The pretender and the opportunist help their neighbour to fulfil many of his desires, not out of compassion for the neighbour.
Editorial
According to local and foreign media reports, India has given a loan of US $ 1 billion to Sri Lanka as a "relief" to overcome the current economic downturn. According to media reports, the loan was given subject to a number of conditions and most of it had to be obtained to buy only Indian products. This "prodigious gift" has been widely publicized. Meanwhile, a significant number of Indian media persons are in Colombo to cover the prize from New Delhi.
A reporter for NDTV, one of the leading television channels, went to a handful of protesters who had gathered in front of the Central Bank yesterday and reported that fifty national organizations in the country are protesting against the Central Bank Governor and the Finance Minister. But the total number of participants, according to the footage produced by her cameraman, was less than thirty. Nothing to be surprised about. Many Indian media outlets have made exaggeration their main doctrine.
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| Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, author of The India Way: Strategies for an Uncertain World and the Minister of External Affairs in Colombo March 2022. |
However, India, the largest and most populous country in the region, should be thankful for such lending while facing serious socio-economic problems such as rising prices of essential commodities, including fuel, and widespread hunger and undernutrition. According to the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World, the 2020 report revealed that 189.2 million people are undernourished which is around 14% of the total population of this gigantic peninsula. It is a noble virtue to help one's neighbour when she is in a difficult condition. But such help must be genuine.
There is one basic lesson that life teaches us. The pretender and the opportunist help their neighbour to fulfil many of his desires, not out of compassion for the neighbour. What does it look like to observe how India has come to support Sri Lanka in the past few days? It is curious whether India's support is the support of a true ally or the rise of a pseudo-opportunist. It is questionable how ethical it is to force a country to sign unimportant agreements at a time of economic downturn.
We do not defy India's diplomatic strategies. That is the nature of Indian foreign policy. It has been clearly described by many Indian intellectuals. Most recently, the country's current foreign minister, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, has made this clear. That was in his most recent book The India Way: Strategies for an Uncertain World. Former First Secretary of the Indian High Commission in Sri Lanka and Political Adviser to the Indian Peace Keeping Force, S. Jaishankar is a staunch BJPer and is well versed in Sri Lanka. But we do not know how many Sri Lankan public administrators or policymakers have at least heard of his book.
Many policymakers and administrators in Sri Lanka are miserably failing to fulfil their national responsibilities except boasting about meaningless things to cover up their personal ignorance. Hollow pride cannot cover this national calamity resulting from conscientious ignorance. Consequently, the whole country and generations to come are paying the price.
Sri Lanka is an island with incredible experiences in Indian diplomatic affairs. Instead of genuinely being with Sri Lanka and encouraging the country to overcome the crisis (some of them were deliberately manufactured by India), India took advantage of the opportunities and taught us bitter lessons. This is why India is more interested in political and security agreements in times of economic crisis.
Although it is said that the Indo-Lanka Accord was signed nearly two months after the infamous Poomalai operation known as Eagle Mission 4 by the Indian Air Force to bring peace to the country the real purpose of the deal was to secure supremacy over oil farms in Trincomalee and prevent the island from signing any agreement on communications without prior approval from India. They figured out exactly how they could manipulate the sentiments of this island, and the rest is history.
Doesn't the chain of events unfolding in response to the economic difficulties currently facing Sri Lanka show how subtly and strategically the second Poomalai operation is being carried out? But this time it is a different kind of operation. As a result, tenders previously awarded to another party have been forcibly cancelled and awarded to India. Where are the democratic norms of dealing with ethics? At the opening of the Indian Cultural Center in Jaffna, India sought to convince the public that the North was only a Tamil heritage site. What happened to the reconciliation and national unity that they proclaimed and pressured others to follow? Is there no heritage in Jaffna for the Muslims who were driven out by the LTTE terrorists within 24 hours? Don't the Sinhalese who have lived in Jaffna for thousands of years have a heritage? Why India? Why?
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