Minister of Tourism Anura Bandaranaike has told Indian High Commissioner to Sri Lanka Nirupama Rao a home truth. He has asked her in plain English to mind her own business without getting too big for her slippers. He has reminded her of the bitter experience of J. N. Dixit, who had hubris and chutzpah oozing from every diplomatic pore of his. He apparently mistook himself for the President of this country.

Put any imbecile behind a counter, Camus has said, and he or she puts on airs and graces. The same goes for the mediocre diplomats of big nations who lie in a small country. They try to lord it over even the government leaders of the host nation. That’s why the whole caboodle of foreign diplomats from big countries, save some, seems to have mistaken this sovereign state, however small and poor it may be, for a republican tart to be at their beck and call for a few pieces of silver or even free of charge. Those so-called Sri Lankan leaders who have a penchant for prostrating themselves at the feet of hoity-toity foreigners, may deserve that kind of treatment but not the country as a whole.

Mrs. Rao, as Mr. Bandaranaike, whose illustrious parents brought Sri Lanka and India closer as never before, points out, should be wary of poking her diplomatic nose into Sri Lanka’s internal affairs. (No one even in his or her wildest dreams could call Anura anti-Indian) Dixit, it should be stressed, is far from a role model for any diplomat, either Indian or otherwise. He was a Hanuman who not only set Lanka ablaze but caused his political master to be a ball of fire at the hands of their erstwhile pampered pets. Poetic justice, as Nirupama the poetess should see! All it takes to ruin age old good relations between two nations is a diplomut with a big ego.

India’s assistance and cooperation are, no doubt, necessary for resolving Sri Lanka’s made-in-India conflict.’ India is duty bound to help clear the mess it has created. Sadly, such help is not forthcoming. Instead, India seems to subscribe to the view held by the countries like Norway that for negotiations to begin the troops in Sampur must withdraw to pre CFA positions. They turn a blind eye to the fact that the troops had been at the positions they are prescribing now, for years, but the LTTE didn’t return to the table. The LTTE had walked away from talks, years before Sampur was recaptured! Would they have asked the LTTE to withdraw from Jaffna, had it been able to capture that town two weeks ago? The LTTE would have asked them to go to hell! And India again would have offered ships to ferry troops to Colombo, as it did in 2000, when the LTTE marched right upto the outskirts of Jaffna and the government asked for help.

India has suddenly remembered it should play a role in Sri Lanka’s conflict resolution process, only when the LTTE is up against a brick wall, having got a severe beating. It (India) is having powwows with various Sri Lankan politicians and repeating like a mantra—jaw jaw not war war. Negotiations, no doubt, are the best way to settle the dispute but what has India done to help revive the stalled talks? Sweet little nothing! India’s policy towards Sri Lanka’s problem, as Churchill said of Russia, is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma—covered with hypocrisy, one may add. When the LTTE was on the verge of being crushed in1987, India sent airplanes in violation of Sri Lanka’s airspace; when the LTTE almost captured Jaffna in 2000 in a bid to resort to UDI, as was said earlier, India offered ships to withdraw troops and today, when it is clear that the LTTE’s ‘final war’ has boomeranged, one hears India’s gobbledygook again.

India, which rightly denied Anton Balasingham permission to land on his way to pre talks consultations with Prabhakaran in 2002, is expected to have talks with the TNA, which even the EU Elections Monitors have recognised as LTTE proxies. It is like one refusing to have any dealings with India but meeting Ms. Rao to discuss her country’s problems! We thought India was one of the few countries that didn’t make a mockery of their LTTE bans. We stand corrected!

Is it that India wants Sri Lanka’s conflict to persist so that Sri Lankan leaders both present and future will be compelled to toe its line, unlike President Jayewardene, who, as Anura has said, soured Indo-Lanka relations beyond measure?

Trying to be a bully’s buddy is always problematic. For, it requires compromising one’s interests, principles and even self esteem. It is also full of risks. Sri Lanka’s predicament vis-`E0-vis India is a case in point.

We wonder why the government has dissociated itself from Anura’s views (as we reported yesterday). The home truth that he has articulated so brilliantly in his inimitable style in Parliament needs to be endorsed by one and all.