Sunday Times 2
India’s sordid record in Lanka
View(s):India’s relations with Sri Lanka will heal only if there is a sincere
realisation of past mistakes and of the grave damage that India inflicted on a hapless neighbour too small to retaliate, says historian and author A.G. Noorani in an essay he wrote for the March 6 issue of India’s Frontline magazine. Excerpts from the essay:
One hopes that Sri Lanka’s President Maithripala Sirisena’s visit to India on February 15 will truly mark a turning point in the relations between the two countries. To accomplish that, India’s outlook and approach will have to change in fundamental respects. India has legitimate security interests in the region and legitimate concerns in the welfare of the Tamil citizens of Sri Lanka. But neither the interests nor the concerns have been served by the policies that India has followed, since 1983, to be precise. Both were inspired by arrogant assumptions of the airs of “a regional power” aspiring to be a “great power” globally. Mahinda Rajapaksa, whose departure from office was universally welcomed, proved that on both counts, India enjoyed little leverage in 2014. The policies of old now lie in ruins. It would be foolish to continue as before. The situation has changed radically, and India’s interests and concerns will best be promoted by a diplomacy that relies on persuasion and not force.
New chapter: President Maithripala Sirisena meeting Premier Narendra Modi
But change will come about only if there is a sincere realisation of India’s mistakes, the wrongs it committed and the grave damage it inflicted on a hapless neighbour, too small to retaliate in kind. Only time will tell how deep the wounds on the psyche of the people of Sri Lanka are.
India’s armed intervention in Sri Lanka began in 1983; but the great power complex was ingrained in the mind of Jawaharlal Nehru. His successors were worse. What Prof. Kingsley M. de Silva, one of Asia’s most distinguished scholars, wrote in his authorised biography ‘J.R. Jayewardene of Sri Lanka’ reveals much worse than an assertion of a right to intervene. “The fact that A.C.S. Hameed was a Muslim did not bother J.R. at all, but it apparently did bother Morarji Desai, who, on an official visit to Sri Lanka in 1979, pointedly asked J.R. why he did not appoint a Sinhalese for that important position [Minister for Foreign Affairs]. J.R. related this incident to K.M. de Silva in early February 1979 shortly after Desai’s visit” (Volume 2; page 398). Desai’s communal outlook was as manifest as his assumption of a right to meddle in Sri Lanka’s internal affairs. Small wonder that The Economist’s Delhi correspondent remarked as recently as January 31, 2015, that India “reserves a divine right to meddle in its South Asian backyard”. Incidentally, he noted also that “during Barack Obama’s three-day visit, Mr Modi all but aligned India openly with America”. Neighbours must call India “uncle”; the great powers must call it “brother”.
Any review of the past, to be purposeful, must reckon honestly with mindsets as well as the record. Involved in the exercise is a proper understanding of the proper influence of morality in the making of foreign policy, a hard look at the feudal, unprofessional habits of decision-making on foreign policy and a clear understanding of India’s national interests. The flaws were evident in the days of Jawaharlal Nehru. They have aggravated under Narendra Modi. Nehru at least read the papers, as did Indira Gandhi. Modi does not read. He prefers to listen and decide all by himself. Since 1947, India has followed a highly personalised style of foreign policy in which the Prime Minister’s prejudices and predilections counted for more than the country’s interests…
Indira Gandhi seized the opportunity. Before her “good offices” could even begin, let alone conclude, she began preparations for the use of force against the very side that had invited her, the Government of Sri Lanka.
M.R. Narayana Swamy, who is exceptionally well informed on that dark secret, records in detail how and when India’s Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) began training the Tamil militant groups on Indian soil. “The training began in September 1983 at Dehradun, in the hills of Uttar Pradesh. From then on, hundreds of Tamil boys travelled by train from Madras to New Delhi and later in trucks and buses to Dehradun to learn the art of military science from Indian trainers. It was a great moment for the Tamils and a turning point in the campaign for Eelam. The Tamil Nadu police, unaware initially of what was afoot, detained one group of Tamils just before they were to leave Tamil Nadu and recorded their names and addresses before RAW came to their rescue.
“To the world, India kept up an innocent facade, insisting that it was not doing any mischief. ‘We deny that there are any [Tamil] terrorists in the southern states of this country,’ an Indian External Affairs Ministry spokesman said on August 16. ‘We have never interfered with the internal developments of any country in the past and we will not do so now,’ added Indira Gandhi at a public meeting in Bombay on 15 September….
“The Indian government had its own reasons for training the Tamils. Sources in all Tamil groups now assert that India was never serious about Eelam and gave them training and arms only to teach Colombo ‘a lesson’ for its pro-West foreign policy. At the most New Delhi would have wanted the Tamils to secure limited autonomy. But it was widely rumoured then-both in Sri Lanka and India-that Mrs Gandhi might do a Bangladesh or Cyprus in the island’s northeast. The rumour was reinforced by what the Indian trainers told the trainees: ‘We have got to finish this soon,’ Shankar Raje quotes an Indian Army officer as telling him, referring to a batch under training in Dehradun. ‘We need a scout force to lead us. You are not going to do the real fighting. But be prepared.’ Shankar added: ‘The message that was given was clear cut. The Indians were going to intervene.’ Douglas Devananda, who now lives in Colombo, said the way the Indian Army officers conducted themselves, ‘we realised that they were only trying to use us (in their gameplan)’.…
Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and President J.R. Jayewardene sign the historic Indo-Sri Lanka Accord. Pic courtesy Hindu
Indian product
The LTTE, which played such havoc in Sri Lanka and India, was an Indian product. It was India’s help and training which transformed the rabble into a “well equipped guerilla force”. It began in 1983 under Indira Gandhi. She personalised her foreign policy. Her favourites were Sirimavo Bandaranaike, Sheikh Hasina and Benazir Bhutto. Her bete noires were Zia, the King of Nepal and JRJ. He had made uncalled for and intemperate comments about her when she was in the Opposition. JRJ was, however, India’s best partner in the peace process for it was S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike who injected the ethnic factor in politics for electoral gains and his wife Sirimavo who consistently took a hard line.
Indira Gandhi made little effort to conceal her help to Tamil militants. Eelaventhah, general secretary of the Tamil Eelam Liberation Organisation (TELO), was invited to attend the All India Congress Committee (AICC) session in October 1983 as a “distinguished guest”. On August 6, 1984, the LTTE issued a statement in Madras stating that it had stepped up its guerilla attacks in northern Sri Lanka. On November 21, 1984, the TELO claimed responsibility in Madras for a bomb blast in a police station near Jaffna.
Sri Lankans were not slow to point out India’s double standards. On the eve of External Affairs Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao’s visit to Sri Lanka in July 1983-his second after the one in April 1983-JRJ asked his Foreign Minister to “ascertain from India how they solved their communal problem when the extremists asked for a separate State”.
On November 3, 1984, he said: “In India, some Sikhs are agitating for a separate Khalistan. In Sri Lanka some Tamils are doing the same. Both movements have spawned terrorists. In both countries, the Central governments seek to settle any dispute that may exist constitutionally and peacefully. The Indian and Sri Lankan governments accuse foreign countries of seeking to interfere. In India, the terrorists who committed the assassination were Sikhs. In Sri Lanka they were Tamils. In India the victim was a Hindu. In Sri Lanka 12 of the victims were Buddhist Sinhalese. In India a few enraged Hindus massacred innocent Sikhs. In Sri Lanka a few enraged Sinhalese massacred innocent Tamils.” The truth infuriated Rajiv Gandhi.
As Bhasin notes in his introduction: “In the pre-Agreement period it [India] indulged in the policy, which was seen as promoting and abetting terrorism in a neighbouring country, a charge it frequently made against Pakistan. In the post-Agreement period, it did not hesitate to use armed force to push down the throats of the Tamils an Agreement which they felt was fundamentally flawed and against their interest.”
This brings the analogy closer to the bone-Kashmir. One of Sri Lanka’s ablest High Commissioners to India, Neville Kanakaratne, said in a press statement in New Delhi on July 1, 1994, “Our government, like yours on the Kashmir issue, feels that certain problems must be left to be handled by the country. I do not like this kind of double standards and what applies to Kashmir must also hold good for Jaffna in Sri Lanka.”
Precisely-and the double standards extend even more to the issue of external aid to militants. Narayana Swamy writes: “No one asked questions when Tamil groups with Indian patronage massacred innocent Sinhalese-although the killings of innocent Tamils by Sri Lanka security forces was always denounced loudly. It would be pertinent for Indians today to look back and see how the average Sri Lankan must have felt over the brazen patronage extended to people dubbed ‘terrorists’ by Colombo. Tamil groups based in Tamil Nadu openly claimed credit for attacks on government/military targets in Sri Lanka-without inviting any criticism from the Indian government. Imagine the Punjab or Sind Legislature in Pakistan announcing monetary aid to Kashmiri/Khalistani militants. Yet this is precisely what the Tamil Nadu legislature did in 1987″ (page 331). Pakistan’s National Assembly has done that more than once, sending New Delhi into high dudgeon.
As in Pakistan, so in India, the mainstream media echoed the official line in the name of “nationalism”. Both practised media “management”. India Today was perhaps the first to report on the training of Tamil militants (March 31, 1984). The Ministry of External Affairs expressed its displeasure to the formidable correspondent Shekhar Gupta, if I remember correctly. Not every journalist can resist such pressures. Offenders are denied access. India Today’s report created a furore in Sri Lanka’s Parliament.
The establishment’s mindset survived radical change. On March 7, 2013, Yashwant Sinha peremptorily laid down commandments for Colombo to obey. They were (1) Withdrawal of Sri Lanka’s Army from Northern Sri Lanka and handing over law and order duties to local police. (2) Implementation of Lessons Learnt & Reconciliation Committee (LLRC). (3) Implementation of not only the 13th Amendment, but additional powers (13th Amendment + Plus) to complete devolution of powers. (4) Institution of an independent, impartial inquiry comprising people from outside Sri Lanka. (5) A clear commitment that the guilty shall be punished. (6) India shall not only vote at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), but take the lead in drafting a resolution against Sri Lanka. (7) Let India convey to other nations in neighbourhood not to interfere in Sri Lanka & Indo-Sri Lanka affairs. Any wonder he proved such a crass failure as Minister for External Affairs after failing as Finance Minister? What if Pakistan were merely to suggest some steps in Kashmir like demilitarisation, punishment to violators of human rights and respect for Kashmir’s autonomy?
Double standards continue
The double standards continue still. National Security Adviser, Ajit Doval, could meet Tamil leaders in Sri Lanka but the Foreign Secretary talks with Pakistan were called off simply because Pakistan’s High Commissioner Abdul Basit had held traditional talks with the Hurriyat leaders on the eve of the Secretary-level talks.
India has two oft-proclaimed interests in Sri Lanka -the Tamils and China. On both, its leverage in 2015 is weaker than what it was in 1985. On both, India can promote its interests and concerns by persuasive diplomacy rather than strident assertiveness. On February 5, 2015, Sri Lanka’s Cabinet decided to go ahead with its $1.5 billion “port city” deal with China (The Telegraph, February 6). China’s presence is far too strong to be wished away. Realistically, there is a point beyond which India cannot compete in provision of largesse. But it has a much greater advantage in soft power. It can be and will be used only if there is an honest retrospect on India’s policies towards Sri Lanka since 1983 and an honest awareness of the enormous damage which India inflicted on a great and beautiful country only because it had not the military might to resist India’s aggressive interventions on its own soil and in its national affairs.
(The full article is available on http://www.sundaytimes.lk/150301/)