Demonising India

The anti-India rhetoric from the LTTE and the JVP reflects the internal dynamics of the two organisations, more than anything else.

in Colombo

SRI LANKA-watchers cannot be faulted if they wonder occasionally, going by the high-pitched and concerted anti-India rhetoric of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), whether the island nation has travelled back in time to 1988-89. That was the period when the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF), deployed in the northern and eastern parts of the country at the invitation of the J.R. Jayewardene government, got enmeshed in the ethnic conflict. India was painted as the villain of the piece merrily playing with the lives of the people in quest of its geo-political interests in the region. And that was the only occasion in the past when the LTTE and the JVP found themselves on the same side of the fence. Their common goal was to ensure the ouster of India.

Today, two decades later, it is back to the IPKF era for both the LTTE and the JVP albeit with a difference. The anti-India tirade comes from diametrically opposite points of view. The JVP and the LTTE are actually pitted against each other as opposed to the comrades-in-arms spirit of 1988-89.

Both organisations have been counselling India to avoid a repeat of the historic blunders. However, their perceptions of the mistakes are poles apart. The LTTE is peeved with New Delhi for what it terms as collaboration with the Sinhala chauvinistic regime in crushing the genuine struggle of the Tamils in pursuit of their legitimate aspirations. In contrast, the JVP is fuming at India for not doing enough to aid the military apparatus engaged in a fight-to-the-finish battle with the LTTE and for meddling in the internal affairs of the island nation.

Both have been indulging in their favourite pastime of India-bashing for over some four months now. In the beginning, it was covert references. However, with each passing week it became overt and unabashed. There is no limit to their imagination on the perceived conspiratorial games played by India in Sri Lankas backyard. If the two are to be believed, India has a hand in everything happening in the island, barring perhaps the weather.

In his 2006 speech at the LTTEs annual Heroes Day function, LTTE supremo Velupillai Prabakaran appealed to the people and leaders of Tamil Nadu to support the cause of their brethren who were in danger of being exterminated by chauvinistic forces in Sri Lanka; but he refrained from making an attack on India.

The first signs of the LTTEs anti-India campaign came to the fore in Prabakarans Heroes Day speech of November 27, 2007. The LTTE chief, though circumspect, bracketed India with the rest of the world which, he reasoned, was unhelpful in resolving the Tamil national question. He said their failure to condemn unambiguously the military path of the current regime had created the present situation in the island. Further, he asserted that the international community was propping up the genocidal Sinhala state through economic and military aid and subtle diplomatic efforts. He warned that this would be counterproductive.

As a way of reassurance to the Tamil world community, the Tiger leader recalled that it was not exactly a new situation for the Tamil liberation struggle and dwelt at some length on the 1987 Indian involvement. These one-sided involvements of foreign powers are not new in our prolonged struggle. India intervened in our national question then as part of its regional expansion. India signed an accord with the Sinhala state without the consent of the Tamils. The Indo-Lanka Accord was not signed to meet the aspirations of the people of Tamil Eelam. In fact, India then attempted to force an ineffectual solution on our people a solution which did not even devolve powers to the extent of the Banda-Chelva Pact signed in the 1950s. India tried to enforce that accord with the strength of more than 100,000 Indian forces, with the power of the agreement between two countries and with the assistance of treacherous Tamil paramilitary groups, he argued.

The LTTE went into top gear in its anti-India rhetoric in the second week of March. In a statement on March 10 titled Is the Indian state attempting yet another historic blunder?, it bemoaned that the state welcome given by India to Sri Lanka military chief Lt. Gen. Sarath Fonseka, who headed the Sri Lankan states war of ethnic genocide on the Eelam Tamils, had deeply hurt them.

The statement noted:

Many of the European countries, understanding this hidden motive of the Sinhala state, have halted all assistance that could support the ethnic genocide of the Tamils.

The Indian state also knows this truth. Yet, while pronouncing that a solution to the Tamil problem must be found through peaceful means, it is giving encouragement to the military approach of the Sinhala state. This can only lead to the intensification of the genocide of the Tamils.

LTTE wishes to point out to the Indian state that this historic blunder by it will continue to subject the Eelam Tamils to misery and put them in the dangerous situation of having to face ethnic genocide on a massive scale. On behalf of the Eelam Tamils, LTTE kindly requests the Tamils of Tamil Nadu to understand this anti-Tamil move of the Indian state and express their condemnation.

Taking its cue from the LTTE, the pro-Tiger Internet portal TamilNet posted, on March 12, an item from an unidentified reader from Tamil Nadu in response to the LTTEs statement. Those who watch the current developments sense a race against time on the part of India in achieving something militarily in Sri Lanka. At times it looks as though it is Indias war. The Refuse-to-Retire advisors cum analysts of India, whose writings often reek of revenge, sometime back came out with enticing hints that the target is only the leadership of the LTTE, and thereafter India will protect the Tamils. Have these advisors ever seen in their lifetime India proving its credibility in safeguarding Tamil rights in Sri Lanka or for that matter, at least India winning a diplomatic war with Sri Lanka?

TamilNet further noted: Unless there is a drastic change in Indias outlook towards Sri Lankan crisis, whatever it is doing is very likely to harm its security in the near future.

Boasting of Colombo governments new Asian friends, Sri Lankas Foreign Secretary Palitha Kohona was recently quoted saying, The new donors are neighbours, they are rich and they conduct themselves differently. Asians dont go around teaching each other, how to behave. There are ways we deal with each other perhaps a quiet chat, but not wagging the finger.

Taking it further on March 20, TamilNet posted an item quoting opinion columnist Chivandi: Anyone who wishes to see a peacefully united Sri Lanka has to begin from separation. Separation for unity is the appropriate paradigm today. The Sri Lankan situation has transcended the 1987 formula. It is time the Tamils in India have to take care of a policy shift in the Indian establishment. The suggestion is that the political parties of Tamil Nadu who aspire for power in the forthcoming elections have to boldly adapt a policy upholding a Tamil Nation in Sri Lanka in their election manifesto and get the mandate from the people. Only such a mandate can silence the antagonists and direct the foreign policy of India to serve the interests of Tamils, India as well as a peaceful Sri Lanka.

TamilNet went on to say that sometime back Vaiko, the leader of Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK), a regional party from Tamil Nadu with four members in the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, wrote three letters to the Prime Minister of India on the plight of Tamils in Sri Lanka and on the miseries of the fishermen of Tamil Nadu.

The Prime Ministers reply, dated 5th March was elusive, bureaucratic and misleading. The Indian Prime Minister ignores the precarious plight of the Tamils of Sri Lanka, facing genocide. He rather chooses to look at the situation through the prism of Indias relationship with Sri Lanka, the territorial integrity of which is of utmost importance to him. In other words Tamils are not important, but Sri Lanka is a sacred cow, it wrote.

Simultaneously, at another level, the JVP, an electoral ally of President Mahinda Rajapaksa, began upping its anti-India rhetoric after the President, under pressure from within and abroad to expedite a political solution to the ethnic problem, instructed the All Party Committee to give him something immediately. The committee, in its interim report submitted in the fourth week of January, sought full and faithful implementation of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution on devolution of powers to provinces. It came handy for the JVP to launch a no-holds-barred attack on India.

In a series of interviews to the local and international media, JVP chief Somawansa Amarasinghe accused India of pressuring Rajapaksa to implement the 13th Amendment. In one interview, he said: First we must understand how the 13th Amendment came about. the 13th Amendment was thrust upon him by the Indians with Indian gunboats outside Colombo harbour. Indians had started the ethnic war by training and arming all the separatist groups in a classic case of cross-border terrorism. And when the Army was about to capture Vadamarachchi, India threatened us and is said to have whisked away Prabakaran in a helicopter. The 13th Amendment was a projection of the will of India, not of the will of the people of Sri Lanka. We should not do any changes at the behest of any foreign power including India.

The JVP stretched matters to such lengths that when Rajapaksa met Ranil Wickremesinghe, the Leader of the Opposition and of the United National Party (UNP), sometime in February to discuss matters relating to the implementation of the 13th Amendment, a senior member of the JVP told the local media that the meeting was forced upon by New Delhi. The JVP chief in his discourses went beyond the 13th Amendment and argued that his party did not believe that the present Constitution would strengthen democracy.

At one stage Amarasinghe even talked of a call to boycott Indian goods if New Delhi persisted with its policy of micro-managing the affairs of the island nation. But subsequently he clarified that he did not mean it literally. When asked if the JVP was opposed to Indian investments and trade in services, he said: We are not opposed to foreign investments but we insist that they should be of mutual benefit. We opposed the grant of petrol stations to the Indian Oil Corporation because we believed that the distribution of a strategic resource like fuel should be in the hands of Sri Lankans.

At an interactive session with the Sri Lanka Foreign Correspondents Association in February, the JVP chief alleged that India was at the forefront of a big-power campaign to intervene in small and weaker states in South Asia under the guise of protecting human rights and persecuted groups: India is leading the R2P (Right to Protect) pack in South Asia in relation to Sri Lanka. R2P is a concept propagated by an influential Brussels-based international non-governmental organisation. It is centred around the need of the international community to intervene and prevent gross human rights abuses.

Amarasinghe said that India was already intervening in Sri Lanka by forcing the Rajapaksa government to implement fully the system of devolution of powers envisaged by the 13th Amendment. He told the English newspaper Daily Mirror that he loved Indian culture and that Mahboob Khans Mother India was among his all-time favourite movies but he hated Indian officials, who made India look like a monster.

We must not condemn Hindi cinema or Hindi songs or Indian people. A section of Indian bureaucrats is responsible for creating problems in Sri Lanka and in other countries in the South Asian region, he said in reply to questions from readers of the daily. The people of Sri Lanka remember the anti-Sri Lankan activities [of] former Indian High Commissioner J.N. Dixit. This kind of arrogant, conservative bureaucrats misled the politicians in India. Dixits arrogance misled [Prime Minister] Rajiv Gandhi. Ultimately, Rajiv gave his life, assassinated by his mothers creation, the LTTE.

These arrogant bureaucrats seem to have misunderstood patriotism as subjugation of Indias neighbours, Amarasinghe said. Indian officials continued to mislead Indian politicians of the present day, alleged the JVP chief. They are under the impression that India could assume the role of the Big Brother in the region. It is our responsibility to convince Indian bureaucrats by using every possible means that the South Asian region is not going to tolerate any further their arrogance and that they will not be successful in their attempts to make India the Big Brother in the region, he added.

It could not have been more ironical. The attacks on India have been stepped up at a juncture when New Delhi is faced with criticism from several quarters for practising a hands-off policy towards Sri Lanka since the Rajiv Gandhi assassination in 1991 and is being cajoled to play a more active role. Obviously, the LTTE and the JVP arrows aimed at India have little to do with Indian actions and reactions to events in the island nation. There simply is no atmosphere a la 1988-89 to sustain an anti-India rant. Most observers believe that the present fulminations of the LTTE and the JVP are more a reflection of the internal dynamics within the two organisations.