Sunday Times 2
The nexus between foreign policy and domestic policy
View(s):Max Weber’s typology of political leadership is helpful to understand the different strategies employed at the August election. On the one hand “traditional” authority looking towards the status quo albeit with a “charismatic” leader rooted in past glory, as opposed to the “legal-rational” authority looking to institutional-building for good governance into the future. Post-election, the question that is looming in everyone’s mind is whether the resultant polarisation can be overcome in the national interest.
India’s Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi (left) and Sri Lanka’s President J.R. Jayewardene signing the Indo-Lanka Agreement in 1987. Even some key Indian officials who contributed to the formulation of the Agreement at the time, today freely admit it was wrong policy
UPFA tactics during the last stages of the campaign had raised fears among voters that a future coalition government between the UNP and the TNA would result in a division of the country. The negative impact of such tactics weighs on national reconciliation efforts. The Government had reiterated its support for the unity of the country and put forward its view that devolution needed to be taken to the district level and to the religious leaders.
The objective of strengthening cooperation for development at the lowest tier is a practical move which would benefit all provinces of the country. Can the discussions on this sensible proposal take the place of the unfulfilled promise of 13+ by the Rajapaksa government? Will such a re-shaping of the bilateral agenda be acceptable to India which has expended considerable energy and resources on the 1987 India-Sri Lanka Agreement which produced the 13th Amendment? Given the pragmatism with which Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government is handling long-standing bilateral issues, it is worth making a fresh effort to convince our neighbour that successful politics is the art of doing what is possible.
The Indo-Lanka Agreement arose out of both international systemic and domestic factors which operated at the time. The costs of the Indian intervention in Sri Lanka were heavy: The IPKF lost more than 1,200 dead and nearly 2,500 injured, the financial cost was said to amount to about US$ 180 million. In 1991, former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, who was responsible for the Indo-Lanka Agreement, was assassinated by the LTTE at an election meeting in Tamil Nadu, a blatant crime which sent shock waves throughout India. The point is that there are many in India who criticise the Indo-Lanka Agreement in retrospect and take note that it had the effect of reducing India-Sri Lanka relations to its lowest level of confidence since independence. It may surprise the Sri Lankan public to know that even some key Indian officials who contributed to the formulation of the Agreement at the time, today freely admit it was wrong policy. When the outcome of the IPKF mission was assessed, not surprisingly it led to a re-thinking of the rules of engagement of Indian forces.
Given the huge cultural and linguistic diversity in India, it is also understandable that most Indian analysts consider their federal experience of nation-building as a success and to make unfavourable comparison with the problems encountered by Sri Lanka within its unitary constitution. Their argument is that the Indian state has, through resort to accommodation, exercised political hegemony and, in the case of the Tamils, ensured the decline of secessionism. Yet there is an anomaly in the comparison with Sri Lanka. Thus, action by the Centre in India to devolve power in the south, splitting up the huge Madras Presidency into smaller linguistic units, effectively broke the movement for a separate Dravida Naadu. However, in Sri Lanka the projected merger of the Northern and Eastern Provinces under the Indo-Lanka Agreement would have had the opposite effect, of bringing together the smaller parts into a larger unit which would have been conducive to separatism taking hold! One could argue then that India was not applying in Sri Lanka, its policy of “accommodation” in the same way that it had in its own state restructuring. The evident corollary of this argument would be that the same success said to prevail in the Indian model could not be expected in the island.
The question of whether the Indian nation-building experience is valid for reproduction in Sri Lanka is thus wide open. For example, has the debate on devolution in the island been clouded by the manner in which the provisions in this respect in the Indo-Lanka Agreement have been quasi forced through Parliament as the 13th Amendment to the Sri Lanka Constitution without seeking prior consent from the people? This may explain why a major element, the merger of the Northern and Eastern provinces on a linguistic basis, had remained contentious for years, disputed in Parliament and never implemented.
Moreover, given the age-old differences between the Tamils of the North and the East, one wonders why India should be insistent on such a merger. Even President J.R. Jayewardene is said to have had doubts on the merger as a reasonable alternative to the demand for separation. Finally, the separation of the two provinces came into law by the 2006 decision of the Supreme Court which declared that the merger of the two provinces was “unconstitutional, illegal and invalid” in response to cases filed by three parliamentarians from the East. On what legal grounds could the Supreme Court reverse itself on this decision? Today, there is no visible public clamour in the East for such a motion.
The secrecy with which the Indo-Lanka Agreement was negotiated in 1987 also had unfortunate consequences not only in raising lasting suspicions of Indian motivation but also in questioning the prerogatives available to the ruling President under the 1978 Constitution. Even the Sri Lanka Foreign Ministry was shown the agreement’s draft only the night before its signature in Colombo, when it came for typing on the official paper! The ensuing controversy both in Parliament, the media and the public as to the manner in which the Provincial Councils were operationalised, has cast doubt on the intrinsic merits of devolution.
Some Sri Lankan experts also contest the view that India has managed, through its policy of accommodation, to forestall separatist tendencies within the federation. While the example is often quoted of the relative success of the Indian government in addressing secessionism in the south, how does one then account for the outbreak of insurgency and violence throughout India with Naxalites said to be active in one third of all districts. On the Indian side there are different explanations for the outbreak of insurgency, but the unprecedented level of the violence is not disputed. The upsurge in terrorism has implications for Sri Lanka as also the recent evidence of increased narcotics smuggling.
Manohari Velamati in her analysis of the role of Sri Lankan Tamil Diaspora points to the nexus between the Sri Lanka Tamil diaspora and friends in Tamil Nadu and the common security threat: “LTTE Tamil diaspora may look to the West for gaining political support and funds, but if at all regrouping of LTTE has to take place, that has to happen only in India.” Sri Lanka and India have a common interest to strengthen ongoing cooperation in the effort to combat terrorism and drug trafficking in the post-conflict era. Here, the need of the hour is for quiet and reliable cooperation among intelligence officers on both sides.
For all these reasons, a reshaping of the bilateral dialogue with India is required after the general election. Proposals of interest to the Indian side, like the “bridge” and the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) are mired in public controversy. As for “full implementation of the 13th Amendment”, there is little public support in Sri Lanka for 13+ proposed by the Rajapaksa government which leaves the current status quo at 13 – (minus land and police powers). Taking devolution down to the lowest tier could be an appropriate place to look for common ground, at least at the beginning of a process of consensual government.
(The author is a retired Foreign Service Ambassador)