Why is it that some of the boldest and most significant steps being taken by President Mahinda Rajapakse of Sri Lanka in trying to restore normalcy in the strife-torn island nation are going virtually unnoticed by India’s security bureaucracy? India is the one SAARC nation – by virtue of its proximity and traditional ties and strategic security interests – that has the most to gain from a strong, stable and economically resurgent Sri Lanka. Yet, some of Rajapakse’s latest initiatives to gain the confidence of alienated Tamils who have latent pro-LTTE sympathies seem to find little or no recognition in the power corridors of New Delhi.
New Delhi, it is obvious, has no love lost either for the LTTE which has been banned as a terrorist organization, or for its head honcho, the tyrannical Prabhakaran. It made that obvious when it kept virtually mum after Rajapakse nixed the farcical Norwegian-brokered Ceasefire Agreement which had given the LTTE breathing room to regroup and step up terrorist activities. Rajapakse’s increased military pressure on the LTTE, that has resulted in liberation of the island’s Eastern Provinces, has also been accompanied by an unprecedented olive branch to the Tamil diaspora. Rajapakse is convinced that without addressing legitimate Tamil ethnic, linguistic and regional aspirations there can be no lasting peace in his country.
So he has embarked on a sustained campaign of reaching out to the Tamil community through a series of confidence-building measures. His closest aides have been involved in Track-II talks with influential members of the Tamil diaspora. As a result, the President has taken the unprecedented step of making Tamil a compulsory language for all his government officials. This gives Tamil official language status. He has also held elections in the Eastern Provinces as a first step in creating an autonomous atmosphere and has publicly espoused his adherence to the 13th Amendment (provincial autonomy) that was enacted following the Indo-Sri Lanka accord when Rajiv Gandhi was Prime Minister. In addition, he has instructed his navy to be extra careful not to hurt Indian fishermen, notably from Tamil Nadu, when they stray into Tamil waters.
These measures have earned him vituperous hostility from his own coalition partners, particularly the hawkish Janatha Vimukti Perumuna (JVP), a former insurrectionist Marxist group that has Chinese leanings. The JVP has been branding Rajapakse an Indian sympathizer and appeaser and threatening to pull him down because they see him making concessions to the Tamils. Not that the intrepid Rajapakse is not capable of fighting his own battles. But in this crisis, when he has been going out on a limb, why are India and its bureaucracy not giving him more solid moral support and helping to publicize his initiatives?
The Indian grapevine has it that South Block mandarins who shape foreign policy should be more alert to such developments and should anticipate crises in neighbouring countries before they erupt into impossible situations as happened in Nepal. Is Alok Prasad, Indian Ambassador to Colombo, asleep at the wheel, or are his reports on this supersensitive subject being ignored by South Block mandarins out of a lack of vision and foresight?
Footnote: These same South Block mandarins are hopping mad about another crude insult. Recently, when pro-Tibetan protesters tried to scale the walls of the Chinese embassy in New Delhi, the Chinese awoke Indian Ambassador to Beijing Nirupama Rao at midnight to summon her to their Foreign Ministry. To add insult to injury, when she went there she was met only by a junior officer, possibly, Joint Secretary level. Indian Foreign Office officials are still fuming but the Government has not even followed up with a brief protest note over this undiplomatic breach of protocol. Come on, MEA, wake up and shine!
