Indo-Lanka ties and TN buffoonery
Learning from the experience of the furor over the allegedly controversial Jayalalitha-Modi article in the Sri Lanka Defence Ministry website Sri Lankans need to have broader perspective of the unenviable position in which successive Indian central governments have been placed vis-à-vis Tamil Nadu.
Today Delhi’s dependence on TN may be far less compared to the way the former Congress Government became a hostage of Tamil Nadu racists over the Sri Lankan Tamil issue. Nevertheless the complexity of Indian politics is such that understanding the situation is no easy task for the outsider.
Since the time the Tigers emerged on the political scene TN’s troublemakers have been not only Jayalalithaa Jayaram and former CM Muthuvel Karunanidhi but also buffoons of many political shades, who throughout the anti-LTTE war, were demanding that Delhi stop giving military assistance to Sri Lankan forces and relentlessly calling for their withdrawal from the North and East. This is despite the fact the LTTE assassinated former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and was allegedly plotting to kill even Jayalalithaa.
We know of the disease called elephantiasis so named because the affected person’s leg resembles that of an elephant. The victim cannot walk normally but has to live with it unless he/she amputates it. So the patient has to drag the leg or walk with the aid of crutches or move about in a wheel chair.
Needless to say, regarding India’s Sri Lanka policy TN is the elephantine leg. Yet Delhi cannot amputate it. Instead the Centre is compelled to drag the diseased leg. Although there have been absurd and deliberately offensive anti-Sri Lanka hoardings in TN showing President Rajapaksa on bended knees asking for forgiveness from Chief Minister Jayalalithaa the BJP Government is perhaps in no position to pressure the CM for their removal because of its dependency on TN in the Rajya Sabha. The fact is that TN despite its weakened power is still trying to pressure Delhi on Sri Lanka-related issues, although this time Jayalalithaa may not succeed in her tail-wagging-the-dog tactic the way she expects.
Needless to say it is this lunatic mindset that blew the SL Defence Ministry website article out of all proportions in TN though it was of little or no consequence to other Indian States.
Addressing a public meeting the Indo-Israel Friendship Association organized on August 3, Dr. Subramanian Swamy emphasized that Indian foreign policy should to be based on India’s national interests and not on the interests of any community. He drew attention to the antics of Tamil Nadu’s secessionist parties in relation to the Sri Lankan Tamil issue. But all these extremist parties were not only defeated but also lost their deposits in the election of 2014,” he said.
We strongly hope that as Dr. Swamy had stressed earlier there will be no “Tamil Nadu” factor in Indo-Lanka relations.
Sri Lankans welcome this positive development expect the Centre to do everything within its power to make TN’s psychopaths, retards and racists the least problematic to Indo-Lanka relations. TN jingoes with their parochial, frog-in-the well mentality obviously do not have India’s larger interests at heart and cannot care less about the positive foreign policy role Delhi needs to play in developing closer relations with Asian nations, especially China, which has established strong ties with Sri Lanka and India’s other neighbours.
As Colonel R. Hariharan who served in Sri Lanka as Head of Intelligence of the Indian Peace Keeping Force (1987-1990) has observed: Prime Minister Modi will have to recalibrate India’s policy on Sri Lanka to protect Indian interests even if he has to concede some space for China. This would require minimizing Tamil Nadu’s influence in shaping Sri Lanka policy….” (India, China and Sri Lanka: The uneasy triangle)
Janaka Perera
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