31st May 2014
Spotlight
By N. Sathiya Moorthy
Independent of expectations to the contrary from various stakeholders to the ‘ethnic issue’ in neighbouring Sri Lanka, the personal touch of India’s new Prime Minister Narendra Modi alone could be a departure, if any, from the well-considered Indian policy from the past.
That India’s Sri Lanka policy can do with a purposeful departure of the Modi kind, on the lines of his personality-driven political administration as the chief minister of Gujarat, is what could make the difference between success, that has eluded the nation in the past, and failure, that can still be a possibility.
Long before Modi made Sushma Swaraj as his external affairs minister, she as his Bharatiya Janata Party’s Leader of the Opposition in the previous Lok Sabha had endorsed the views of then prime minister Manmohan Singh’s government, nearer home and abroad. On Sri Lanka, she reiterated the need for the government to revive the reconciliation process, restore the faith, trust and confidence of the war-ravaged Tamil population, in a ‘united Sri Lanka’. To the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) leadership, which has since won elected power in the nation’s Northern Province, she asked them to join the Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC), set up by President Mahinda Rajapaksa to address the ethnic issue in all its dimensions.
As the opposition party, the BJP did not challenge the Manmohan Singh government’s decision to vote against Sri Lanka at the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in 2012 and 2013. Despite Tamil Nadu fretting and fuming, the party did not question the Singh government ‘abstaining’ from the UNHRC vote in March 2014, after the US author of the previous resolutions departed from the script to seek an ‘independent inquiry’ into allegations of human rights violations in Sri Lanka.
When the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) partner in the then United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government of Prime Minister Singh wanted the Indian parliament to condemn the Sri Lankan government in March 2012, Sushma Swaraj as the Leader of Opposition did not want then Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar to even consider calling a party leaders’ meeting late at night to consider the proposal. There was no question of any draft being placed before the House, for it to debate and vote upon.
Thirteen-A and beyond
In his first meeting with President Rajapaksa, who honoured Modi’s invitation to attend his inauguration, India’s prime minister was reported to have reiterated the need for the Sri Lankan government to implement the 13th Amendment on power devolution and go beyond. The two leaders discussed other aspects of bilateral relations, too, including the contentious and controversial fishermen’s problems involving the two nations, and also pending Indian projects in Sri Lanka that refuse to move owing to the host government’s lethargy, if not deliberate indifference. But the ‘ethnic issue’ was still at the centre-stage, it would seem.
Without reference to the ethnic issue or others, as prime minister-designate, Modi had tweeted that he wanted ‘strong Sri Lanka relations’. That was after President Rajapaksa had possibly beaten other world leaders to congratulate him on his election victory. That ‘strong’ relations with Sri Lanka was a part of the incoming Modi government’s foreign policy initiative/strategy became clear when he had all South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) Heads of Government and/or State invited for his unprecedented swearing-in at the historic forecourt of India’s Rashtrapati Bhavan with over 4,000 invited guests in attendance.
Back home, President Rajapaksa has since caused PSC Leader and senior Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva to clarify that the parliamentary process to resolve the ethnic issue alone will remain. Silva also reportedly said that while they would continue consultations with India, Sri Lanka would not want India to interfere in Sri Lanka’s internal affairs. It’s an extension of President Rajapaksa’s earlier declaration that the government would not heed Western criticism or boycott to celebrate the nation’s ‘victory over terrorism’, coinciding with the end of the anti-LTTE ‘Eelam War IV’ on May 18, 2009.
Two to tango, three to resolve
The success or failure of Modi’s Sri Lanka policy is based on the strength and purpose of his political character. He shares an earthy political upbringing like President Rajapaksa, which can cut either way. It takes two to tango, but three to resolve the ethnic issue. The elected TNA ruler of Sri Lanka’s Tamil-majority Northern Province having declined Rajapaksa’s invitation to join him at Modi’s inaugural, they will now have to wait for a separate meeting with the new Indian prime minister, which also matters the most (for them in particular).
Any meaningful Indian initiative will then have to wait until such a meeting takes place. However, the TNA may have already complicated the scene by seeking a first time meeting ever with Tamil Nadu’s AIADMK Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa. A lot will depend on if and how the popular Dravidian leader would want to get involved, and what kind of role, if any, Prime Minister Modi would want to assign her, in the light of his pre-poll promise and post-poll initiative for addressing the concerns of individual states.
Whether such a commitment is restricted to domestic developmental initiatives or foreign policy issues, as he had indicated before the polls, also remains to be seen.
Pending the Modi dispensation settling down to work all round, the Sri Lankan counterpart can take heart in India’s previous abstention at UNHRC, the new government not having to come under political pressure from Tamil Nadu, and India not continuing as a voting member at Geneva, from the September session this year. These are also the causes for concern for the TNA on the one hand and the Sri Lankan Tamil (SLT) diaspora on the other.
Their continuing diffidence – not entirely unjustified – to work with the Sri Lankan government of the day will be matched by increasing Indian interest to re-assert itself in the regional context. From which will also flow a message, clear though not necessarily as strong, to the TNA, the Sri Lankan government and the international community engaged with the UNHRC process – not necessarily in that order.
(N. Sathiya Moorthy is Director, Chennai Chapter of the Observer Research Foundation)
From: South Asia Monitor. http://southasiamonitor.org/detail.php?type=sl&nid=8189
