{"id":127960,"date":"2014-07-18T09:38:15","date_gmt":"2014-07-18T04:08:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=127960"},"modified":"2014-07-25T12:13:44","modified_gmt":"2014-07-25T06:43:44","slug":"time-to-shake-up-sri-lankas-business-as-usual-with-india","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/time-to-shake-up-sri-lankas-business-as-usual-with-india\/","title":{"rendered":"Time To Shake Up Sri Lanka\u2019s \u201cBusiness As Usual\u201d With India"},"content":{"rendered":"

By R Hariharan<\/span><\/a> –<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"<\/a>

Col. (retd) R.Hariharan<\/p><\/div>\n

Time has come for Prime Minister Narendra Modi<\/span><\/a> to take a relook at Sri Lanka affairs under the leadership of President Mahinda Rajapaksa<\/span><\/a>. He has continued for too long to bash on regardless of his unkept promises to India on implementing the 13th Constitutional Amendment<\/span><\/a> in full. It was to be part of the resumption of the stalled political dialogue process with Tamil leaders which he promised to undertake.<\/p>\n

Modi\u2019s elevation as Prime Minister initially caused some concern to Rajapaksa as the BJP electoral partners in Tamil Nadu were well known for their strong anti-Rajapa and decidedly pro-Tamil separatist stand. But seeing the dynamic new Indian prime minister\u2019s keenness to build better relations with India\u2019s neighbours, Rajapaksa seems to have decided that it would be business as usual for Sri Lanka while dealing with India.<\/p>\n

Just one example will suffice to explain Rajapaksa\u2019s intransigent attitude to the dialogue process with Tamil leaders. Recently, the President had a wonderful opportunity to build bridges with Tamil polity when the 5-year tenure of Northern Province Governor Chandrasiri<\/span><\/a> ended. The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) which is in power in the Province had for long been demanding replacing Chandrasiri a former General, with an experienced and well respected civilian, for which there is no dearth in Sri Lanka. The TNA felt such a move would provide a better equation in dealing with Colombo as the population was recovering from post war trauma.\u00a0 The President could have acceded to their request now without any loss of face for anyone (except probably the President\u2019s brother Gotabaya who has a different view on the subject) by appointing a civilian as the governor for Northern Province. Such a gesture would have helped to create good will not only among Tamils but also among large sections of Sri Lanka civil society who feel President Rajapaksa has not done enough to bringing the Tamils back into national mainstream and put an end to ethnic confrontation.<\/p>\n

But the President chose to reappoint the outgoing Governor Chandrasiri for yet another term in the same job. It was a gesture in articulating the President\u2019s power; the announcement came like a slap in the face of the Justice Wigneswaran<\/span><\/a>, the TNA chief minister of the Province, because he had been demanding Chandrasiri\u2019s replacement from day one in office. With it Rajapaksa has sent a clear signal to Tamils that there would be no rapprochement with them except on his terms.<\/p>\n

This comes as no surprise if we see the evolution of Sri Lanka\u2019s policy in the last five post war years. Its core contents appear to be<\/p>\n

1.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Marginalise India\u2019s role on behalf of the Tamil constituency; of course, on all other aspects Colombo welcomes India\u2019s initiatives in trade, defence, and other matters, naturally on terms favourable to Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n

2.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 International NGOs should lay off Sri Lanka on issues like war crimes, human rights, governance, minority rights and rule of law. To be \u2018fair\u2019 to small countries they should go after big powers which seem to get away with much bigger crimes. Already Ministry of Defence which seems to have hand in the policy making pie, has already proposed restrictions on NGOs access to public media. Of course, the NGOs are welcome to associate with government-sponsored programmes to improve the well being of the people.<\/p>\n

3.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 International bodies like the UN Human Rights Commission (UNHRC) are manipulated by Western powers and the US. So Sri Lanka should not facilitate any role for them in its internal affairs (forget the UN conventions say because everyone flouts them). While Sri Lanka cannot stop their \u201cmeddling,\u201d it can network with like-minded countries (eg., Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea etc) and make a lot of noise about the intrusive nature of UN commissions\u2019 work because it echoes the view of many nations.<\/p>\n

4.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The Tamil issue has been solved with the elimination of Prabhakaran and the Tamil Tigers. But Sri Lanka would attend to Tamil grievances, if any, on its own terms without any external intervention. And the 13th constitutional amendment was created to satisfy India and at best it is a benevolent gesture to Tamils. Tamils should be happy with its present form of incomplete implementation.<\/p>\n

5.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The army has an important role to play in keeping the Northern and Eastern provinces \u201csanitized\u201d to prevent any \u2018resurrection\u2019 of Tamil terrorism abetted by Tamil Diaspora and their pals in TNA and the remnants of\u00a0 LTTE abroad (and in Tamil Nadu).\u00a0 So regardless of what the government says, the army will continue to keep a watch on the activity of Tamils everywhere including the North and East. As it is in the interest of national security, army\u2019s intrusive role, if any, has to be tolerated by civilians and condoned by the government. As a corollary the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) would continue to be in force.<\/p>\n

As far as India\u2019s role on Tamils in Sri Lanka is concerned, in a nutshell, Rajapaksa is telling India \u201cforget about full implementation of 13th Amendment, or its Plus version I spoke about. It is for TNA to negotiate what it wants because basically it is our internal issue.\u201d<\/p>\n

Did Modi\u2019s cordial meeting with Rajapaksa and the absence of any representative from his Tamil Nadu political partners in the cabinet influence Rajapaksa\u2019s attitude?\u00a0 It is time to shake up Colombo\u2019s \u201cbusiness as usual\u201d mindset at least a wee bit.<\/p>\n

From this point of view I welcome the initiative taken by Civil Society Coalition for Justice and Peace delegation from Tamil Nadu which met with the Minister of External Affairs Mrs Sushma Swaraj to articulate the concerns of Tamils. The delegation led by the UPA coalition partner PMK\u2019s leader Anbumani included civil society activist and former IAS officer MG Devasahyam, former Dharmapuri MP R Senthil and advocate R Balu. This is a welcome move because civil society has to be involved in articulating Tamil Nadu\u2019s concerns on Sri Lanka Tamil issue, which has been used for too long by political parties only to score political brownie points.<\/p>\n

I do not agree with the delegation\u2019s view that China, Pakistan, and Burma were ganging up with Sri Lanka against India because it is too simplistic. India\u2019s Sri Lanka policy cannot be changed overnight because it is not exclusively Tamil-centric but includes other issues of national interest like trade, maritime and security concerns as well.<\/p>\n

But I fully agree with them on two other points they made:<\/p>\n