Making mischief over land-bridge to India

By N Sathiya Moorthy

President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s all-party meet on return from India, purportedly to discuss power-devolution under 13-A ended up as anticipated. Different people were talking different things, and Wickremesinghe ended it all rather abruptly as he had done in the case of the pre-visit talks with Tamil MPs, on the very same subject.

The Government talked about ‘devolution’ (?). Rather, it talked about 13-A minus Police Powers (at least for now, they left it conveniently vague). The Opposition SJB wanted Provincial Council elections first, thus they could avoid committing themselves on full implementation of 13-A (with or without Police powers). From among the Tamil parties, ITAK’s Sumanthiran, among others, talked about both.

That gave the President the opening he needed – or, was it an escape route. “Earlier you wanted 13-A, when we come to talk it out, you now want the PC polls first,” he told Sumanthiran. “First, you decide, what you want.” He did not ask them if they really knew what the Tamils wanted, or if they were sure of their choice and stick to it between now and the presidential poll that is due next year.

As Prime Minister under President Maithripala Sirisena between 2015 and 2019, Wickremesinghe did all that was possible to delay / scuttle PC polls in all nine Provinces. Now, as President, he is finding new ways to do the same. In doing so, his Government has even dishonoured Supreme Court directives in the matter.

Wickremesinghe is in very good company. After all, the parliamentary underwriter of his Government, SLPP founder Mahinda Rajapaksa had defied the Supreme Court’s direction and continued with his discredited Treasury Secretary P B Jayasundara – no questions asked (even by the Supreme Court).

What more after nearly five years later, when the Rajapaksas were out of power, he returned at a higher level, as Secretary to President Gotabaya. It was a ‘constitutional position’ unlike the earlier one, which was ordained by the Executive and Parliament.

Stupid thought

The President’s India visit brought in a lot of positives. Wanting to pick up holes in the official narrative, an academic has since declared that the proposed land-bridge connecting the two countries was aimed at making Sri Lanka a province or sub-state in India. Prof Ananda Jayawickrema of Perediniya University heads the intellectual cell of the Opposition SJB. It now remains to be seen if the party leadership subscribes to his views.

And Prof Jayawickrema’s observation came at a time when a Tamil leader, Selvam Adaikalanathan of TELO, reportedly declared that they would have to seek a merger of the Tamil North & East with India, if the Sri Lankan State and the majority Sinhala polity did not meet their ‘legitimate aspirations’. Earlier, there were unconfirmed reports – that were also not denied – about Selvam meeting a Chinese official in a Colombo star-hotel along with an aide.

In the normal course, such meetings should not be a cause for complaint. After all, all Tamil politicians have been meeting Indian and western diplomats too – and one is slated with Indian High Commissioner Gopal Baglay later in the week. Better still, Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa hosted some of them, including HC Baglay, for a group discussion on the issues facing the nation, only the other day.

But the timing of Selvam’s so-called meeting does not go down well, especially coming as it does ahead of his threat for a call to merge the Tamil areas in the country with India. It is a stupid thought that some of his predecessor leaders had aired likewise, causing untold suspicions in Colombo and all across southern Sri Lanka.

Selvam’s statement now is sure to open a Pandora’s Box. The irony is that India has never subscribed to the view, nor would it like to be even remotely identified with such preposterous ideas.  What more, Selvam  — and he has not denied the statement appearing especially in the northern Tamil Press – knows India and Indian views on the subject better than most Sinhalas, politicians and bureaucrats included.

In such a scenario, Selvam’s statement too can only be dubbed as ‘wanton mischief’, whose consequences could be far more than what he might have intended. That is, unless he has a different intention this time round.

In which case, he too should clarify himself. So should other Tamil parties clarify their positions – if need be relations – with Selvam’s TELO. After all, he has emerged as the figure-head of the non-ITAK grouping, once calling itself the
TNA, with a few more added for effect in a new Tamil Democratic Alliance, TDA – or whatever.

Stretching the imagination

Adding one and one to make five, Sinhala-Buddhist hard-liners are sure to take off from what otherwise sounds like Selvam’s expression of frustration at the Sri Lankan State and political apparatuses, to say things that are not in anybody’s mind. Tomorrow, who knows, someone may come up with the brilliant idea that New Delhi was actually using a bridge-like structure to tow Sri Lanka closer to the Indian landmass – and also get away with it.

Whether or not the land bridge comes through, these hard-liners need to remember that India has never ever coveted Sri Lanka as a jewel to be won over. Looking back, they should acknowledge that the IPKF came here only after being asked by then President J R Jayewardene in writing.

Even without the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord, India might have done precisely as much, as there was no such accord when Colombo sought near-similar assistance at the height of the JVP’s first insurgency – to secure the nation’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. India and India alone sent the required military assistance, or whatever was sought.

The IPKF era coincided with the emergence of the JVP’s second insurgency. To think that the second insurgency was a result of the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord is stretching one’s imagination too long.

Going by the way the insurgents proceeded with their tasks, historians should now acknowledge that they had their plans, plots and preparations – and the Accord and the IPKF became an easy and convincing excuse.  That the IPKF left when asked to do so by another President, Ranasinghe Premadasa, who dined with the LTTE Satan for it and died with it, too should not be forgotten.

The fact is that but for the IPKF’s presence, and their tackling the LTTE in the North and the East, the JVP could well have over-run the whole of South, unlike the first insurgency – and which a section of the Aragalaya protestors sought to do, but without as much organisation and as much violence, last year.

(The writer is a policy analyst & political commentator, based in Chennai, India. Email: sathiyam54@nsathiyamoorthy.com)