Sri Lankan crisis: Influence of Tamil Nadu in India’s Sri Lanka policy

The LTTE built its vast network in different parts of Tamil Nadu. Tamil Nadu was not only the sanctuary; it also became a safe haven from which the Eelam struggle derived its vocal and material support. Prabhakaran exploited to the full the contradictions in the Indian political scene – between the AIADMK and the DMK, between central and state government and between R&AW and the IPKF.
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By V. Suryanarayan *

(August 13,Chennai, Sri Lanka Guardian) Speaking in the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly recently, Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi, who is also the President of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), pointed out that in the post-LTTE era, attaining the goal of Tamil Eelam was not a realistic goal. He advocated the pursuance of a “flexible policy”, where the Tamils should avoid critical comments about the Sinhalese “out of anger and hatred”, because it may have “adverse effect” on their well being. The need of the hour, Karunanidhi underlined, is for the Tamils to carry on their struggle “for equal rights, equal status for their language and devolution of power at the regional level”.

Discerning students of Tamil Nadu politics, especially those analyzing the role of Tamil Nadu in the Sri Lankan ethnic conflict, are intrigued by the transformation that has taken place in the DMK perception on Sri Lanka. It may be recalled that following the communal holocaust in July 1983, Karunanidhi and Anbazhagan resigned their seats in the Legislative Assembly to protest against New Delhi’s lukewarm response to the sufferings of the Sri Lankan Tamils. On August 27, 1983, the DMK passed a resolution, which stated that a “separate Tamil Eelam shall be the only remedy and paramount solution”. Speaking in the Marina beach on the next day, K. Anbazhagan demanded Indian “military intervention” to put a halt to the “genocide” taking place in the island.

The DMK, in the long years when it was in opposition, used to be severely critical of the policies and programmes of the central government; more relevant from the regional perspective, the Party used to accuse the AIADMK government of sacrificing the interests of the Tamil brethren across the Palk Strait. After coming to power, in 1989, Karunanidhi wanted to prove his pro-Tamil credentials. When the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) returned from Sri Lanka, Karnunanidhi did not have even the courtesy to receive them, for he accused the Indian Army of committing “atrocities” against the Tamils.

Far worse things are happening in Sri Lanka today. As the Sri Lankan military offensive gathered momentum, the war against the Tigers degenerated into a war against Tamil civilians. The hapless Tamils were caught virtually between the Sinhalese Lions and the Tamil Tigers. Hundreds of them lost their lives as a result of savage bombing and many were fatally injured. As A Sivanandan, Director of the Institute of Race Relations, London, states, “It is difficult to talk dispassionately about what is going on in my country, when the horror of what the government is doing to a civilian Tamil population – already shelled and burned out of their existence and now herded into concentration camps and starved of food and medicine…”.

The Government of India should have tried to evolve an international mechanism, acceptable to the Sri Lankan Government and the Tamil Tigers, to rescue the trapped Tamil civilians from the war zone and escort them to refugee camps manned by the UN organizations. It may be recalled that when large scale riots took place in Colombo in 1958 and the Tamil residents were scared of their lives and security, the Indian High Commissioner, YD Gundevia, along with other friendly countries, persuaded the Governor General Olivier Goonetileke, to accept the offer of ships to transfer the Tamils to the safety of the Tamil areas in Jaffna peninsula. India, along with other countries, arranged ships and those Tamils who wanted to leave Colombo were taken to Kankesenturai. When normalcy was restored, the Tamils returned back to the city. No such initiative was taken by New Delhi this time. The response of the Government of India, backed solidly by the Tamil Nadu government, was only to express “concern” at the plight of the Tamil civilians. The maximum that Karunanidhi could accomplish, after his famous hunger strike, was the assurance from President Mahinda Rajapakse that there will no military offensive for three days.

How does one explain the paradigm shift in New Delhi- Chennai equation? Was it due to the “coalition dharma” practiced by the central government, in which the DMK is an important partner? Was it due to Karunanidhi’s keen desire to strengthen his political links with Congress President Sonia Gandhi at a time when sections within the Congress were toying with the idea of a coalition with the AIADMK in the post election scenario? Was the policy dictated by the Chief Minister’s desire to ensure important cabinet berths to his near and dear ones in the Central Government?

BASIC REALITIES

In order to provide a rational explanation, it is necessary to highlight certain stark realities in India-Sri Lanka relations. The role played by Tamil Nadu in fashioning India’s Sri Lanka policy is a subject matter of great controversy. The Sinhalese have always maintained that Tamil Nadu was invariably the villain in the deterioration of Sri Lanka - India relations in the post independence period. Prof. K M De Silva, the well known Sri Lankan historian, in his book, Managing Ethnic Tensions in Multi-Ethnic Societies, Sri Lanka, 1880-1985, has written: “The increasingly turbulent politics in Jaffna peninsula began to be treated as an integral part of the internal politics of Tamil Nadu. The DMK, effectively checked from pursuing its separatist goal in India, took vicarious pleasure in giving encouragement and support to separatist tendencies among the Tamils of Sri Lanka”. Prof. De Silva added, “Once a separatist movement emerged among the Tamils in Sri Lanka, it was fostered, nurtured and protected by Tamil Nadu”.

For entirely different reasons, JN Dixit, former Indian High Commissioner in Sri Lanka, also endorses this view. Speaking in the United Services Institute, New Delhi on March 10, 1989, JN Dixit highlighted the problems associated with the Sri Lankan Tamil ethnicity and its repercussions on Tamil Nadu as important determinants in India’s Sri Lanka policy. To quote Dixit: “The first voice of secessionism in the Indian Republic was raised in Tamil Nadu in the mid-sixties. This was exactly the same principle of Tamil ethnicity, Tamil language. So in a manner, our interest in Sri Lanka, Tamil aspirations in Sri Lanka was based on maintaining our own unity, our own integrity, our own identity, in the manner in which we have been trying to build our society”. Based on this premise, Dixit stated that if New Delhi did not support the cause of the Sri Lankan Tamils, the Tamils in India would feel that “we are not standing by our own Tamils, and if that is so, then in the Tamil psyche, Tamil subconscious, the question arose: Is there any relevance or validity of our being a part of a larger political identity, if our deeply felt sentiments are not respected? So it was a compulsion, which could not be avoided by any elected government in the country”.

The explanations provided by Prof. KM De Silva and Ambassador JN Dixit are over simplifications of a complex issue. When I analyse the triangular relations among New Delhi, Chennai and Colombo in a chronological perspective, I come to the following conclusions: 1) In the broad canvas of India-Sri Lanka relations, the role of Tamil Nadu was peripheral in the fashioning of India’s Sri Lanka policy. In fact, on crucial issues, the interests of Tamil Nadu were sacrificed by New Delhi in the name of good neighbourly relations. Take the case of the Sirimavo-Shastri Pact, 1964 and the subsequent Sirimavo-Indira Gandhi Pact 1974. These two Agreements converted the people of Indian origin in Sri Lanka into merchandise and they were divided, without ascertaining their wishes, between the two countries. All political leaders in Tamil Nadu, irrespective of their political affiliations – C. Rajagopalachari, Kamaraj Nadar, CN Annadurai, VK Krishna Menon and P Ramamurthy – opposed the inhuman agreement. But Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri, guided by the advice of then Commonwealth Secretary CS Jha, signed the agreement in October 1964. It should also be pointed out that the agreement was a betrayal of the Gandhi-Nehru legacy. Jawaharlal Nehru consistently maintained that the people of Indian origin in Ceylon, most of them belonging to the third or fourth generations, because of the long years of residence and contributions to the development of the economy, had every right to become citizens of that country. The second major issue where the interests of Tamil Nadu were not kept in mind by New Delhi was in the delimitation of the maritime boundary between India and Sri Lanka. The 1974 and the 1976 Agreements not only ceded the island of Kachchativu, which was a part of the Zamindari of Raja of Ramnad to Sri Lanka, they also failed to uphold the traditional fishing rights of the Indian fishermen in those waters. The Tamil Nadu fishermen still continue to suffer because of the failure of New Delhi to uphold their interests.

2) Despite geographical proximity and close cultural linkages, the Sri Lankan Tamil nationalism had an autonomous momentum of its own. The two political movements took diametrically opposite courses. In India, the demand for a separate state died a natural death; today the Dravidian parties not only rule in Tamil Nadu, they also share power in New Delhi. In Sri Lanka, on the other hand, the consensual politics has given way to conflictual politics. The dynamic changes in the Indian political system illustrate the success of the nation building experiment. On the other hand, a close study of the developments in Sri Lanka illustrates the perils of majoritarian democracy. A political system which does not take into consideration the aspirations and sensitivities of minority groups is bound to face serious challenges.

3) The decision to pursue the mediatory-militant supportive policy towards Sri Lanka at the end of July 1983 was taken by New Delhi with absolutely no inputs from Tamil Nadu. The decision was taken in a meeting attended by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, G Parthasarathy and A Amirtalingam. The views of the Government of Tamil Nadu on the subject were never sought. According to informed sources when Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MG Ramachandran came to know of the decision he was extremely unhappy about the attitude of New Delhi.

4) The volatile politics in Tamil Nadu can be understood only if we keep in mind the competitive politics among the two Dravidian parties, namely the AIADMK and the DMK. Equally relevant were the Congress party’s attempts to rebuild itself in Tamil Nadu by lending support to the Sri Lankan Tamil cause. In the game of one upmanship and competitive mud slinging, rhetoric was more important than reality.

5) A close analysis of the policies and programmes of the LTTE clearly bring to light that Prabhakaran steadfastly retained his independence of action. He was willing to take help from all quarters, including from President Premadasa (to get the IPKF out of Sri Lanka). When he realized in the beginning of 1987 that Chief Minister MG Ramachandran, in the final analysis, has to follow the dictates of New Delhi, he not only returned to Sri Lanka, but also built up the international network which financed the LTTE and fuelled its war machine. He still hoped to use Tamil Nadu as the sanctuary and as the supply base and maintained his close contacts with supporters like Nedumaran and Vaiko. When the international supply lines got dried up during the Fourth Eelam War, Prabhakaran was hoping that the pro-LTTE forces will sweep the polls in Tamil Nadu; he was also hoping that the Congress party will lose and a government more sensitive to Tamil aspirations will come to power in India. His fond hopes were shattered when the Congress was returned to power.

6) Unlike the era of one party dominance, when the interests of Tamil Nadu used to be ignored by New Delhi, the era of coalition governments, which began in 1979, brought about salutary changes. The regional partners began to make inputs into the making of foreign policy. What is more, the Central Government also began to influence the regional partners and brought about changes in their way of thinking. Few illustrations are given below. The inclusion of the Sethusamudram project in the common minimum programme, the non-conclusion of the defence agreement between India and Sri Lanka, the dropping of the idea of a land bridge between India and Sri Lanka and the decision not to resume shipping between Tuticorin and Colombo and Rameshwaram and Talaimannar – are illustrations where one can clearly discern the influence of Tamil Nadu. Equally relevant, the Man Mohan Singh government has been able to persuade the DMK, especially the Chief Minister, to conform and support the policies of the central government towards Sri Lanka, which upholds the unity and territorial integrity of the State, zero tolerance for the acts of terrorism committed by the Tigers and fashioning of a new political order, based on the implementation of the 13th Amendment.


NEW DELHI’S IGNORANCE OF BASIC REALITIES

New Delhi drifted into a quagmire in Sri Lanka following Mrs Indira Gandhi’s assassination, because some of the important decision makers in the Indian Foreign Office were not conversant with the complexities and realities of Sri Lanka. Two incidents, mentioned by JN Dixit in his book Assignment Colombo, are worth repetition. The first relates to Romesh Bhandari, Foreign Secretary, one of the main architects of India’s Sri Lanka policy during the stewardship of Rajiv Gandhi. Bhandari, who brought about radical shifts in foreign policy, claimed: “India intends to have an Indian rather than a Tamil Nadu policy towards Sri Lanka”. To quote Dixit “…he asked me whether I had informed the moderate Tamil leaders about the contents of the Non-Paper which were conveyed to the Sri Lankan Government. I told him I had not because I had no such instructions. This was where his vague knowledge about Tamil leadership found expression. He said, “Mani, as soon as you reach Colombo hand over the documents to Chelvanayakam”. I pointed out that Chelvanayakam had died nearly two decades ago. So handing over the papers to him was not possible. I said perhaps he meant that I should hand over the paper to Dr. N. Thiruchelvam”. Bhandari was impatient. He said: “Give the paper to Chelvanayakam, Thiruchelvam whosoever it is. All these South Indian names are very confusing”. “I assured him that I would carry out the instructions”.

The second incident pertains to General K. Sundarji, Chief of the Armed Forces. What was General Sundarji’s assessment of the fighting capabilities of Tigers? According to Dixit, General Sundarji told Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi: “He went on to say that if the LTTE decided to take on India and Sri Lanka militarily, Indian armed forces would be able to neutralize them militarily within two weeks. So there need not be any serious worry on this score”. Unlike General Sundarji, who had a poor opinion about the fighting capabilities of the Tigers, perceptive Sri Lanka watchers in India were aware of the single minded determination of Prabhakaran to carry on the struggle for the attainment of Tamil Eelam; they were also conscious of the fighting capabilities of the LTTE guerrillas. The task before the Indian Peace Keeping Forces was not easy, many lost their lives and finally they had to return from Sri Lanka without attaining the objectives which the Government of India had set for them.

CULTURAL AND POLITICAL INTERACTION

The cultural and political consciousness of the Sri Lankan Tamils had always been influenced by developments across the Palk Strait. This applied to politics as well as to culture. The main events in India, both in the north and the south, had their impact on the Tamil community. The founding of the Arya Samaj, the changes within the Hindu community brought about by the Ramakrishna Mission; the emergence of the Indian National Congress; the teachings of Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Mahadev Govind Ranade, and Aurobindo; the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi; the non-cooperation and Satyagraha movements all of them had their impact on the Tamil community. Equally relevant the social and political movements in Madras Presidency – the emergence of Periyar Ramaswamy Naicker and his teachings, the self respect movement, the formation of the Dravida Kazhagam and later the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam also contributed to the rise of the political consciousness of the Tamil community in Sri Lanka. However, we have to keep in mind differing political developments in Sri Lanka and South India. In Sri Lanka the Tamil political leaders moved away from collaboration with the Sinhalese political elite and started demanding a separate state when the nation building experiment started on the basis of Sinhalese language and Buddhist religion. Whereas, in contrast, in India the political developments resulted in the Tamil leaders moving away from the demand of a separate state. What is more, they became the upholders of the status quo by joining the national mainstream.

While explaining the interaction between the political developments in Tamil Nadu and the Tamil areas of Sri Lanka, we have to distinguish between rhetoric and reality. From the 1960’s, the protagonists of a separate state of Tamil Eelam used to assert, based more on imagination than on facts, “In India the south fights for independence from the north; in Sri Lanka, the north fights for independence from the South”. The Dravidian leaders used to highlight the “sacred duty” of Tai Nadu (motherland) to protect the rights and interests of the Tamils scattered in different parts of the world. In the popular Tamil film, Parasakti, the script of the film was written by Karunanidhi, hero Gunasekaran (played by Sivaji Ganesan) poses the question: “why is it the water of Bay of Bengal saltish? Is it because of the tears of the overseas Tamils?”

TAMIL NADU AND ETHNIC CONFLICT IN SRI LANKA

The communal holocaust which took place in Sri Lanka in July 1983 and the mounting tragedy in the island had their inevitable fall out in Tamil Nadu. As mentioned earlier, the Tamil Nadu politics during this period can be understood only in terms of competitive politics in the state. The response of the DMK/AIADMK was motivated mainly by their desire to score debating points and stage one upmanship on the opponent. During 1983- 1987, the debate centred round as to who was the greater champion of the Sri Lankan Tamil interests. As MR Narayan Swamy writes in Tigers of Lanka: From Boys to Guerrillas, “There was no love lost between MGR and Karunanidhi, and both tried to score points over each other using the Tamil issue as a chequer board. Whatever MGR did for the Tamils was not enough for Karunanidhi; and anything that the DMK leader said or did was seen by the Chief Minister as play acting. In the long run both began to view the Eelam campaign with an eye on the elections. Unfortunately Tamil groups also courted them”. The Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) was close to the central government; Amirtalingam tried to maintain good equations with both DMK and the AIADMK; the LTTE and its leader Prabhakaran became very close to MGR; the Tamil Eelam Liberation Organisation (TELO) had the patronage of Karunanidhi; the Peoples Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE) under Uma Maheshwaran had the blessings of Somasundram of the AIADMK; the Eelam Peoples Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF) under Padmanabha, because of its leftist ideology, came close to the CPI and later the UCPI; only the miniscule Eelam Revolutionary Organisers (EROS) under Balakumar, kept a safe distance away from all political forces. With the blessings of Chief Minister MG Ramachandran, the LTTE began to register an astounding growth, Prabhakaran adopted ruthless methods to annihilate political opponents and eventually emerged as the single most important factor in the Tamil areas.

It should be kept in mind that in terms of electoral support, the most ardent supporters of the LTTE in Tamil Nadu have never been able to get elected to the Legislative Assembly on their own. P Nedumaran and SD Somasundaram contested the 1989 elections to the Legislative Assembly on the Tamil Eelam platform, but the electorate decisively rejected them. The charisma of MGR overshadowed the political scene. The author recalls one occasion, when MGR undertook a hunger strike before the Anna Samadhi in Chepauk in support of the Sri Lankan Tamil cause; thousands thronged the scene, the mere sight of MGR sent them into frenzy; all shouted slogans in support of MGR; they forgot the cause for which the hunger strike was undertaken.

The LTTE built its vast network in different parts of Tamil Nadu. Tamil Nadu was not only the sanctuary; it also became a safe haven from which the Eelam struggle derived its vocal and material support. Prabhakaran exploited to the full the contradictions in the Indian political scene – between the AIADMK and the DMK, between central and state government and between RAW and the IPKF. What is more, the efficient network which the LTTE painstakingly built in Tamil Nadu – comprising smugglers, fishermen, political activists, transport operators, business men and corrupt officials – provided support and backing to their war machine. Through the “Prabhakaran trail”, stretching from the arid areas of Coimbatore, Salem, Erode through Karur and Trichy on the Cauvery banks to the coastal village in Vedaranyam explosives, hand grenades, food, medicines, fuel and diesel oil were moved and from Vedaranyam to the Jaffna peninsula. The long coastline in Tamil Nadu, with innumerable fishing harbours, provided safe haven to the LTTE’s fast moving boats. An efficient communication system linking Jaffna with the outside world through Tamil Nadu was built up. The four principles of ancient Indian statecraft – Sama, Dana, Bheda and Danda- were employed by the LTTE to retain Tamil Nadu as the sanctuary and supply base.

The IPKF’s plea to successive governments in Tamil Nadu – AIADMK, DMK and even President’s administration – to curb the activities of the LTTE fell on deaf ears. It is a strange paradox, but true, that Indian soldiers in Sri Lanka were getting maimed and killed by the explosives and grenades manufactured in Tamil Nadu. What is more, the wounded Tamil guerrillas were getting treated in Tamil Nadu hospitals.

DMK ADOPTS PRO-TIGER STANCE

When the DMK came to power in Tamil Nadu in 1989, the party began to adopt a pro-Tiger stance. The decision taken by the Government of Tamil Nadu to boycott the functions in connection with the return of the IPKF has to be seen as an attempt by the DMK to get closer to the Tigers. However, the LTTE continued to remain intransigent. The LTTE’s policy of flouting all canons of civilized behaviour became evident when in June 1990, the LTTE guerrillas murdered the EPRLF leader Padmanabha and his comrades in cold blood at Kodambakkam in Chennai. The well-knit LTTE network enabled the assassins to escape from the scene of murder without any difficulty. The contempt that the LTTE had for the DMK can be understood from the fact that on the day of Padmanabha’s assassination, Karunanidhi was pleading with his allies in the National Front in New Delhi to accord permission to the LTTE to bring the sick and the wounded to Tamil Nadu for medical treatment. Even after Padmanabha’s assassination, security in the State was not tightened and streamlined. And the killing of Rajiv Gandhi at the prime of his life was the culmination of the overt and covert Indian involvement of Sri Lanka and the equally despicable activities of the LTTE in Tamil Nadu. From the security angle, it should be mentioned that if on that fateful night in Sriperumbudur, female security personnel had physically frisked all women who wanted to greet Rajiv Gandhi, perhaps we may not have lost a political leader of great promise at the prime of his life. Another failure of the Tamil Nadu security need mention. Among the accused in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, six of them were registered as refugees in the state.

RAJIV GANDHI ASSASSINATION AND AFTER

The assassination of Rajiv Gandhi in May 1991 turned the tide agsinst the LTTE. The sympathy and support that the Sri Lankans – militants, refugees and ordinary civilians – enjoyed evaporated immediately. The Sri Lankans found it difficult to get houses on rent. What is more, the two Dravidian parties began to delink themselves from the LTTE. Chief Minister Jayalalitha stepped up pressure on the central government and the LTTE was banned as a political organization. She also demanded that the Sri Lankan Tamil refugees should be sent back to the island and the process of repatriation of refugees commenced in January 1992. The media reported high handed methods adopted by the Government of Tamil Nadu to send back the refugees. The Tiger network in Tamil Nadu was destroyed and many who extended their support to the LTTE were detained. Following the publication of the Jain Commission Report, the dislike of the Tamil cause further increased. The DMK and the AIADMK claimed innocence and began to accuse each other for extending support to the LTTE. The cumulative result was, except for the fringe elements of ardent LTTE supporters, the politicians in Tamil Nadu did not get actively involved in the political developments in Sri Lanka. As a result, the impact of Tamil Nadu in India’s Sri Lanka policy came down

RESURGENCE OF INTEREST IN TAMIL NADU

When the Eelam War IV began in January 2006 and the Sri Lankan Government began to resort to savage bombing of the Tamil areas in the northern part of Sri Lanka, the political parties in Tamil Nadu began to express deep concern. In August 2006 when news about the air attack on Sencholai orphanage and also a school meant for the internally displaced children reached Tamil Nadu there was righteous indignation. Almost all political parties came together and the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly passed a unanimous resolution. The resolution characterized the air attack as “barbaric, uncivilized and inhuman” The resolution also requested New Delhi to step up pressure on Colombo to cease fire immediately and try to arrive at a negotiated settlement.

As the conflict got intensified and the war against the Tigers degenerated into war against Tamil civilians, the political parties in Tamil Nadu began to step up their agitation. The Sri Lankan issue became enmeshed in the electoral politics. Even Jayalalaitha, the leader of the AIADMK, who used to scrupulously avoid any mention of Sri Lanka in her statements began to speak about the atrocities against the Sri Lankan Tamils. Obviously she did not want her party to get alienated from the public opinion. The competitive politics got further sharpened because as the polling day began to approach the general feeling in Tamil Nadu, reflected in the media also, was that the AIADMK led alliance will sweep the polls in the State. Even sections in the Congress believed that the DMK-Congress led alliance may not fare well in the polls. In order to strengthen the claims to form a government in the Centre the Congress leaders began to send feelers to the AIADMK for a possible post poll alliance. The shrewd politician that Karunanidhi is, he resolved to express concern for the sufferings of the Sri LankanTamils, while at the same time extending solid support to the central government’s policies on Sri Lanka. The end result was the DMK completely toeing the central line on Sri Lanka issue. Perceptive observers of the Tamil Nadu politics cannot escape the conclusion that from the point of view of Karunanidhi power is the greatest aphrodisiac and, as stated in the beginning of the essay, he was willing to radically revise the party’s policy towards Sri Lanka. The ultimate losers were the Sri Lankan Tamils, who virtually became pawns in the opportunist politics of Tamil Nadu.

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* Prof. V. Suryanarayan, former Director and Senior Professor, Centre for South and Southeast Asian Studies, University of Madras is currently Senior Research in the Center for Asia Studies, Chennai. The article originally published by the World Focus. -Sri Lanka Guardian