Indian Defence Review

International

Sri Lankan Tamil agitation in the 1980s saw a turn from Tamil United Liberation Front’s (TULF) peaceful dharnas, hunger strikes etc. to guns and violence under the younger generation’s militants led later by the LTTE. This violence was seen by the then Indian Govt under Indira Gandhi as a threat to India’s security, what with its Tamil segment seething under DMK-AIADMK alternates, with the apprehensions of Islamic (Pak and Saudi Arabian) angling in the disturbed waters, and with the Soviet-US finger extending to the SL pie, thereby boosting secessionist scourge to Tamils astride the Palk straits. India feared meddling in the Sri Lankan cauldron by countries inimical to Indian interests. Proximity to Diego Garcia was an added concern. Thus pre-emption of foreign influence and India’s regional eminence became crucial.

It is difficult to discern any enthusiastic motivation in the international community to get into the SL domestic ferment though. Strategically the world consigned it to its backyard. There was little by way of natural resources in the island to exploit. Diego Garcia had substantially reduced SL importance. Islamic urges met with cool contentment of SL Muslims – be it among its Tamil segment or Sinhala majority. It was, and continues to be, predominantly a South Asian, an Indian sub continental concern. It is this international disinterest that has prolonged the conflict and allowed extended bloodletting among the hapless inhabitants, including those on the Indian soil. Human life and misery are cheap in the sub continental region.

International community has very little to do with the SL imbroglio, and even lesser interest. It is clearly and solely within the orbits of India and SL. Suffering visits only the Tamils, Sinhalas and Indians, none else. It is strange that people from the outskirts of North Pole have to come down to the serendipity island to solve the problem, while the Sri Lankans and the Indians wallow amidst expendable human lives! Stranger still is that India which has put spacecraft in orbit without the cooperation of international community, and exploded nuclear bombs in the teeth of world opposition, (it has that high level of persuasive and industrious skills), has chosen to benignly neglect the SL problem that so adversely affects it.

So What Next?

The foremost and the very first disturbing factor in even commencing consideration of the question is the typical Indian historical, cultural, psychological characterisitic of waiting and wallowing and wishing away till the situation becomes hopeless and sets our own house on fire. Time and human suffering in the prolonging adverse security situation are begging for hard decisions, particularly by the major actor, India. That hard decision is to pressurise the SLG and the SL Tamils (LTTE) by every possible means, including socio-economic, regional and international action to force them to come to terms, terminate confrontation by accepting adjustments and assisted by certain guaranteeing mechanism including regional or international elements if need be. As the major actor India may have to choose, on one side, between the antagonists, and, on the other, compensate the other. In the process it will be essential to isolate the obdurate LTTE from the SL Tamil as well as Indian Tamil peoples. Indian govt, its politics, its democratic and ruling alliances, its electoral greed and diversity of opinion and interests will have to suborn themselves to the common cause of putting an end to the suffering of the subject peoples and bringing about elements of security and peace in the region.

Pressurising the antagonists wholly depends on persuasion – peacefully or by other means; by building up necessary national, regional and international opinion; manipulating social, political, economic activities, restrictions, sanctions, compensations etc; bringing into play international attention and contribution by world bodies; explaining to the public at large the stakes, interests and dangers involved, including the need for peace and security for the development, progress and prosperity of the people. In short an action package on the lines of what India undertook as a diplomatic effort in the international field in 1971 Indo-Pak confrontation. A special effort will be needed to exert more firmly on the SLG to devolve necessary powers to the Sri Lankan Tamils and ensure guarantee mechanism. For this to take effect it is essential to bring major world powers and organisations to play their role. And India must make all efforts to garner that international pressure.

Too long have the politics and political parties in Tamil Nadu kept the Eelam pot of Sri Lanka boiling on their soil. The LTTE had a field day, all these years and played a prominent part in the Tamil Nadu elections with the cutouts of LTTE leaders adorning vehicles and lamp posts and buildings right up to the Legislative building in the fort at Chennai. Senior govt officials in the southern districts had to have strong security guards for their residences, offices and school going children for their safety. LTTE have threatened, killed, murdered, blown up, massacred our Tamils, their Tamils, our leaders, their leaders and kidnapped and killed our fishermen, apart from smuggling in explosives, weapons, oil fuels and war material all in Tamil Nadu. It is time the LTTE was pushed out of Indian soil and denied entry and assistance. Similarly all migration of Sri Lankan Tamils needs to be stopped, and help in any form denied to them, since the LTTE will clandestinely use this facility. When we continue to protest against Pak ultras and intruders carrying out disruptive activities from bases in our land, why should we allow such facilities and activities to the SL Tamils and their protégés the LTTE? Why this duplicity? Will it not hinder our effort to garner international opinion against the LTTE? In any case the LTTE is a banned terrorist organisation ! What business do the Tamils –and the Indians- have howling against Kashmiris sheltering Pak or Taliban terrorists or militants when we are doing the same to the LTTE ?

“India is probably the only country in the world that –has given official recognition to its expatriates, (who) have been granted an extraordinary range of special concessions” says Shashi Tharoor in his book “India”, Penguin Millennium edition, for their (NRI’s) financial contribution to their motherland. And what do the SL Tamil migrants and their LTTE bring to their shelter-land except violence, murder, insecurity and socio-political upheaval, adding to our own nascent struggle to manage indigenous variety ? Our Tamils and their regional leaders must realise, and made to realise in no uncertain terms, that Tamil identity, LTTE and their problems are not the be-all and end-all, and that they have to defer to the larger demands of national opinion, national security and management of national diversity. Too close a drift towards the issue of identity – Tamil identity in this instance – will lead to “solitary identity” a recipe for violence and self righteousness. This exclusive drift in identity in Amartya Sen’s words “can also kill – and kill with abandon”.

There is a need to raise a strong enough shallow-water naval capability to ensure security in the Palk Straits and coastal waters to nullify LTTE as well as SL depredations. The traditional seafaring smuggling clandestine activities of the SL Tamils with their counterparts in TN should be stopped. During IPKF operations the open sea of shallow water remained a big headache. With the proposed dredging for a sea canal through the Palk Straits its security gains added importance. For a country of continental complexity, its nuclear capability, space launch capability, missile capability, and its burgeoning technological, economic, democratic and human strength, the ensuring responsibility of arranging, bringing about and maintaining regional and national security is inescapable, if it is to serve humanity, save devaluation of human life, and ensure peace and security to its people, to the neighbours and in the region. Nuclear and missile wars are least likely to take place as they act as their own deterrents. But regional, national and communitarian violence is quotidian.

We have to change our mindset, review our ongoing dissociation with the Sri Lanka – LTTE problem, choose hard decisions, take tough stand, hone our persuasive skills, use our power and pressure without hesitation but justly and bring about an international opinion to facilitate the successful use of that force. And all this to save human lives, avoid destruction, facilitate welfare and development in the region, to establish and maintain peace and security.