, must desist from defending the elitist constitutional democracy run by the leaflets of National Security State laws for over four decades now. India must help Sri Lanka to search for justice than contribute to the erosion of such a cherished and noble goal. The stain in our hands should not be allowed to possess our hearts.

(Associate Professor, Department of Politics & Public Administration, University of Madras)