Delhi must push Colombo to address Tamil grievances

"India should not allow its long-term interests to be corroded because of the machinations of the Sinhalese and their Indian supporters, and put its own strategic interests at peril."
______________

by T.S. Gopi Rethinaraj

(November 12, New Delhi, Sri Lanka Guardian) The survival of the Tamil Tigers is India’s insurance policy against Sri Lanka swinging over to interests of powers that might seek to contain India in the Indian Ocean region. Now that the ethnic conflict has resurfaced as a factor in Tamil Nadu politics, India can ill afford to be seen as actively colluding with the Sinhalese to subjugate the ethnic Tamils. While the recent competitive jostling among political parties over this issue is largely due to fragile electoral alliances in the state, there is also growing public sympathy for Sri Lankan Tamils due to the grave humanitarian crisis generated by the military campaign against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

India has reached an impasse because of its stated policy to safeguard the territorial integrity of Sri Lanka and its unwillingness to recognise LTTE’s stand in the conflict. Unless India overcomes this fixation, the Sinhalese dispensation will continue to exploit New Delhi and pursue its agenda without inhibitions. India should also recognise that the Sinhalese majority is yet to show any inclination to moderate its racist vision for Sri Lanka’s future. Frequent reminders by Colombo’s ruling elite that the ethnic minority will have to accept the country as Sinhalese land only confirm that the ongoing war is not really about defeating the LTTE, but part of a larger strategy to Sinhalicise the entire island. The Sri Lankan government’s efforts to alter the demographic character of traditional Tamil areas, by settling Sinhalese peasants and creating high-security zones, are mainly to weaken the Tamil resolve.

Since the LTTE remains the only roadblock to this Sinhalese agenda, its military defeat will ultimately result in the political, social and psychological subjugation of Tamils living on the island. The Sri Lankan state has mostly achieved this objective in areas not under LTTE control. This is why I reiterate that once the LTTE is militarily defeated, India will lose leverage with Colombo. However, the LTTE leadership should also realise that the Sri Lankan Tamils’ best opportunity to secure an honourable settlement is till such time that they are militarily relevant and must, therefore, explore alternative ways to quickly resolve the ethnic conflict.

While the LTTE’s violent methods — forced recruitment, employment of child soldiers and unrelenting militancy — are repugnant, their largely ethical conduct in the civil war has gone almost unnoticed. The LTTE has been mostly fighting a defensive war, restricting their combat within what they perceive as traditional Tamil areas, and their guerrilla attacks have mostly targeted defence bases and security forces. This is in contrast to almost all other militant/terrorist organisations in the world which mainly target civilian infrastructure and inflict massive civilian casualties. Ironically, it is the Sri Lankan state that has been deploying its firepower and aerial bombing capabilities over civilian areas in the north, resulting in massive civilian casualties and damages to residences, hospitals, and other civilian infrastructure. Unlike its antagonists, the LTTE has rarely been accused or found guilty of rape and other crimes against women and children during combat. The conduct of the Sri Lankan state reveals that the ongoing military campaign has an almost genocidal streak, with the deliberate targeting of civilian areas mainly aimed to deter civilians from supporting the LTTE.

Within India, especially after Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination, there has been a carefully orchestrated portrayal of the LTTE as the source of all troubles in the island. While the LTTE’s role in the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi deserves the strongest condemnation, that singular episode alone cannot be the basis for India’s Sri Lanka policy or for condemning Sri Lankan Tamils to eternal suffering. Suggestions that the emergence of an independent Tamil Eelam will hurt Indian security interests are disputable because its ethnic and political ties with India, through Tamil Nadu, will be much stronger than with a Sinhalese-dominated state. However, given a chance, most Sri Lankan Tamils will be happy to live under a greater Tamil Nadu — comprising traditional Tamil areas in the north and east of the island — as Indian citizens. But India failed to explore the option to integrate the north and east with Tamil Nadu when several opportunities presented that outcome before 1987.

The historical baggage — some of which dates back to pre-Christ times — also continues to remain a major impediment to a peaceful resolution of the conflict. The British failure to present a partition plan to accommodate political aspirations of the Sinhalese and Tamils allowed earlier historical grievances to fester.

The racism and blatant discrimination against Tamils in jobs, education and economic opportunities that produced the original conflict are still intact. Hence attempts to equate Sri Lanka’s ethnic problem with various insurgencies faced by India are not only inaccurate but an unfair characterisation of the Indian state.

Thus viewing Sri Lanka’s ethnic conflict through the prism of Indian federalism is misleading. India has always been keen in ending the ethnic conflict by actively engaging with the Sinhalese, and has consistently advocated a federal solution to Sri Lanka’s ethnic conflict. This, according to New Delhi’s assessment, would meet the aspirations of all ethnic groups in the island. But Colombo is not prepared to offer Tamils this proposed solution, which would anyway preserve Sinhalese political dominance in Sri Lanka. The failure to take into account this deep Sinhalese-Tamil divide explains the stagnation in India’s Sri Lanka policy.

Colombo has always keenly followed political undercurrents in India, especially within Tamil Nadu, and has been quite successful is driving a wedge between the concerns of Tamil Nadu politics and the central government. India’s succumbing to this contemporary scheming is, in the long run, deeply inimical to its interests and security. Unless India makes a course correction, some political parties are likely to exploit the situation to revive the long-forgotten separatist propaganda in Tamil Nadu. While the NDA government was more sensitive and remained equidistant from the two warring groups, the UPA government has been providing crucial military assistance to the Sri Lankan government. India’s current policy will inadvertently lead to complete subjugation of ethnic Tamils in the island.

India should not allow its long-term interests to be corroded because of the machinations of the Sinhalese and their Indian supporters, and put its own strategic interests at peril. India should intervene, as it did in East Pakistan, if Colombo does not show any sincerity in addressing the problem of Tamils and continues its deception.

T.S. Gopi Rethinaraj is a faculty member at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore - Sri Lanka Guardian