Indo-Lanka relations: A sea change

The construction of a war memorial to the 1,165 Indian soldiers who died fighting the LTTE on Sri Lankan soil will be another landmark in the convoluted and tortuous course of Indo-Lanka relations since the early eighties.

By 1986 July when the Indian troops were to land on Sri Lankan soil, relations between the two countries had sunk to the lowest depths.

Indian jawans who landed in the Jaffna peninsula received an ecstatic welcome by the people of Jaffna while there was turmoil in Colombo with the JVP burning state owned buses in protest and attempting a march into Colombo from the south which was halted by troops. The JVP used the Indian intervention as valid grounds for attempting to overthrow the government. But the JVP did not get to touching distance of an Indian jawan or an LTTE cadre and instead turned their guns, bombs and knives on their ‘political enemies’, mainly poor Sinhalese.

Then came the first queer twist. The LTTE soon locked horns with their Godfather and the battle was on. President Premadasa fighting two insurrections, LTTE and JVP, appealed to both sides for negotiations but the JVP spurned him calling him a ‘Cat’s paw of the capitalist class’ (Dhanapati Balal Anduk). The LTTE, almost at the point of being eliminated by Indian troops accepted President Premadasa’s offer. The next queer turn was made by President Premadasa who surreptitiously supplied arms to the LTTE fighting the Indians.

The third about turn was the LTTE massacring 700 soldiers who had surrendered on the orders of President Premadasa and commencing war again. President Premadasa then committed the biggest blunder of all by asking the Indian troops to leave the country. Prabakaran then went on the assassinate former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi who has assisted him so much as well as President Premadasa who gave him arms.

The sordid Indo-Lanka story continued with Chandrika Kumaratunga winning elections in 1994 flying to Jaffna and being welcomed by the Jaffna people as a dove of peace. Then peace talks collapsed, as before, and finally Prabakaran missed killing her by a hair’s breadth.

Indo-Lanka relations remained dormant under Chandrika Kumaratunga despite the constant refrain by her and her foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar: Peace with India. When around 50, 000 troops were cornered in the Jaffna peninsula by Prabakaran, Sri Lanka appealed to India for help. Buddhist monks who were strongly opposed to Indian interference then went through another tortuous turn by appealing to India for assistance and all India offered was, ‘humanitarian assistance’. Only armaments such as multi barrelled rocket launchers that were rushed from Pakistan and Israel helped save the situation

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe with Minister Milinda Moragoda have continued the refrain of ‘Friendship with India’ and this seems to be yielding results. The Free Trade Agreement and the Defence Agreement, which are of tremendous benefit to Sri Lanka, have come during Premier Wickremasinghe’s time.

With President Kumaratunga once again in charge of the Defence Ministry, the policy of ‘Friendship with India’ appears to be continuing and the construction of a war memorial for fallen Indian soldiers in Sri Lanka is in keeping with the spirit of goodwill that is prevailing.

The fear of Indian hegemony over Sri Lanka existed from colonial days till very recent times but with the post Cold War geopolitical changes, old suspicions have disappeared and testimony to this have been that both the UNP and the SLFP recently voted for a bill granting citizenship to all residents of Indian origin. The question of granting Sri Lankan citizenship to those of Indian origin has been an extremely contentious issue till the late nineties. The leasing of the Trincomalee Oil Tank Farm and opening of outlets of oil distribution of the state owned India Oil have not raised even a whimper of protest.

Only the LTTE is concerned about this growing nexus with India and that is to be expected because Velupillai Prabakaran and some of his cohorts are wanted for the murder of Rajiv Gandhi in India. One success of the Ranil Wickremasinghe government has been that despite his fear of jeopardising the ‘Peace Process’, if he antagonises Prabakaran, he has developed ties with India to the point of having a defence agreement about which the LTTE had protested.

President Chandrika Kumaratunga who always wanted and had good relations with New Delhi will want to continue on these lines. But what of her newly found partner, the JVP , that saw potential Indian hegemony good enough a reason to make it a main plank for its two bloody insurrections? The JVP’s revolutionary stand on many vital issues differs from that of the SLFP but in the current election campaign it has only hemmed and hawed on these issues including that of its India policy.

When Indo-Lanka relations are viewed from the mid 1980s to the present date it is one of a profound transformation. Both countries seem to have realised that good relations would be mutually beneficial to the economies and particularly to the security of the two countries.