THE ENIGMA OF DELHI’s PREDICAMENT IN OVER APPEASING THE SRI LANKA REGIME
Delhi’s predicament is an enigma for most political observers especially when Delhi went overboard to further appease SL specifically during the June 2010 visit of the Sri Lankan President. This invited derisive comments from reputed Indian analysts; ‘though there was much euphoria in Sri Lanka(SL), but discerning Indian observers did not share in..(that) optimism. Delhi is not happy over Colombo’s lukewarm response on the solution to the issue of finding a speedy solution to the ethnic issue. More discerning, important provisions of the 13th Amendment are jettisoned’ (ExpressBuzz 29 Jun 2010). Delhi invested heavily, politically on the 13th Amendment plus supporting SL’s war against Eelam Tamils or LTTE despite risks of alienating TN, a constituent state in the Indian Union .It is in this war that the massacres and the interning of civilians occured in astounding numbers to become ‘crimes against humanity’.
On his return to Colombo the SL President ‘..We will take our own time and find the solution, you can’t ask for an instant solution like instant noodles…We will certainly change all this. My commitment remains’. (Times of India). The use of instant noodles imagery belittles Manmohan Singh’s pre-visit call emphasizing the ‘..need for speeding up the..devolution of powers to ethnic Tamils’ (Indiatimes 10 Jun). Delhi is caught in a predicament; its inability to deliver on its repeated promises to TN on the 13th Amendment plus (devolution package). The TN CM placed his champion of the Tamils credentials at grave risks in responding positively to Singh’s devolution promise. The TN CM’s latest cry of despair, ‘No political solution has yet been found for Tamils in Sri Lanka, despite periodic assurances..’ resonates throughout India including Delhi.
Contrast this to the Rajapakse words and actions following his December 2006 Delhi visit. Unlike then Rajapakse is now far too intoxicated by his unexpected and undeserved yet decisive win (May 2009) in the war against Tamil militancy. Recent Rajapakse rhetoric is evasive on the 13th Amendment commitments he made in 2006; is also provocative and abrasive towards its erstwhile ally a Delhi, that supported/contributed the most overtly and covertly to the defeat of the Tamil militancy. Delhi also continues to give decisive diplomatic support in the UN, (using its South Block UN arm) the NAM, and UNHRC to stall the international community’s morally noble war crimes initiatives against SL.
Delhi’s heavy investment in over appeasing SL involved buying decisive TN support during the critical period (2007-2009) of the Eelam war to successfully manage sensitive pro-militant opinion in TN. Delhi’s promises to TN to deliver in full on the 13th Thirteenth Amendment plus was made after intense consultations with the Rajapakses. The DMK government reciprocated by taking unprecedented risks in effectively supporting the SL genocide against Eelam Tamils, risking its long established credentials as champion of Tamil rights worldwide. To the Eelam Tamils who for over six decades were repeatedly let down by SL regimes reneging on their pacts/agreements, Rajapakse reneging on his promises to Delhi did not come as a surprise. On this occasion the party let down was Delhi, SL’s superpower neighbour that risked underwriting the untrustworthy SL’s commitments; and damaging its own standing politically.
Delhi had sound grounds to trust Rajapakse who since his 2006 election repeatedly affirmed that he is for maximum devolution within a unitary state. Delhi took Rajapakse’s promises in good faith though the joint statement at the end of the SL President’s visit then did not call for a political solution within a unitary state. Delhi’s foreign policy establishment dominated by the South Block though skeptical on Rajapakse intentions misled the naïve political leadership into ruling out Rajapakse reneging on his commitments to Delhi. Rajapakses outclassed Delhi on the diplomatic front by getting Delhi deeply involved in SL’s war for the stain of the SL genocide to smear Delhi’s image as well. Hence though Mahinda Rajapakse openly acknowledged and expressed gratitude for Delhi’s support for SL, he had a Gothabhaya Rajapakse taunting Delhi with the trio ‘in the loop’ line whenever the excesses in the war issue surfaced. This effectively implies that there was the Delhi trio’s involvement in those excesses now the subject for Ban’s panel on SL’s war crimes. Is this SL’s cunning dual track diplomacy or the action(s) of those without any scruples?
Rajapakses now no longer speaks of a merged North and East, a key feature in the Indo-SL Accord and the 13th Amendment; instead he only refers to the North, undermining the historical reality of the ‘Tamil homelands’. The Rajapakses and the Delhi South Block have an agreed position on this; to undermine the TN DMK government’s Tamil champion credentials electorally as also another consenting party to erasing the ‘Tamil homelands in SL. The embarassment to TN DMK also has the potential to de-stabilse the UPA government in Delhi as well. Once mainstream Tamils who are basically Pro-Eelam are convinced of this massive DMK/Congress betrayal of Tamil interests, alienation of TN Tamils is likely to become irreversible. The Rajapakses relish such outcomes, neutralising TN and Delhi importing SL’s destructive divisive culture into India to compete for membership of the notorious Colombo club that had China as a Gold class member already. The Rajapakses and SL regimes unlike Delhi thrive on divisive politics. This invited a reputable analyst Nateri Adigal to question the Delhi South Block bureaucrats, is ‘Tamil Nadu being forced to go the Eelam way’, Merinews, 8 October 2008.
The Rajapakses antics did not stop with these. On the war crimes, SL used the ‘in the loop’ taunt to embarrass Delhi. Colombo assisted by the South Block bureaucrats effectively dragged India deep into SL’s war crimes mud pool. Palitha Kohona, SL’s Representative in the UN deceptively obtained the signature from the NAM Chair (Egypt) who though embarrassed, soon after disowned that signature to a letter to Ban opposing the UN expert panel and supporting SL. NAM was not in session. This deceptive letter was most damaging to the image of NAM and its members (India included). Yet SL (Palitha) still crows that the 118 members NAM supports SL on Ban’s expert panel issue. The South Block’s muted response disassociating India from that letter has not erased fully the damage to India’s image. Delhi’s support for the UNHRC May 2009 resolution commending SL’s conduct in the war in retrospect came close to Delhi’s abdicating its high human rights moral ground to the West, appeasing and intimately associating with SL as a genocide/terrorist state and its massacres and ethnic cleansing. SL with a reputation tattered by its massacres of tens of thousands and interning of hundreds of thousands civilians behind barb wire fences camps was desperate to farm out its tattered image. It found a willing partner in the South Block Delhi that also contributed the most to the destruction of the life safety shield (Tamil militants) of the Eelam Tamils in the May 2009 massacres. India’s dharmic image was also to some degree tattered by this.
The joint statement at the close of President Rajapakse’s June 2010 visit to Delhi had PM Manmohan Singh’s categorical reference to building on the 13th Amendment to ‘create the necessary conditions for a lasting settlement’ but Rajapakse after omitting any reference to the 13th Amendment, reiterated instead to ‘his determination to evolve a political settlement acceptable to all communities ..creating the necessary conditions in which all the people of Sri Lanka could lead their lives in an atmosphere of peace, justice and dignity consistent with democracy, pluralism …’.
There is an obvious parting of the ways between Delhi and Colombo over resolving the Tamil issue in SL, post LTTE. Rajapakse now free of the formidable LTTE has no inhibitions in delivering his message to Delhi more assertively. No more of the India imposed Indo-Sri Lanka Accord (1978) and the 13th Amendment plus or minus, instead; ‘..We will take our own time and find the solution, you can’t ask for an instant solution like instant noodles…’. Instead just await Rajapakse’s vague ‘homegrown’ solution. SL ‘militarily defeated the LTTE using their own (home grown) plan and strategy’ and SL will now bring ‘a political solution to the ethnic conflict in our own way’. The 13th Amendment gave ‘.. some measure of credibility to India as Sri Lanka’s superpower neighbour’ but Delhi lost that when it lost the LTTE leverage that gave birth to it in 1978. Now post LTTE SL also has China a friendly superpower on site in India’s soft underbelly. This should remind readers of the ‘crying wolf’ adage. The China factor invented/used by the South Block as a debating point to justify Delhi’s SL appeasement policy, Rajapakse made it a reality to become an effective weapon to blackmail Delhi. Is there anyone in the South Block to atone for this blunder?
The Rajapakses set aside the interim proposals of the APRC (a body appointed by Rajapakse) in favour of the 13th Amendment before. Now the 13th Amendment perceived as an Indian solution is jettisoned in favour of another vague ‘our own home grown’ solution. The difference; the LTTE is no more and with the ‘winner takes all’ (Palitha Kohona) rationale Rajapakse is for a solution for a SL minus the ‘Tamil homelands’. This would require the SL genocide to continue to conclusion and (ethnic) cleanse sufficient number of Tamils to erase ‘Tamil homelands’ demographically. According to the enlightened and humane international community this is genocide involving ethnic cleansing; again crimes against humanity. How long will Delhi isolate itself from mainstream international initiatives on such ‘crimes against humanity’? Delhi’s silence in the face of SL’s plans to Sinhalise the Tamil homelands by Indian dharmic standards are adharmic. Has a secular Delhi jettisoned all its dharmic underpinnings?
So much for ‘the dharmic good’ the South Block earned for Delhi at tremendous costs. The South Block needs to remind Rajapakse that his key ‘unitary’ concept itself is not ‘home grown’. It came to SL with the independence constitution; it is not an inflexible, or straight jacket concept; it accomodates sufficient multi-ethnicity devolution without undermining the unity of any country leave alone SL. Rajapakse crowing much about ‘home grown’ solutions is purely to buy time to complete SL genocide; hence his another back to the drawing boards proposal. Will Delhi and the South Block continue to appease Colombo further and go along with SL and its highly immoral genocide? Delhi’s 13th Amendment accommodates both the unity of SL and the linguistic aspirations of linguistic minorities, the foundation on which stands a united India. Hasn’t Delhi the moral courage to stand up for the merits in the 13th Amendment and against SL continuing the genocide on the Tamils for its SL minus ‘Tamil homelands’ vision.
The world has moved forward in recognizing the role of state terrorism in giving birth to and nurturing armed militancy fighting state terrorism; militancy fighting state terrorism being of a distinct category not in the class of the Jihardi terrorists. With the LTTE totally defeated and no more a threat to SL, the international community reckons that SL’s state terrorism is a bigger menace that is committing crimes that the international community views needs to be effectively checked. Will Delhi also change now and support the UNHRC office, the UN and the international community on measures to restraint SL from committing more ‘crimes against humanity’? A re-think by Delhi of its appeasement of SL policy will free it from the predicament that the South Block policies led India into.
The South Block’s far too contrived strategic interest rationale to justify Delhi’s disastrous appeasement policies contributed the most to Delhi’s predicament especially when the conduct of SL is under serious international review. Morally such politico-economic interests high jacking the moral underpinnings in the Indian psyche to allow Delhi overlooking SL’s genocide crimes is morally untenable. Delhi is morally obliged after destroying the protective shield(LTTE) that Eelam Tamils had, to join the international community in discouraging SL from continuing to unleash state terrorism/genocide on a weak and defenseless people and support the UN war crimes initiatives. These are bound to elevate India’s standing as champion of the universal dharmic ‘good’ for the benefit of humanity.