Why All Want To Run Sri Lanka?
N Sathiya Moorthy
Chennai 4 February 2024
The way western nations through their diplomats deployed in Colombo continue to comment on what essentially are internal matters of the country, they should sooner than later be prepared for a future government either asking them to shut up or withdraw into a shell, at times quitting some of the international organisations, especially those like the UNHRC that have assumed unjustifiable jurisdiction over all things Sri Lanka.
This is not to argue that all decisions of all governments in the past years are right in doing what they have been doing. It includes the incumbent Ranil Wickremesinghe dispensation and its recent legislation for regulating online operations of individuals and groups. The political Opposition calls such legislation ‘dictatorial’. Some social media activists have also claimed that Wickremesinghe is doing all this only to avoid contesting the presidential poll later this year, or control communication networks so as to ensure his electoral victory.
Nor is the obtuse reference to a future government to the JVP, whose leader Aunra Kumara Dissanayake, is being propped as the front-runner in the presidential poll by/through a series of private opinion polls. The JVP may not do it if it came to power, but there may be others who might find it expedient to do it, both because of personal beliefs, political ideology and electoral expediency – and foreign policy options that are becoming wider and clearer than during the Cold War.
A multi-polar world offers multiple options for nations like Sri Lanka who are not equipped, at least as yet, to stand on their own feet. It need not be a US-China binary, as it used to be in the Cold War era’s American and Soviet camps. But for the Ukraine War that has re-united the West against Russia, the outline of a divided West might have become clearer now, even if it had not erupted out in the open.
The fact is that not only China but also those in the broad West can do with adherents. The latter in turn would require the kind of commitments, political and otherwise, which only the US and China are capable of giving, and/or actually giving. It is already happening in many parts of the world, and has already entered South Asia in more than one form.
Good neighbour
In the immediate regional environs, India can replace non-territorial competitors and/or collaborators if both sides so wished. In the Sri Lankan context, India was the one who rushed all kinds of aid and assistance when struck by the unprecedented economic crisis of 2022.
Earlier, it was Indian humanitarian assistance at the height of the destructive tsunami in end-2004 in Sri Lanka and Maldives, and even distant Indonesia. It happened within hours, the US with its military base not far away in Diego Garcia reached out days later, when the initial clearing up and confidence-building had already taken place.
It was because India acted as a good neighbour, the US was possibly weighing the strategic options and opportunities at different levels in distant DC before stepping in. Even then, when it came to the economic crisis of 2022 neither the US, nor China, nor any other nation or international institution, including the IMF at present, came anywhere close to New Delhi’s ‘Neighbourhood First’ policy and performance. The Covid pandemic and lock-down was another instance when India opened up even more with aid and assistance to the entire neighbourhood.
The question is if India would do it all and in relation to almost every other neighbourhood nation if any or all of them decide to break ranks with the international community. As a matter of foreign and security policy, if India has to do it, then it may consider it. If it has to do it as part of the national philosophy of ‘Vasudeva Kudumbakam’ in Sanskrit and ‘Yadum Oore, Yavarum Kelir’ in Tamil, India would only be happy to do it.
The twin phrases loosely translate as, ‘The world is one and so are its inhabitants’, or ‘everyone is a relative in this large world’. Wedded to philosophical fatalism as a grain of Indian existence, New Delhi’s foreign and security policy has been influenced invariably by such an approach that dominates individual Indian lives, too. That may be changing, or may have even changed in ways, but as the Sri Lankan experience of 2022 showed, there is enough stock in the Indian reservoir of humanness and humanitarianism that the floodgates would open automatically when wails from across the seas or land-borders hit the weak-hearted in the country.
The problem here is that some in the neighbourhood also confuse India’s kindness and generous nature of generations and centuries – it is in the Indian DNA – confuse it as Indian weakness in the face of avowed adversity towards India, in political, strategic or whatever terms. It is here that they forge the existence of a deep and determined Indian mind that holds Indian nationalism as high as that elsewhere, if not higher. If nothing else, individual nationalism in each of these countries has had its origins or a historic association from time immemorial, in India.
The young may be more vibrant and visible, that does not mean that the old and original has lost any of it. The maturity that comes with age and evolution does not require India and Indians to wear it all on their sleeves, all the time – though that too is changing lately, in spurts and starts, and not in instalments, as some would assume.
Wild-dream aspirations
None of it means that a situation like the one in which Sri Lanka or any other smaller South Asian neighbour of India starts thumbing its nose at the so-called non-territorial big players and/or bigger players. Such thinking however does not give anyone the right to start thumbing their noses repeatedly and in a coordinated way to thumb their noses at Sri Lanka, either.
The nation has already proved that it was prepared to starve and live on rice-and-fish for a day’s meal to fend off the LTTE to the finish. It disproved all scary western predictions of the economy being unable to support a longer war and their advice for settling on the LTTE’s terms, or at least partially. Yes, the West supported the security forces with specific intelligence inputs but the fighting machines and bullets came from elsewhere.
Today, the situation may not be the same after the economic crisis. Yet, the nation is reliving the worst fears of the war era, as half the population is starving and the other half is making do with whatever they can afford. The presidential poll later this year is even scarier as he who gets elected does not have a rose-path to walk on. He has only thorns strewn all around by his predecessor for decades, at times himself too.
That may halt wild-dream nationalist aspirations and thinking. But it may not be shelved for good unless the West especially too changes its thinking and approach to the country, government, polity and society. If and when Sri Lanka bounces back – or, as and when it bounces back – and if the West still continues to behave like a school-master, then they may be in for a rude shock, after all.
In all this, they need to remember incumbent Ranil may be the last of national leaders tuned to western thoughts and ways. He is also someone who has given the impression of wanting western approval and applauding at every turn. Lately, he has only been getting their opprobrium on whatever he thinks and does as President. It may have consequences, if not for now or from Ranil now or if elected President for a full term on his own steam. But memories will hang on, and more so if they are played out by the West well into the future.
After all, Foreign Minister Ali Sabry did not miss the opportunity when it came to ticking off Canada, when India had its own set of grouses (unresolved as it) with Ottawa. That flowed from an unspoken Sri Lankan problem with Canada providing ‘shelter’ to Tamil Diaspora groups that were considered as being not favourably disposed towards the Sri Lankan State and successive elected dispensations in Colombo.
It can repeat itself and take unpredictable terms in the future, especially if the future rulers continue to come from the so-called non-elite, rural strata of the Sri Lankan society, whose constituency and priorities could be different. In domestic terms, they could still be adherents to democracy, but in the eyes of the international community (read: West), they may still be wanting. But who cares then!
(The writer is a Chennai-based Policy Analyst & Political Commentator. Email: sathiyam54@nsathiyamoorthy.com)
