{"id":114982,"date":"2013-11-16T01:43:13","date_gmt":"2013-11-15T20:13:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=114982"},"modified":"2013-11-28T12:52:37","modified_gmt":"2013-11-28T07:22:37","slug":"indias-chogm-faux-pas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/indias-chogm-faux-pas\/","title":{"rendered":"India\u2019s CHOGM Faux Pas!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By <a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s=Sharmini+Serasinghe&amp;x=15&amp;y=5\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Sharmini Serasinghe<\/span><\/a> &#8211;<\/strong><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_73139\" style=\"width: 160px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/Sharmini-Serasinghe-1Colombo-Telegraph.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-73139\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-73139\" alt=\"Sharmini Serasinghe \" src=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/Sharmini-Serasinghe-1Colombo-Telegraph-150x150.jpg\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/Sharmini-Serasinghe-1Colombo-Telegraph-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/Sharmini-Serasinghe-1Colombo-Telegraph-50x50.jpg 50w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-73139\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sharmini Serasinghe<\/p><\/div>\n<p>India\u2019s Prime Minister <a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s=Manmohan+Singh&amp;x=10&amp;y=6\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Manmohan Singh<\/span><\/a> is being flogged mercilessly by the Indian Media \u2013 a symbol of how tall democracy stands in that country \u2013 over what is being dubbed as India\u2019s \u2018<a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s=CHOGM&amp;x=7&amp;y=7\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">CHOGM<\/span><\/a> Blunder\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>The Indian PM\u2019s decision not to attend the summit in Colombo is being viewed as giving into the bullying tactics of Jayalalithaa\u2019s Petticoat government. Just days before, Singh while addressing The Annual Conclave of Indian Ambassadors\/High Commissioners abroad in New Delhi outlined what he believed to be the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mea.gov.in\/articles-in-indian-media.htm?dtl\/22430\/A+Free+and+Prosperous+India+Five+Principles+of+Foreign+Policy\">\u2018<span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Five Core Principals<\/span>\u2019<\/a> of India\u2019s development-centric Foreign Policy.<\/p>\n<p>Of the five principals, the most relevant to Indo-Sri Lanka relations at this juncture would be the Fourth- \u201c&#8221;we recognize that the Indian sub-continent\u2019s shared destiny requires greater regional cooperation and connectivity. Towards this end, we must strengthen regional institutional capability and capacity and invest in connectivity.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A few days later, he did a <i>volte farce <\/i>by opting not to attend CHOGM in Colombo! So what happened to his \u201cinvestment in regional connectivity\u201d? The unspoken message that was ultimately sent by the Indian PM was that he couldn\u2019t give a damn about \u201cregional connectivity\u201d when his own political interests were at stake.<\/p>\n<p>The Indian media is understandably having a field day berating their PM for placing petty domestic political interests before the country\u2019s greater interest vis-\u00e0-vis Foreign Policy. Regional analyst Ankit Panda points out, that the CHOGM 2013 debacle \u201cwill be remembered as a political fumble in India\u2019s regional relations\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile President <a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s=Mahinda+Rajapaksa&amp;x=11&amp;y=2\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Mahinda Rajapaksa<\/span><\/a> delivering a strong message to the Commonwealth members in his inaugural address stated &#8220;We must also collectively guard against bilateral agendas being introduced into the organisation disrupting Commonwealth traditions and consensus. The strength of the organisation lies in keeping the member countries helping each other in a spirit of partnership making the Commonwealth truly unique&#8221;. This was obviously a snide reference to India.<\/p>\n<p>Dr. Singh caught between the devil and the deep-blue-sea may have inadvertently strengthened Rajapaksa\u2019s hand vis-\u00e0-vis the 13<sup>th<\/sup> Amendment.\u00a0 He can now dilute it further or do away with it entirely.<\/p>\n<p>One wonders if Rajapaksa in all his cunningness was secretly hoping that the Indian PM will keep away from CHOGM 2013!<\/p>\n<p>The fallout of this whole issue will be India\u2019s pet-concern; to ensure a fair deal for Sri Lanka\u2019s Tamil community, ending up on the back-burner. After all it was the hard work put in by India that made the Northern Provincial Council elections a reality.<\/p>\n<p>The worst off in this scenario is none other than the newly elected Chief Minister of the Northern Province <a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s=C.V.+Wigneswaran&amp;x=11&amp;y=4\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">C. V. Wigneswaran<\/span><\/a>. He is now in a most unenviable position.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile China must obviously be beaming with glee as it watches fragile Indo-Sri Lanka relations deteriorating even further!<\/p>\n<p>*<em>Sharmini Serasinghe was Director Communications of the former Secretariat for Coordinating the Peace Process (SCOPP) under Secretary Generals Dr. John Gooneratne and Jayantha Dhanapala.\u00a0<\/em><em>She counts over thirty years in journalism in both the print and electronic media.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p> [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":36137,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,8,6968],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-114982","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colombotelegraph","category-editorial","category-popular-columns"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>India\u2019s CHOGM Faux Pas! 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