{"id":53200,"date":"2012-09-06T09:12:09","date_gmt":"2012-09-06T09:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=53200"},"modified":"2012-09-06T09:12:09","modified_gmt":"2012-09-06T09:12:09","slug":"india-sri-lanka-ties-hurt-by-violence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/india-sri-lanka-ties-hurt-by-violence\/","title":{"rendered":"India, Sri Lanka Ties Hurt By Violence"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Preetika Rana –<\/strong><\/p>\n

Tamil nationalists attacked a bus late Tuesday carrying ethnic Sinhalese Sri Lankans who were visiting India, the latest sign of ethnic tensions that could imperil New Delhi\u2019s relationship with Colombo.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Sri Lankan tourists visiting India arrived at the Katunayake airport in Colombo, Wednesday. Photo Reuters Shown<\/p><\/div>\n

About two hundred Sri Lankan tourists were on their way to an airport in India\u2019s southern Tamil Nadu state late Tuesday when a mob led by the regional Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam party hurled stones at their buses and smashed several windows, say police authorities. There were no injuries and police escorted the tourists to the airport, from where they returned to Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n

The incident comes amid sharp rhetoric in Tamil Nadu against the Sinhalese majority in Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n

Tamil Nadu\u2019s population is mainly ethnic Tamil, a largely Hindu religious group. The mainly Buddhist Sinhalese dominate Sri Lanka, a country that is separated from Tamil Nadu by the narrow Palk Strait.<\/p>\n

Sri Lanka\u2019s Sinhalese-dominated army fought a brutal 26-year war against the country\u2019s Tamil minority that killed tens of thousands, largely Tamil civilians, before its conclusion in 2009. During that conflict, the Tamil Tiger insurgents often sheltered in Tamil Nadu.<\/p>\n

Recent anti-Sinhalese developments in Tamil Nadu show the wounds of the war have not yet healed.<\/p>\n

On Sunday, the state\u2019s chief minister, Minister J. Jayalalithaa, who heads a large Tamil nationalist party, caused waves when she cancelled a local soccer tournament involving a visiting Sri Lankan team, claiming that such interactions \u201chumiliated the people of Tamil Nadu.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last month, Ms. Jayalalithaa wrote Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to demand the immediate end of Indian military training for Sri Lankan officers.<\/p>\n

Mr. Singh\u2019s administration rebuffed that call. But rising anti-Sri Lankan sentiment in Tamil Nadu has caused a headache for the government.<\/p>\n

Back in March, New Delhi\u00a0voted in favor<\/a>\u00a0of a U.S.-sponsored resolution at the United Nations that demanded Sri Lanka investigate human rights abuses carried out by its forces at the end of the civil war.<\/p>\n

India\u2019s government, which had previously resisted censuring Sri Lanka on its rights record, was forced to back the U.N. resolution due to pressure from a Tamil Nadu-based party that is part of the national governing coalition.<\/p>\n

Still, India, which is a large aid donor to Sri Lanka and South Asia\u2019s regional power, does not want to see its relations slide further with Colombo.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, India\u2019s foreign ministry attempted to rein in potential damage from the attacks on the Sri Lankan tourists.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe government of India, in close consultation with the State governments concerned, has taken and will continue to take all measures to ensure the safety, security and well-being of Sri Lankan dignitaries and visitors to India, including to Tamil Nadu,\u201d foreign ministry spokesperson Syed Akbaruddin said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Sri Lankan politicians\u00a0have called on<\/a>\u00a0India to stop the violence against its citizens.\u00a0 The country\u2019s foreign ministry\u00a0advised<\/a>\u00a0Sri Lankans visiting the Indian state to return home \u201cin the interest of their security\u201d and requested others to defer any \u201cvisits to Tamil Nadu until further notice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sri Lanka-based political author M.R. Narayan Swamy slammed Ms. Jayalalithaa\u2019s recent actions regarding the visiting soccer team.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is one thing for the chief minister to rant against India\u2019s military relations with Sri Lanka. It is insane to tell ordinary Sri Lankans \u2013 whatever the ethnicity \u2013 that they are not welcome to Tamil Nadu,\u201d Mr. Swamy noted in an IBN 7\u00a0opinion<\/a>\u00a0column Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Indian commentators, too, have taken the chief minister to task for her stance.<\/p>\n

A Tuesday editorial in The Hindu, a leading Indian newspaper, said she had \u201ctarnished the reputation of India as an open and tolerant society,\u201d adding that this could sour diplomatic ties between the neighboring countries<\/p>\n

Some political analysts, though, argued in favor of limiting visits by Sri Lankans to Tamil Nadu.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just been three years since the civil war ended,\u201d noted S. Chandrasekharan, the director of the South Asia Analysis Group, a New Delhi-based think-tank. \u201cWounds from the war are still fresh and that\u2019s evident from recent cases of violence in the state,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s better to limit interactions than fuel violent attacks and put at risk the lives of innocent Sri Lankans,\u201d he opined.<\/p>\n

Courtesy The Wall Street Journal<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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