A necessary intervention

Yet, the Sri Lankan government has continued to trust India for a solution to the Tamil issue. This trust is rooted in its understanding of the Indian civilisation, which is non-conflicting and non-conquering. Probably, it recalls India’s `no’ to its offer to confederate with India at one point of time. This intrinsic quality of the Indian civilisation, diplomacy apart, helped accomplish the Rajiv-Jayawardane Pact of 1987.

Consequently, the Sri Lankan government could willingly accept the presence of the IPKF on the soil of Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka could trust that after its work was over, the IPKF would not stay even for one day. Did not the same thing happen in Bangladesh? Did not the Indian forces leave the moment Bangladesh became capable of looking after its affairs?

Even now, the Rajiv-Jayawardane Pact remains the best solution to the Sinhalese-Tamil stand off. It was sabotaged first by the LTTE, later, jointly by the LTTE and the Premadasa government. Sri Lanka now suffers the nemesis of the collusion between Premadesa and LTTE to betray India. India lost hundreds of its best soldiers for a cause which was not a national cause, even in Tamil Nadu, thanks to the pre-Rajiv assassination politics. Unlike in the Kargil war, where every soldier who died became a hero, the soldiers who laid down their lives in the IPKF operation died unsung by the nation at whose call they laid down their lives.

Even now, as in the past, Sri Lanka has invited India to intervene, even militarily. It is unthinkable in today’s world that a country like India, which has converging self-interest in the Sri Lankan Tamil cause, would be invited to settle that very cause. This shows India’s moral standing in Sri Lanka founded on India’s civilisational conditioning. Unlike in 1987, now there is greater national consensus in Sri Lanka about Indian intervention. The Sri Lankan ruling and opposition parties are unanimous; as also the Buddhist establishment, which had opposed the 1987 Pact.

Even in India, specifically in Tamil Nadu, there is a greater degree of consensus, particularly on the distinction between the LTTE and the Tamil cause. The opinion about the LTTE was divided in 1987. Now the near unanimous view is that the LTTE is a criminal force. Even for its supporters, it is like a local dada defending the locality on his terms. It now looks as if the 1987 Pact was a little ahead of time. As if the time for such a pact is ripe today more than it was 13 years ago.

In India’s case, intervention means not mere humanitarian aid. It includes militar intervention. It means that India will decide the terms of peace between the Sinhalese and the Tamils. Sri Lanka knows this. Even the US, which hardly wanted to see India as the unqualified regional power, has implicitly approved this. But, how and when should India intervene militarily and how to avoid the kind of casualties which the IPKF suffered will have to be worked out. But to exclude the military option would be to create a vacuum in Sri Lanka and between Sri Lanka and India.

Why should India intervene? If India does not and Sri Lanka suffers humiliating military defeat, its disappointment with India will be matched only by its hostility against the LTTE. It will lose confidence in India, and will be forced to look for an alternative power for support and protection. In this complex world, any one might step in. Only a novice would presume that Sri Lanka would find no other supporter or protector. China is the most likely candidate, since it has very large interests in South East Asia.

If a China steps in and parks its war ships in Trincomalee, India cannot even object any more. India cannot be heard to say that neither will it intervene, nor will it like any one else to. Such a development will mean not just the end of Indian primacy; it will be equally be the end of Lankan Tamil dreams. This is only one of the possibilities. Even a multi-national action to save Sri Lanka cannot be ruled out. Here too, the consequence will be the same. There is every possibility that the issue may be internationalised if India does not take initiative.

It’s ironical that the Sri Lankan government asks India to intervene, but, the marginalized surrogates of the LTTE in Tamil Nadu oppose it. It is clear as daylight that Sri Lanka’s acceptance of Indian supremacy is in the best interest of the Tamils. Only so long as the initiative lies with India, Tamil interests are safe. No other country will understand the Tamil issue in Sri Lanka better than India. Many in Sri Lanka may be comfortable with a non-Indian initiative, seeing the apparent convergence of interests between India and Tamils in Sri Lanka. Thus, Tamil interests are best protected by India’s participation and intervention, if needed.

The only dissenter to Indian intervention is the LTTE. This is understandable. The LTTE equates itself with Tamil interests. It has mentally cloned a Tamil Eelam of its own taste. While in truth, the Tamil interests require a proper institutional mechanism. No organisation or individual can substitute such an institutional safeguard. The LTTE lacks the wisdom and maturity to work out an institutional mechanism and to lead a people. Being a mixture of crime and despotism, the LTTE is today as much the problem for Lankan Tamils as the Sri Lankan government. So the LTTE is inherently disabled to solve the problem.

The Sri Lankan government has time and again conceded that it cannot solve the issue. Who else can help restore normalcy in Sri Lanka and settle the terms of durable peace between the Sinhalese and the Tamils? Only India. Not the Sri Lankan government, not the LTTE.