Imagining in the Indian Subcontinent

'Abhiman’ was the only Hindi movie I had seen until around 1996 when I spent some months in Galgamuwa. The family whose kada-kaamaraya (one-room ‘shop’) I had rented were addicted to Hindi films and I would see snippets when I went over to their house for meals.   I don’t know Hindi and back in the seventies when I saw the film there were no subtitles.  The music was wonderful and over the years I was able to learn most of the songs by heart.

Two decades later, one December night, in a computer lab in a small town in Upstate New York, for reasons I cannot recall now, I was singing a song from the film.  It so happened that an Indian doctoral student (Development Sociology,  concentration ‘Population and Development’) was also in the lab. She joined me and we sang some lines together.  A colleague from the USA heard us and asked, ‘are you from the same country?’

I told him that it is a song from a popular Hindi movie, but that I don’t know the language.  My Indian friend chipped in ‘we used to be, but not any more’.

‘Used to be? What do you mean?  We were never one country!’ I was amazed at her ignorance.

‘Come on, you don’t have to be so defensive. It was the same country.  That’s why it was called the Indian Subcontinent,’ she responded.

‘Rubbish. Are you saying that we were all part of a huge country called Asia, going by the same logic?’

I told her that not only wsa Sri Lanka always independent of India, we would not want to be part of India either. 

Now there is no denying the fact that India is a powerful country and one which can claim to a spectacular history on all counts.  It is also a land of huge contradictions with horrendous anomalies in terms of income distribution, literacy levels, access to positions of power and in categories such as religious faith, caste, gender etc.  My Indian friend, hailing from Gujarat, was convinced that all is well in India. She seemed ignorant not only about geography and history but basic indicators of social well being.  I googled some data on SAARC countries and read out the figures that ought to have humbled her. 

‘Anything can be written on a website!’ she refused to acknowledge my ‘evidence’. 

I remembered a massive poster mounted outsider the ‘Population and Development’ part of the Department where statistics such as infant mortality, poverty levels, literacy and under-5 malnutrition were neatly laid out for all countries. I believe the source was the UNDP.  I persuaded her to go with me to check the data.  She was visibly stunned to learn the truth about her country.  I was stunned that an Indian doctoral student could be so ignorant. 

I am pretty sure that my friend is a statistical outlier among doctoral students from India, not just in the social sciences but across all disciplines.  It is one thing to think the world of one country and quite another to be ignorant about its not so pretty aspects.  Pride is not a bad thing; arrogance is less sufferable.  I am not sure if it is some basic and unavoidable strain among citizens in so-called ‘big’ countries, but the arrogance she showed is certainly not an outlier among Indians in top positions of power. 

There is a perceptible Indian version of the proverbial ‘White Man’s Burden’ when it comes to South Asia.  I’ve seem this in many forums where the odd Sri Lankan, Pakistani, Bangladeshi or Nepali ‘representative’ is included to make it ‘South Asian’ and not ‘Indian’ (‘Maldives’ and ‘Bhutan’ were not even in their radar).  It is evident in Indian Foreign Policy when it comes to matters concerning relations with neighbours. 

It is all there ‘on paper’ though.  Jawaharlal Nehru, when he coined the term ‘non-alignment’ way back in a speech in Colombo (1954), re-uttered the ‘Panchsheel’ (five restraints) first articulated by Zhou Enlai (the proposed basis for Sino-Indian relations) as the ideal basis for bi-lateral relations.  Let’s re-utter and re-assess:  ‘Mutual respect for each other's territorial integrity and sovereignty, mutual non-aggression, mutual non-interference in domestic affairs, equality and mutual benefit, and peaceful co-existence. 

The reality is quite similar to the US version of national identity and preoccupation with self-image.  US Americans routinely gather the entire Americas into their political and ideological frame by referring to self as ‘American’.  We belong to the Indian Subcontinent, true. Does not mean we are Indians or that India has the right to decide what’s best for us. 

Nehru himself violated the lofty principles he articulated in Colombo scarcely before a year had passed. In the Bandung Conference in 1955, he chided the Prime Minister of Ceylon, Sir John Kotelawala for criticising communism.  Nehru, clearly a man of high intellet and strong personality, shrinked his image many times by asking Sir John, in the typical and presumptuous Big-Brother mode, ‘Why didn’t you show me your speech before you made it?’

Sir John had shot back: ‘Why should I show you my speeches; you don’t show me yours!’ 

Nehru is reported to have almost suffered an attack of apoplexy.  My Indian friend’s expression after being forced to accept certain uncomfortable realities was no different, I am sure.  Kuldip Nayar is no Jawaharlal Nehru. Neither is he a blissfully ignorant doctoral student.  I am not sure if he should be consequently proud or ashamed.  All I know is that not all Indians ar arrogant or ignorant but sadly they do get their garments discoloured by the sheer weight of the rubbish such people routinely unload on us. Pity.   

Malinda Seneviratne is a freelance writer who can be reached at malindasenevi@gmail.com

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Reward enemy and lose friend

There are no permanent friends or enemies in politics. We could be talking about Ronnie De Mel’s athleticism, Karu Jayasuriya’s pragmatism laced or coated with ‘national interest’, the prudence of the Thondamans and Hakeems, the self-interest of the 60 plus UNPers who crossed over or corporates covering bases in parliament and in so-called professional associations.  Our concern here, however, is the applicability of the adage to global power politics.  
 

The operative principle is simple enough: if you are not one of the big players, then you side with one of them or play them against each other.  It is true that groupings such as the Non-Aligned Movement can swing the occasional vote in one’s favor.  And yet, typically, what keeps antipathies under check this side of thinly disguised invasion is and always will depend on the ability and willingness of smaller or weaker states to take cognizance of the global power reality. 

In the year 2013, there is one set of belligerent, trigger-happy states, i.e. the various coalitions led by the United States of America that rain death and destruction on entities that are not willing to toe the Washington line.  In none of the wars that the USA has launched against innocent peoples has democracy, peace and civilization featured outside of legitimating frill; it has always been about strategic and commercial interests, the extraction of resources, securing of markets and exploitation of people.  Things were easy in the 1990s when Russia was still emerging out of post-Soviet debris and China was not yet the economic giant it is now.  It is all different now. 

The USA will scream and froth at the mouth, arm-twist weaker states to support resolutions seeking approval for unleashing bombs and bullets and launching drones and missiles, but as long as China and Russia stand firm, full-scale, no holds barred invasion gets trumped.  This is why, it is important to counter the global thug by making sure China and Russia remain friends.  Muammar Gaddafi of Libya thought he could keep the USA at bay by being nice to Washington.  He irked China and Russia to the point that when the rubber hit the tar, they looked the other way.  In these things, goodwill does not count; thugs pounce on the unprotected, they have no ears for courtesy or plea.  Gaddafi is dead now.  Libyans are poorer for the fact. 

President Assad of Syria is not out of the woods, but he is still alive.  He did not do a Gaddafi.  He appears to know what and who would stop Washington. 

There’s a lesson here for Sri Lanka. 

While it is important to maintain cordial relations with all countries, including those such as the USA, some European nations, Canada and India that are clearly gunning for Sri Lanka, it has to be recognized that Sri Lanka does not have the wherewithal to purchase their friendship.  Nice words are good, but they cannot be banked; they have no currency in the commerce of strategic politics. 

It is abundantly clear that India, under Manmohan Singh, Sonia Gandhi and the Congress Party are operating against Sri Lankan interests in global forums.  If everything was hunky-dory, then India would have been the first to accept the invitation to attend the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM). Instead, Singh is stalling and clearly playing a brinkmanship game to extract whatever he can in a context of a growing Chinese footprint in Sri Lanka.  This is why the visit of External Affairs Minster Salman Khurshid has to be seen as part of a plot. 

Khurshid will no doubt showcase punditry regarding the Northern Provincial Council elections and the 13^th Amendment, but the key issue is not the grievances or aspirations of Tamils (Delhi never cared, this is known) but Sampur.  Sampur is not just another project envisaged in the framework of bi-lateral partnership. Quite apart from the economics of the matter (and here too questions remain unanswered) and the conspicuous silence on agreement details (a notable, suspicious and troubling absence of transparency), the implications for national security warrants extreme caution.  Manmohan Singh will not allow any foreign company within spitting distance of any Indian military facility, President Mahinda Rajapaksa would do well to note. 

If ‘Sampur’ is the price to pay for Manmohan Singh’s participation-nod, it is not worth it, not for the country and not for the President.  Pampering the enemy will not persuade enemy to stay away, we saw this in Libya. 

The rule of thumb is simple enough: stand with friends, don’t irk them.  India is not a friend, China and Russia are.  What will save Sri Lanka from being another Libya is not India’s friendship, but making sure that China and Russia are not turned into ‘neutrals’ due to poor friendship-choices. 

There’s nothing wrong in entertaining Kurshed. Tea or coffee laced with good chit-chat and a smile makes an authentic Sri Lankan signature.  Indecent proposals, on the other hand, should be turned down with a polite, ‘thank you, but no’. 

  

    

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That Nuclear Plant in Sampur

There’s something strange about the mainstream Indian media, or else the Indian political establishment. Recently, after a high-ranking personality from Delhi visited Sri Lanka, all kinds of claims were made about what the individual had told the high-ranking Sri Lankans he had met. Maybe it has to do with demand and supply: what the public (or political interests) demand and tailoring appropriately that which is to be supplied. It smacks of the worst kind of patriotism though. 
Perhaps Indians want to feel good and if this requires politicians and the media to give the impression that India is Regional Boss.  Perhaps it is the political arithmetic of staying in or securing power that makes Indian politicians give the Indian press the impression that Sri Lanka was ‘told off’. Supplied thus, the Indian press diligently transcribes for an equally ‘demanding Indian public, perhaps.  There has been enough of dire pronouncement, carrot-stick, veiled (and no so veiled) threats and dhal-drops (literally and metaphorically) for anyone in his/her right might to be innocent about India and India’s interest in Sri Lanka.  

The latest is a barrage of speculation-based rants in the Indian press about a nuclear power plant in Trincomalee.  The worry is that Pakistan is involved in what is essentially a fiction.  Minister of Power and Energey, Patali Champika Ranawaka has stated that not only are there no discussions with Pakistan, but there are no plans to build a nuclear power plant in Trincomalee either.    

Now it is up to India to assess the worth, political or otherwise, of whipping public hysteria about some ‘grand design’ of its friendly neighbor Pakistan to increase influence in Sri Lanka.  Conjuring some kind of mysterious alliance where China gets Pakistan to get Sri Lanka to do what it wants is also the prerogative of the Indian press.  They can also up the ante of jingoism if   it serves some ‘national’ purpose. 

The bottom line, though, is that just as India does what is best for India, the Indian press must understand that Sri Lanka will do its best to do what is best for Sri Lanka.  If this involves building a nuclear power plant with the assistance of Pakistan, China or Mozambique, that’s Sri Lanka’s business. 

If nuclear power is good for India, then India can’t complain about Sri Lanka wanting some goodies too.  It is up to Sri Lanka to decide if nuclear power is needed, whose help ought to be solicited and so on, factoring in the pros and cons of the policy options.  If anyone should object it’s the Sri Lankan citizenry.  By the same token, when Indian Commerce Minister Anand Sharma says ‘India will help establish a Special Economic Zone (SEZ) to manufacture auto components in Trincomalee’, Pakistan can’t complain. 

Sri Lankan can ask questions though.  Indeed, one might even say ‘Sri Lankans must question’ given what India’s ‘help’ over the years has amounted to, going back to the early 1980’s when the late Indira Gandhi ‘helped’ Sri Lanka sort out its ‘ethnic’ tumours by funding, training and arming terrorists. 

It is good when neighbours are also good friends.  When neighbours have not been exactly friendly, extra effort is needed to re-establish bona fides.  Perception has a way of shaping relations.  Media is about perception-shaping.  It is good to stick to facts.  It is good to dial down the anxieties.  The Indian press is not helping.  Perhaps they think they (and India) can afford to be cavalier about it.  There are costs, though, and these costs are hard to calculate or predict.  If anyone has doubts, it would be useful to reflect on a four-letter acronym that was read as a four-letter word: IPKF.


['The Nation' Editorial, Augsut 5, 2012]

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THE 25th ANNIVERSARY OF THE INDO-LANKA ACCORD

It is time to abrogate the 13^th Amendment

What are the landmark political moments of post-Independence Sri Lanka?  We could mention Independence Day, the 22^nd of May 1972 when we became a republic, the shift to the ‘open economy’ in 1977, the scripting of the 1978 Constitution, July 1983, the 1988-89 bheeshanay, the passing of the ill-fated 17^th Amendment in 2001 and the military defeat of the LTTE in May 2009.  And yes, the 29^th day of July, 1987.  The last is the least mentioned by those who are asked to respond to the question posed.  And yet, just like the 1977 Constitution, the 13^th Amendment and the Indo-Lanka Accord that birthed it have had lasting and devastating impacts on Sri Lanka and Sri Lankans.

It is 25 years after the fact.  Col. R. Hariharan, a retired Indian military intelligence who served with the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) in Sri Lanka as Head of Intelligence and who is a regular commentator on military and political affairs in South Asia has offered a recap of sorts.  He has compared two Indian interventions, in East Pakistan and Sri Lanka.  

India-lovers have bent over backwards to tell Sri Lankans that India is a friend and was here to help us.  They have and they will.  Hariharan puts it bluntly.  He admits that it was not a love-affair, but one informed by strategic goals.  Nothing wrong in that.  Countries must do what’s best for countries.  That ‘doing’ should be read just like that and not sugar-coated with silly terms like ‘friendship’ and ‘concern’.  In short, India was not doing Sri Lanka any favours.  We have it now from the mouth of the top intelligence officer. 

Hariharan laments that the Accord failed in Sri Lanka: ‘The devolution of powers to the Tamil minority promised in the Accord remains unfulfilled despite the 13th Amendment. But the Accord retains the potential as an instrument of Indian influence in the region.’

The second part of this lament should be flagged.  So let us flag: ‘Potential as an instrument of Indian influence in the region’.  So, for all the shop-talk about ‘redressing Tamil grievances’ the Accord (and also the 13^th Amendment) was about ‘Indian influence in the region’, Messers R. Sampanthan and M. Sumanthiran please note. 

Hariharan has to defend frill of course and we are sympathetic to this need.  He says, ‘The most significant achievement of the Accord was the introduction of the 13th Amendment to the Sri Lankan Constitution which provided a degree of autonomy to the newly created provinces and it still exists as the only constitutional tool available to redress Tamil grievances’.

He does not outline ‘Tamil Grievances’ (note, not ‘aspirations’) and therefore does not have to link the territory-based ‘solution’ to a problem that can be articulated in territorial terms.  He doesn’t have to deal with the fact that there is no history that Tamil nationalists can come up with to give beef to the whine about ‘traditional homelands’.  He doesn’t have to deal with the demographic reality of the majority of Tamils living outside the Northern and Eastern provinces.  He doesn’t have to talk about ethnic cleansing by the LTTE and can be silent about identity-related population densities in the Eastern Province. 

Hariharan confesses that Indian had no clue about ground realities.  He passes the buck to ‘civil intelligence’ of course, but the bottom line is ignorance.  It is clear that realization is yet to dawn.  There’s nothing wrong in Indians being patriotic, after all Arundathi Roy (activist) and Harsha Bhogle (cricket columnist) have become very defensive when India seems at risk of break-up or India is critiqued, respectively.  Hariharan, moreover, is a military man and not an academic.

What has the Accord done, though, quite apart from trying to satisfy Indian strategic interests?  Here, in Sri Lanka, that day in late July twenty five years ago was marked by the burning of buses.  It gave an impetus to the JVP which quickly donned a nationalist garb and fed on general public dismay.  Close to 60,000 people died in two bloody years.  The 13^th Amendment helped legitimize Eelam mythmaking, turning randomly drawn provincial boundaries into borders of a fictional homeland.  That boundary line has kept feeding narrow Tamil communalist politicians and politics.  And we are not even going into the fact that two-thirds of the money allocated for PCs go to just maintain them or that the 13^th has spawned hundreds of regional thugs and ‘takers’.     

The debate should not be about 13 Plus or 13 Minus, but when (and not if) the 13^th will be abrogated.  India is welcome to its strategic interests.  Sri Lanka must be about Sri Lankans and their collective present and future.  Fiction doesn’t help.  Applauding and legitimating fiction leads to tragedy.  The 13^th Amendment caused blood to flow.  Our children need not bleed too to keep alive that discredited document and certainly not to satisfy India’s strategic interests. 

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Unpacking the Menon visit

Visiting Indian Defence Advisor, Shivshanker Menon is reported to have insisted that Sri Lanka should sort its own problems, with India ready to help if requested.  Although we know that diplomacy is about saying the palatable and doing the distasteful on the sly, India being India especially, it is prudent for the Government to be mindful of sensitivities. 

This envoy of the Indian Government has also urged the Tamil National Alliance to join the Parliamentary Select Committee, thereby effectively snubbing that party for attempting to use India as an instrument to arm-twist the Sri Lankan Government into submitting to their (the TNA’s) proposals.  This too, is good, subject to the cautionary footnote, ‘too much should not be made out of appearances’.  For example, the TNA can ‘concede’ by accepting the PSC and the Government could thereafter get the PSC to come up with ’13 Plus a la India’s preferences’.  It’s good to be alert. 

A Tamil daily newspaper has quoted TNA leader R. Sampanthan saying that Menon had expressed India’s losing patience about a solution not materializing.  Now if it is Sri Lanka’s internal matter, then the timeframe should be Sri Lanka’s and not India’s concern.  However, to the extent that the Sri Lankan Government accepts that there is a problem, then foot-dragging is something that cannot be condoned, either on the part of the Government or the main articulator of grievance, the TNA.  The TNA is yet to articulate substantiated grievance and the Government is yet to ask the TNA to do so.  Both parties have opted for the convenience of barb-exchange.  That’s good politics, but bad statesmanship. 

As for India’s ‘impatience’, quite apart from the fact that it smacks of interference, regional political realities should not be pooh-poohed by the Government.  India has legitimate concerns insofar as the so-called ‘Tamil problem’ plays a role in Indian power configurations.  Indian politics demands those in power and those aspiring for power to use and abuse the ‘Tamil Issue’ as a political football.  This is how Sri Lanka (and of course Tamils in Sri Lanka) gets factored into the Indian political equation.  Diplomatic niceties notwithstanding, it is prudent for the Government to be mindful of these realities and play its cards without compromising its own political interest and more importantly the overall aspirations of all Sri Lankans. 

To this end, firm steps should be taken to overcome the current impasse, and these should include calling the TNA’s bluff by demanding a full statement on grievances, investigating their true dimensions and resolving for the same, with or without the TNA’s involvement.    

Perhaps what’s really telling is Menon’s claim that India stands for a ‘United Sri Lanka’.  What it most important about the word ‘united’ is that it refers to something that is impossible to obtain through legislation. The word is often used by the TNA and other federalists in post-LTTE Sri Lanka when referring to a ‘solution’, for example, ‘A solution within a united Sri Lanka’. 

‘Unity’ can be obtained in all kinds of political and constitutional formations.  People can be united in a unitary state and they can be united under a federal constitution.  There is nothing to say that either ‘unitary’ or ‘federal’ automatically produces ‘unity’. 

The obtaining of unity then is dependent on acknowledgment of anomaly (and this is not limited to ethnic issues), an even greater focus on commonalities and a consistent privileging of reason over emotion, fact over myth, lived reality over communalist exaggeration of grievance and the political expedience of inflating aspiration. 

As for ‘solution’, the relevant parties should always keep in mind that all things have outcomes, and for this reason, the following are musts, a) the citizens should be kept informed, b) what the PSC (or any other deliberating forum) comes up with must be treated as ‘proposal’ and subject to public appraisal, c) the political fallout must be deliberated on and not something future generations are made to live with and die for.  The 13^th Amendment, if anything, is a case in point where India’s arm-twisting and J.R. Jayewardene’s malleability produced a curse which wrecked political stability and produced a bloodbath.  

['The Nation' editorial of July 1, 2012.  Other editorial comments are available at www.nation.lk]

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Peace: whose business is it anyway?

It has been reported that US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton and Indian Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh have ‘agreed to work closely in expediting the Sri Lankan peace process (sic)’.  That ‘decision’ had been taken when the former visited the latter in New Delhi on Tuesday.

Interesting.

First of all, neither Clinton nor Singh are representatives elected by the people of Sri Lanka.  Nor were these individuals mandated to ‘expedite’ any process that concerns Sri Lanka.  Neither of them have bothered to explain what ‘peace process’ means.  Most importantly, neither of them has the moral authority to pass judgment, forward proposal or even comment on things Sri Lankan.  Let us explain.

In March this year, the USA sponsored a resolution on Sri Lanka at the UN Human Rights Council.  It was a resolution that Sri Lanka objected to, vehemently, and perforce was one roundly seen as an unfriendly move on the part of the USA.  It was a resolution that India supported, thereby dispelling all illusions about that country’s friendship claims. 

If one were to go back further in history, then we can talk of how India ‘expedited’ the ‘peace process’ in Sri Lanka by funding, arming, training and giving refuge to terrorists.  We can talk of how India PREVENTED the vanquishing of the fascist LTTE organization in 1987, postponing that eventuality by 22 years and thereby facilitating that many years worth of carnage. That act of thuggery also helped unleash an insurrection that left 60,000 dead in less than 2 years. 

The USA, for all its anti-terrorist rhetoric, actively sought (through its local representative, Robert O Blake) to throw a lifeline to the fascists in the last days of the conflict, showing generosity of a kind that was and is patently absent in how that country dealt with its armed detractors in Afghanistan, most notably al Qaeda and Taliban operatives including Osama bin Laden.    

Both countries were very active in supporting a largely pro-terrorist Ceasefire Agreement signed in 2002.  There was no ‘expediting’ of anything other than destabilization, chaos, anarchy and separatist drives. 

Despite all these spokes in the wheels, Sri Lanka did defeat fascism.  Sri Lanka opened the doors that the LTTE had closed to peace, normalcy and reconciliation.  Singh and Clinton may have their own definitions of ‘peace’, and they are more than welcome to apply them to themselves, Singh in Kashmir and Clinton in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and other places where massive crimes against humanity are perpetrated in the name of democracy. 

Sri Lanka, however, is not another state of either India or the USA. Guns, bucks and inflated egos do prompt people to be presumptuous, that’s human of course.  But this without-any-by-your-leave attitude will not help heal strained relations between these countries and Sri Lanka.        

There is reference to a ‘stalled peace process’.  The wording is telling.  There was a stumbling block to peace in Sri Lanka: the LTTE fascists.  That obstacle was removed.  There are unresolved grievances, yes.  Not all of them are Tamil-specific.  Not all of the articulated ‘grievances’ are myth-free.  Neither are they un-tainted by ‘aspiration’.  There’s nothing among these ‘grievances’ that come even close to the suffering of certain communities in India and the USA.  Indeed if there has been ‘stalling’ it is because of the TNA’s intransigence, its long history of supporting LTTE fascism and its absolute reluctance to come to terms with political realities and historical facts.   

In May 2009, Sri Lanka closed a chapter, the long and bloody story of fascism, spawned by chauvinism of all kinds but especially that of the likes of Ponnambalam Ramanathan, S.J.V. Chelvanayakam and G.G. Ponnambalam, and nurtured by the evil designs of Indira Gandhi and her son Rajiv.  The meddling of the likes of Blake didn’t help at all.  Singh and Clinton can walk that path.  They have the power to push Sri Lanka back into those terrible times.  That’s not helping ‘peace’. 

Given their histories and their abilities to rupture old wounds, if they really want to help, it’s best they keep their distance.  Rebuilding is easy and is happening. Curing a nation of old suspicions and animosities that are naturally birthed by conflict takes longer.  If Singh and Clinton are impatient, hard luck! They can look at their own examples if they really want to know about ‘inability to resolve’ and ‘insufferable delays’.  This is Sri Lanka.  It is a country that has its own pace.  Own way.  Those who prescribed, dished out bad medicine.  When that happens, such physicians are not re-visited.    

Dr. Singh and Ms. Clinton are not citizens of ‘peaceful’ countries.  They are both leaders of countries at war; at war with other countries and peoples and at war with their own people.  They are hardly in a position to prescribe solutions to others. 

Peace in Sri Lanka is the business of people who live in Sri Lanka.  They can’t find fault with anyone who says ‘Thank you, but no!’  

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On the ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ of Indo-Lanka relations

[This article first appeared in 'The Nation', on November 28, 2010] 

In a thoughtful piece titled ‘For a treaty of peace, friendship and cooperation with India’ in The Island of Saturday, November 27, 2010, former ambassador, K. Godage has laid out the basis on which Indo-Lanka relations should be developed.  He has considered the history, the geopolitical realities, the today-factors and outlined the ‘ought to be’ in cogent terms.

Godage refers to the ‘Gujral Doctrine’ and suggests that India should revert to that progressive and far-thinking document when considering for relations with other South Asian countries.  He has pointed out that there is a complete trust-breakdown at present between India and other South Asian countries and this is true. 

India has not been the good-hearted neighbour at all times and even when it helps out (as some claim it did during the last stages of the war), such largesse has been considerably outweighed by India’s pernicious history of fermenting division and orchestrating destabilization, not to mention the natural and legitimate moves to secure economic benefit in overall engagements with Sri Lanka.  The Gujral Doctrine insists that India gives and accommodates without demanding reciprocity.  That’s a nice wish.  The reality is the opposite and indeed one where there is little ‘giving’ or ‘accommodating’. This is not surprising because one really cannot expect much from a nation that cannot ‘give’ anything to nor ‘accommodate’ the vast majority of people in Kashmir and indeed has limited its giving to maiming and killing. 

Godage says that Sri Lanka should not anger or cause concern in India by appearing to undermine India’s strategic regional interests.  This is sensible advice.  We do not live in a flat world and we must keep in mind that we don’t have the military might to back us in a self-righteous shouting match with India, even though India, after the IPKF fiasco must know that a military adventure in Sri Lanka will cost it dearly (India, we note, is hard pressed to keep her own terrorists at bay and ‘Kashmir’ ought to have taught the regional thug that an irate citizenry will harass an invader to the point of tears and beyond).  We need to keep things in perspective, yes. 

Bilateral relations, however, is a two-way street even between parties of unequal strength.  India’s non-Gujral ways of operation can push Sri Lanka to seek non-intruding help from other sources.  There is no help that comes without strings, of course, but there are strings and there are strings. Some come with the tag ‘reasonable price’ and some with the ugly sticker ‘blackmail’.  Relations with India, sadly, appear to be more of the latter type whereas the China and Iran strings seem more palatable. 

There is a reason why Sri Lankans are wary of India and this is not just because of Indira Gandhi breast-feeding Eelamism and terrorism and her son Rajiv playing J.R.Jayewardene every which way he could.  There is a reason why Pakistan is seen as a friendly country.  There’s a reason why the Minister of External Affairs G.L. Peiris has to say ‘we haven’t taken devolution off the agenda’ when his Indian counterpart, S.M. Krishna says ‘Sri Lanka must not sort out her outstanding issues including finding a political solution for the Tamil people’, even though devolution was not mentioned in the ‘friendly’ observation.  I can’t imagine G.L. Peiris responding in this manner if for example Makhdoom Shah Mahmoon Qureshi, the Pakistani Foreign Minister said ‘it would be nice if Sri Lanka sorts out all outstanding issues pertaining to grievances and aspirations articulated by the Tamil people’.   

It will take statesmanship of a far superior kind and one which necessarily includes a high degree of humility on the part of India to come anywhere close to the Gujral Doctrine.  As of now, India has got the rhetoric right and that’s such an easy and such a tiny part of the deal. 

Godage was a diplomat and this shows in the tone of his writings. He says, ‘Please allow us to sort out our problem and do not seek to impose external solutions to problems we understand best and need to sort out in our national interest.’  Yes, India wants us to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’. Even when they kick us in our national gut.  Until a time comes when civility and respect underline all bilateral relations between India and her neighbours, niceties will be surface-made and will not have any depth in political, economic or any other reality. 

I doubt if S.M. Krishna will hear Mr. Godage.  I am not hopeful he will hear me.  That’s the crux of the matter, isn’t it Mr. Godage.  We need dialogue and we beg for it.  India wants monologue.

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