Need for healthy relationship between India and Sri Lanka

l by N.S.Venkataraman

(01 July, 2012, Chennai, Sri Lanka Guardian) India’s National Security Advisor has visited Sri Lanka on 29th June,2012 and was reported to have held discussions with Sri Lankan President on issues of mutual interest.

It is good that Indian and Sri Lankan government have been interacting with each other with certain level of maturity and understanding of the compulsions of both the countries. India’s categorical assurance that India would oppose any separatist movement in Sri Lanka must have reassured the Sri Lankan government and Sri Lankans about India’s positive approach.

National Security Advisor (NSA) to the Prime Minister of India Shivshankar Menon arrived in Sri Lanka yesterday (29th June 2012)

In the context of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR), Sri Lanka has to attend a meeting at UNHRC in Geneva in November,2012 and present it’s case and views about the reconciliation measures in Sri Lanka after the civil strife. India is among the three countries which would be overseeing this comprehensive review. The other two countries are Spain and Benin. In this scenario, Indian National Security Advisor has expressed Indian government’s views about Sri Lanka’s internal problem , particularly ethnic reconciliation measures with care and caution. This is as it should be.

India and Sri Lanka have a lot to gain by mutual cooperation and have nothing to gain by mutual animosity. The average Indian and Sri Lankan have been comfortable with each other in dealings relating to economic, social and business matters. Both the countries need to foster such relationships, clearly realizing that due to geographical proximity and traditional relationships of inter dependence, both the countries have to firmly cement their relationships and further enrich it on strong grounds.

There are still some irksome issues between both the countries particularly the fishermen issue. The media reports show some constant friction in this respect with allegations of Indian fishermen being arrested by Sri Lankan police and there are complaints from Sri Lankan side that Indian fishermen are entering their water. These are minor problems which both the countries should be able to sort out in a meaningful way by working out certain dispute solving mechanism . It is necessary to realize that the fishermen from Indian side cannot always know clearly as to which would be the Indian water and which would be the Sri Lankan water in the sea and there is genuine scope for entering the Sri Lankan water by mistake. Possibly, considering the importance of overall relationships between both the countries , the Sri Lankan authorities should be liberal in dealing with the Indian fishermen.

There are certainly some concern in Tamil Nadu about the sufferings undergone by people of Tamil origin in Sri Lanka in the past. Of course, India’s National Security Advisor has been responsible and pragmatic enough to say that he would not like to be “judgemental”, because the problems were long standing ones. He said that the problems were essentially Sri Lankan problems which ought to be sorted out by the Sri Lankan government.

There is enormous scope for economic and industrial cooperation between India and Sri Lanka and Sri Lanka can be benefited by way of technical and management collaboration between Indian and Sri Lankan companies. There are even possibilities of healthy cooperation between the two countries in international trade by forming mutually beneficial joint venture arrangements in the case of commodities like tea and rubber.

If the governments of both the countries would exhibit the required long term vision and statesmanship, it would do a lot of good to the region.