{"id":38676,"date":"2012-04-16T08:05:58","date_gmt":"2012-04-16T08:05:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=38676"},"modified":"2012-04-22T22:56:58","modified_gmt":"2012-04-22T22:56:58","slug":"india-gives-sri-lanka-lessons-in-realpolitik","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/india-gives-sri-lanka-lessons-in-realpolitik\/","title":{"rendered":"India Gives Sri Lanka Lessons In Realpolitik"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By\u00a0J.S. Tissainayagam\u00a0&#8211;<\/strong><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_38677\" style=\"width: 130px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/india-gives-sri-lanka-lessons-in-realpolitik\/tissa-2\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-38677\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-38677\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-38677\" title=\"Tissa\" src=\"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/Tissa-120x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"120\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-38677\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">J.S. Tissainayagam<\/p><\/div>\n<p>CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts \u2014 The United States sponsored and carried a resolution on Sri Lanka at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva on March 22. However, what surprised observers was not US action but that India had voted in favor of a resolution against its South Asian neighbor.<\/p>\n<p>The resolution, calling on Colombo to investigate war crimes allegedly committed by its own troops and Tamil rebels in the final months of fighting in 2009, is admittedly weak. It is nowhere near an international investigation that the UN and many in the international community argued for.<\/p>\n<p>The resolution\u2019s lack of vitality is partly due to an amendment moved by India on the original US draft. It was to ensure that any UN oversight on investigation into war crimes would take place only with Colombo\u2019s concurrence.<\/p>\n<p>Following the vote, India\u2019s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh wrote to Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse. Singh said, \u201cYour Excellency would be aware that we spared no effort and were successful in introducing an element of balance in the language of the resolution.\u201d This fuelled the theory that domestic political reality had spurred New Delhi to first dilute the resolution and then vote for it.<\/p>\n<p>The domestic political reality was the wave of indignation sweeping India\u2019s Tamil Nadu state, where Tamils reacted angrily to mounting evidence of atrocities committed on their ethnic brethren in Sri Lanka by that country\u2019s military. This led to the two most important political parties in Tamil Nadu \u2013 one which was a constituent of Singh\u2019s ruling coalition \u2013 threatening drastic action unless India voted in favor of the Geneva resolution.<\/p>\n<p>While it is true public opinion in Tamil Nadu pressured New Delhi to vote for the UNHRC resolution, it is only one reason. Other national interests were also at play emanating from international, regional and bilateral concerns.<\/p>\n<p>Internationally, India\u2019s reluctance to support democracy movements and struggles for human rights in different parts of the world has caused misgiving, especially as it seeks a permanent seat in a reformed UN Security Council. This has been referred to by commentators from India\u2019s liberal establishment to US President Barack Obama during his visit to India in November 2010.<\/p>\n<p>Of regional consequences to India are Sri Lanka\u2019s moves to let China inveigle its way into the Gulf of Mannar, the narrow strip of sea separating India and Sri Lanka, in the guise of drilling oil. Earlier, although Sri Lanka appeared to take pains to treat both India and China \u2013 Asian giants competing for influence in the Indian Ocean \u2013 equally, recent reports say Colombo\u2019s relations with Beijing run deeper. India is reportedly perturbed, not for lost commercial opportunities but because the Chinese presence in the Gulf of Mannar is a security threat.<\/p>\n<p>Global Post<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p> [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":38677,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colombotelegraph","category-editorial"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>India Gives Sri Lanka Lessons In Realpolitik - Colombo Telegraph<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/india-gives-sri-lanka-lessons-in-realpolitik\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"India Gives Sri Lanka Lessons In Realpolitik - Colombo Telegraph\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"[&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/india-gives-sri-lanka-lessons-in-realpolitik\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Colombo Telegraph\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-04-16T08:05:58+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2012-04-22T22:56:58+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/Tissa.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"120\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"154\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"COLOMBO TELEGRAPH\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"COLOMBO TELEGRAPH\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/india-gives-sri-lanka-lessons-in-realpolitik\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/india-gives-sri-lanka-lessons-in-realpolitik\/\",\"name\":\"India Gives Sri Lanka Lessons In Realpolitik - Colombo Telegraph\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/india-gives-sri-lanka-lessons-in-realpolitik\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/india-gives-sri-lanka-lessons-in-realpolitik\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/Tissa.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2012-04-16T08:05:58+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2012-04-22T22:56:58+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/#\/schema\/person\/9db3d0cfcfa59e1997e3c3524d454cb3\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/india-gives-sri-lanka-lessons-in-realpolitik\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/india-gives-sri-lanka-lessons-in-realpolitik\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/india-gives-sri-lanka-lessons-in-realpolitik\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/Tissa.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/Tissa.jpg\",\"width\":\"120\",\"height\":\"154\",\"caption\":\"J.S. 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