{"id":46799,"date":"2012-06-30T20:12:59","date_gmt":"2012-06-30T20:12:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=46799"},"modified":"2012-07-08T09:07:56","modified_gmt":"2012-07-08T09:07:56","slug":"unpacking-the-menon-visit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/unpacking-the-menon-visit\/","title":{"rendered":"Unpacking The Menon Visit"},"content":{"rendered":"

By<\/strong>\u00a0Malinda Seneviratne<\/a>\u00a0–<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Malinda Seneviratne<\/p><\/div>\n

Visiting Indian Defence Advisor, Shiv Shankar Menon is reported to have insisted that Sri Lanka should sort its own problems, with India ready to help if requested.\u00a0 Although we know that diplomacy is about saying the palatable and doing the distasteful on the sly, India being India especially, it is prudent for the Government to be mindful of sensitivities.<\/p>\n

This envoy of the Indian Government has also urged the Tamil National Alliance to join the Parliamentary Select Committee, thereby effectively snubbing that party for attempting to use India as an instrument to arm-twist the Sri Lankan Government into submitting to their (the TNA\u2019s) proposals.\u00a0 This too, is good, subject to the cautionary footnote, \u2018too much should not be made out of appearances\u2019.\u00a0 For example, the TNA can \u2018concede\u2019 by accepting the PSC and the Government could thereafter get the PSC to come up with \u201913 Plus a la India\u2019s preferences\u2019.\u00a0 It\u2019s good to be alert.<\/p>\n

A Tamil daily newspaper has quoted TNA leader R. Sampanthan saying that Menon had expressed India\u2019s losing patience about a solution not materializing.\u00a0 Now if it is Sri Lanka\u2019s internal matter, then the timeframe should be Sri Lanka\u2019s and not India\u2019s concern.\u00a0 However, to the extent that the Sri Lankan Government accepts that there is a problem, then foot-dragging is something that cannot be condoned, either on the part of the Government or the main articulator of grievance, the TNA.\u00a0 The TNA is yet to articulate substantiated grievance and the Government is yet to ask the TNA to do so.\u00a0 Both parties have opted for the convenience of barb-exchange.\u00a0 That\u2019s good politics, but bad statesmanship.<\/p>\n

As for India\u2019s \u2018impatience\u2019, quite apart from the fact that it smacks of interference, regional political realities should not be pooh-poohed by the Government.\u00a0 India has legitimate concerns insofar as the so-called \u2018Tamil problem\u2019 plays a role in Indian power configurations.\u00a0 Indian politics demands those in power and those aspiring for power to use and abuse the \u2018Tamil Issue\u2019 as a political football.\u00a0 It is prudent for the Government to be mindful of these realities and play its cards without compromising its own political interest and more importantly the overall aspirations of all Sri Lankans.
\nTo this end, firm steps should be taken to overcome the current impasse, and these should include calling the TNA\u2019s bluff by demanding a full statement on grievances, investigating their true dimensions and resolving for the same, with or without the TNA\u2019s involvement.<\/p>\n

Perhaps what\u2019s really telling is Menon\u2019s claim that India stands for a \u2018United Sri Lanka\u2019.\u00a0 Unity is something that is impossible to obtain through legislation. The word is often used by the TNA and other federalists in post-LTTE Sri Lanka when referring to a \u2018solution\u2019, for example, \u2018A solution within a united Sri Lanka\u2019.
\n\u2018Unity\u2019 can be obtained in all kinds of political and constitutional formations.\u00a0 People can be united in a unitary state and they can be united under a federal constitution.\u00a0 There is nothing to say that either \u2018unitary\u2019 or \u2018federal\u2019 automatically produces \u2018unity\u2019.<\/p>\n

The obtaining of unity then is dependent on acknowledgment of anomaly (and this is not limited to ethnic issues), an even greater focus on commonalities and a consistent privileging of reason over emotion, fact over myth, lived reality over communalist exaggeration of grievance and the political expedience of inflating aspiration.<\/p>\n

As for \u2018solution\u2019, the relevant parties should always keep in mind that all things have outcomes, and for this reason the following are musts: a) the citizens should be kept informed, b) what the PSC (or any other deliberating forum) comes up with must be treated as \u2018proposal\u2019 and subject to public appraisal, and c) the possible political fallout must be deliberated on because future generations would have to live with it and perhaps even die on its account.\u00a0 The 13th Amendment, if anything, is a case in point where India\u2019s arm-twisting and J.R. Jayewardene\u2019s malleability produced a curse which wrecked political stability and produced a bloodbath.<\/p>\n

The Nation Editorial<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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