Some thugs can’t even name themselves…

It has been reported that Rajiv Gandhi, on his way to sign the Indo-Lanka Accord, had told Tamil Nadu politicians that the agreement he was to sign with the then president of Sri Lanka, J.R. Jayewardene, would bring Sri Lanka under the Indian orbit, just like Bhutan.

The before and after of the Indo-Lanka Accord is well known, but considering the recent joint-statement issued by the ministers in charge of external affairs of the two countries, it is worth a recap.  India, under Rajiv Gandhi and before him, under his mother, Indira Gandhi, armed, funded and trained Tamil separatists from Sri Lanka and as such has remained the principal instigator of and contributor to terrorism and all its horrendous and tragic consequences.  

The ‘after’ of the Accord saw the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) engaged in wanton acts of brutality against the very people whose interests the accord was supposed to uphold. The IPKF is guilty of destruction, torture, death, displacement, rape, petty theft and other such ‘peaceful’ operations in the Northern and Eastern Provinces. Having rescued the LTTE from certain defeat via the Accord, India ended up having to deal with the wrath of the terrorists it spawned, breast-fed, spoon-fed and gun-fed.  ‘Tail between legs’ was how the IPKF left Sri Lanka.  By this time, natural antipathy to a regional thug had beefed up the fascist JVP of Rohana Wijeweera to launch its second and infinitely more bloody insurrection, leaving 60,000 dead in just over 2 years. 

India left behind one thing. The 13^th Amendment to the Constitution, whose political worth lies in the legitimacy it gives to the boundaries of the Eelam map, never mind the objections of history, geography and demography.  While some say that India did help Sri Lanka in combatting the LTTE, i.e. after 2005, no one can claim that such ‘help’ did not come with a political price tag.  It was not about a friendly and repentant neighbor doing the right thing. It was the neighbourhood thug engaged in extortion. 

Today, two years after terrorism was vanquished.  We celebrate this moment and must remember that we can do so mainly because of the political leadership, the security forces and the citizenry of this country.  If India helped (even grudgingly) in some manner, we would say ‘thank you’, but we need to point out that it is the least that India could do, considering her considerable and significant contribution to problem-cause. 

The statement referred to above clearly indicates that we should be sober in our celebrations.  It is one thing to defeat the LTTE and quite another to keep separatism at bay.  The one did not follow the other and only the naïve would believe that it should.  The LTTE represented the military option of the separatism, and for a time it did seem that guns could carve an Eelam out of Sri Lanka, whereby a community with no historical claim, amounting to less than 6% of the population (counting out Tamils living outside the so-called ‘traditional homelands’), would get control over one-third the land area and half the coast.  After the military option petered out, Tamil chauvinism had to get back to what I call the Chelvanayakam Option -- a little now, more later – with ‘little’ being the legalizing of the homeland claim (not even supported by myth, by the way) through the 13^th Amendment. 

What’s the source of India’s fascination with the 13^th?  Right now, the Congress Party is deep in some foul smelling matter.  Scandals, mismanagement and the usual dissatisfaction with incumbents have seen a drop in popularity, a decline which has found articulation in electoral debacle.  Tamil Nadu returned not ally but opponent.  It is clear that retaining power at the next General Election could come down to obtaining Jayalalitha’s support or else neutralizing it.  For all the antipathy that her state has toward Tamils from Sri Lanka when they do come there, either as refugees or on visit, the idea of a Tamil Homeland and related sloganeering continues to have a lot of political currency.  Placating Tamil Nadu is not a political choice for the Congress Party. It is an imperative. A ‘must’.

The wording of the ‘Joint Statement’ indicates a lot of arm-twisting on the part of Delhi.  Mentioning ‘investigations into allegations of human rights violations’, shows that Delhi must have cited moves by international thugs to harass Sri Lanka; it’s got ‘we will protect you brother, but at a price,’ the cost being the 13^th Amendment, which too has been mentioned.  Well, mentioned with a ‘plus sign’, meaning land and police powers (included in the 13^th as of now) and other things besides.  In reality, the small print is about editing the concurrent list in favour of Eelamist positions. 

Now it is not only the Congress Party that has problems. India, as a nation, is in crisis.  It has countless separatist struggles to deal with, a grand mismatch between projected image of emerging power and a lived reality of misery and numerous other problems that the IPL, braggadocio, a few nuclear reactors etc together or separately cannot take out from the governability equation.  India wants, nay craves, international recognition. India wants ‘thug-status’ acknowledged, i.e. by obtaining a permanent position in the UN Security Council. And nothing shows that country’s national angst than the fact that it cannot shed the name given by those who invaded and pillaged it.  Indeed that country because what it is courtesy of the invader.  That’s a huge psychological handicap to overcome. We understand. 

The Joint Statement shows that Sri Lanka’s Minister of External Affairs had positioned himself (and thereby the country) as India’s vassal. There’s no mention of India’s endless wars, crimes against humanity, lack of domestic mechanisms to investigate known crimes against humanity (in Kashmir and elsewhere) and Sri Lanka’s concerns about these followed by India’s commitment to addressing them. 

Why should Sri Lanka give guarantees of any kind to India?  Sure, Sri Lanka is not as big as India, has a smaller economy and even though the average standards of living are far superior, Sri Lanka doesn’t have the fire power or the bucks that India can mobilize.  Sri Lanka is a smaller market and therefore cannot use its population statistics as leverage. For example, ‘we are a huge market, remember!’ is not a flag that can be waved to ward off the would-be de-stabilizer.

Sri Lanka has one thing that India does not, a ‘one thing’ that has stood us well over the centuries when dealing with invaders.  A sense of dignity.  Whatever is bartered away by politicians, the people recover, sooner or later. Whatever the costs!  The costs, in this case, will most definitely be a major electoral reversal for those who sell out. 

Sri Lanka did not become another Bhutan.  It will not.  Where Rajiv Gandhi failed, his wife will not succeed. Where J.R. Jayewardene failed, G.L. Peiris will not succeed. 

Twenty seven thousand members of the security forces paid with their lives to defeat the LTTE and keep separatism at bay.  Close to a hundred thousand of our citizens perished in this 30 year long conflict. Sixty thousand were killed in 1988-89 and India helped in that particular ‘evacuation’ by way of the Indo-Lanka Accord.  We have seen enough blood, courtesy of our neighbor.  They can make us bleed, again and again.  But death comes slowly.  This is something that India should realize. G.L. Peiris too. And of course Mahinda Rajapaksa.    

Read more

Heroes and villains of Indian Nationalism: Anna Hazare OUT, Arundhati Roy IN

Anna Hazare is out of order.  So says, Arundhati Roy.  We better believe her, for she’s clearly the voice of India’s oppressed, marginalized, hoodwinked, humiliated, insulted and in other ways made to feel they are lesser human beings.  Roy knows all and is a saint in the making, apparently. 

Writing for ‘The Hindu’ (‘I’d rather not be Anna’), Roy blasts the 74 year old activist fasting to get legislation passed to counter rampant corruption in India, for seeking to overthrow the Indian State in ways and for purposes she finds unpalatable.  The main problem with ‘Annaji’ is that his is a ‘top-down movement’, made up of ‘an army of largely urban and certainly better off people’. 

Hazare’s mechanism to counter corruption, the ‘Jan Lokpal Bill’, according to Roy is draconian and would (horror of horrors!) ‘police everyone from the Prime Minister, the judiciary, members of Parliament right down to the lowest government official’ and would necessitate a massive bureaucracy with thousands of employees.  That would make for two Indian oligarchies instead of just one, Roy claims.  

The crux of Roy’s argument is that structural inequality has to be dealt with in the first instance and therefore Hazare’s proposition will not work.  She knows best, of course.
 

Now Anna Hazare’s this-time fast is not his first.  Neither is he the only ‘faster’ in India.  Roy objects to the spectacle that his fast has become and notes that other (better?) fasters (for more worthy causes with less media attention and ragged instead of frilled) have got marginalized as a result. 

The way I see it, for anything to be ‘ok’ for Roy, it has to be small-scale, and localized.  Like Irom Sharmila’s 10-year fast against impunity for soldiers in Manipur to kill on suspicion or the relay fast by villagers in Koodankulam protesting a nuclear power plant or those opposing police and mining mafias in Jagtsinghpur, Kalinganagar, Niyamgiri, Bastar or Jaiapur, or the objections of those displaced by dams in the Narmada valley or countless other protests, organizations and movements struggling for voice and decision but not exactly interested in bringing down the Indian State. 

Not that Anna wants to facilitate a break up of India, of course.  Roy doesn’t think he’s revolutionary and I am not sure Roy wants revolution either.  Her anxiety boils down to palpable horror at the possibility that Anna’s theatrics might give rise to large scale meltdown of the colonial construct called ‘India’ into its constituent parts or worse into the kind of lawlessness and anarchy that would do away with political stability.  The localized struggles she champions might get swept away and, who knows, she might not have anything to write about thereafter, dare we say? 

Anna is out of order because he has not partnered or endorsed or tagged along with Roy’s pet causes. There’s a simple lesson here: if you haven’t stood up for all oppressed peoples at all times, if you haven’t protested each and every injustice, then you have to shut up and stay at home; you can’t protest, you can’t fast, you can’t demand!  And, if you’ve ever supported some shady character (as Roy says Anna has), then you don’t have any moral right to talk about wrongdoing. ‘Protestology for saints’ is what Roy seems to be proposing, even though Roy has not been averse to playing sucker to the propaganda of terrorists and their sympathizers.  Anna, on the other hand, has had bad friends and taken up ‘wrong’ positions.  He’s rubbed Roy the wrong way and he must pay by suffering withering attacks by the Mother of Righteousness, right? 

Now let’s assume that Anna’s Jan Lok Pal Bill is a piece of rubbish.  Has Roy come up with an alternative (apart from screaming for structural change)?   She complains that Anna’s blueprint leaves out corporations, the media and NGOs.  Well, would she say ‘hurray’ and join a possible fast-relay if Anna faints if these entities are included?   It’s easy to say ‘Structural Changes’ before anything and then dabble in localized protests and be self-righteous about it. The issue is not about Anna getting things right, but that his fast is fast-tracking people in power to recognizing that things are in pretty bad shape. 

The problem is not that people are saying ‘Anna is India; India is Anna’. Roy finds this insufferable and for good reason, i.e. iconizing tends to prop demagoguery and robbing agency from the people.  There could be a bad reason to object too: no one is saying ‘Arundhati is India, India is Arundhati’.  I hope that’s not the primary reason for her rant. 

Anna is no Gandhi (and Gandhi certainly was not the saint the West and the Indian Right made him out to be) but that’s not important.  Anna’s threat is to the idea of India and not about the number of oligarchies that makes up that fiction.  What’s one more oligarchy, anyway? 

I think, deep down, Arundhati Roy is a strong and uncompromising Indian Nationalist.  If she’s so into the subaltern, the downtrodden and the like, then I think she ought to suggest anarchy for a while. 

By her own admission, India is no democracy but a hodge-podge system made for criminals and millionaire politicians.  India is being carved up for suzerainty, she wails.  That’s good, I would think.  The localized protests won’t have to contend with an overarching state, but do the one-on-one with a localized suzerainty.  If not for anything else, for more manageable struggles with improved chances of success, surely?  Or is the lady feeling ‘left out’?  Indeed, is it that the Indian Left has finally had to face the reality that it’s been left behind, along with its pin up boys and girls in the rent-a-pen-for-cause business? 

Yes, Anna Hazare is out of order. Arundathi Roy should know.  She’s not out of order, though.  She is ‘In Order’ and proving to be a loyal foot soldier of ‘The Order’ too, in the battles that count.  An Indian Nationalist.  An exemplary one!  Hurray!

[Courtesy, Sunday Island, August 28, 2011]

Read more