A Brief Colonial History Of Ceylon(SriLanka)
Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
A Brief Colonial History Of Ceylon(SriLanka)
Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
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Thiranjala Weerasinghe sj.- One Island Two Nations
?????????????????????????????????????????????????Wednesday, May 17, 2017
India re-orients its policy on the Sri Lankan ethnic question
Modi with Tamil National Alliance leaders, headed by R.Sampanthan
India
appears to be in the process of re-shaping and re-orienting its policy
on the Sri Lankan ethnic question once again. This was evident during
the visit of the Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, to Sri Lanka from
May 11 to 12, writes P.K.Balachandran in www.southasianmonitor.com
Modi found time for the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), a group of Sri
Lankan Tamil parties, only at the fag end of his visit. The appointment
was given only at the eleventh hour, and the meeting which took place at
the airport lounge just before Modi’s departure, lasted just 15
minutes.
This sharply contrasted with his engagement with the Indian Origin Tamil
(IOT) estate workers and their leaders in the Central Highlands of the
country. He opened a hospital for them, addressed a mammoth public
meeting and had talks with their leaders.
Modi’s visit showed that India’s emphasis has noticeably shifted from
the Sri Lankan Tamils’ issue to issues of the Indian Origin Tamils (IOT)
– ie. from the indigenous Tamils of Sri Lanka to Tamils who were taken
from India to Sri Lanka by the British to work in British-run coffee,
tea and rubber plantations between 1823 and 1939.
Frustration With Sri Lankan Tamils
India’s shift is rooted in two factors: Its 34-year experience in trying
to solve the Sri Lankan Tamil question has not yielded results. In
fact, the involvement has taken a heavy toll in terms of money and
lives. India lost 1,500 soldiers and a former Prime Minister Rajiv
Gandhi in trying to bring the Tamil Tiger separatist rebels to accept
the India-Sri Lanka Accord of 1987.
India’s efforts to get political power devolved to the Tamils through
the India-Sri Lanka Accord of 1987 failed also because of Colombo’s
obduracy. Even after the successful conclusion of its military campaign
against the Tamil Tiger militants in 2009, Colombo has been reneging on
its promise to devolve power to the Tamils forgetting that India helped
it fight the Tigers on the understanding that after the war, power will
be devolved to the Tamils to bring the curtain down on the ethnic
question.
To this day, eight years after the end of the war, the India-Sri Lanka
accord remains unimplemented in its essentials. India’s frustration with
Colombo only increased when the latter failed to honor its solemn
pledges to the international community on post-conflict reconciliation
measures including devolution of power to the Tamils.
From Political To Economic
In the meanwhile, India had changed its foreign policy orientation from
the political to the economic. New Delhi is now more interested in
promoting trade and investment rather than securing for various
communities their political and economic rights.
Apart from an economic self interest characteristic of a developing
nation, New Delhi also believes that economic engagement with other
countries will strengthen its ties with those countries and give it
political clout.
New Delhi also believes that marginalized and depressed communities will
be able to enhance their political power if they get economically
empowered. Economic engagement with India through trade, investment and
India-funded development projects will lead to economic empowerment,
which will eventually lead to political empowerment.
Pursuing this line, India had tried to get the Sri Lankan Tamils to use
the economic opportunities provided by India after the end of the war.
Trade and investment exhibitions were held in the Tamil-dominated
Northern Province and railways were restored. But the Sri Lankan Tamils
showed no interest in using the opportunities. Their leaders and opinion
makers actually spurned these efforts saying that they expected India
to do only one thing – get them a political solution which it promised
34 years ago.
Political Solution A Far Cry
But there is little that India can do to bring about a political
solution as events from 1987 show. Even the India-Sri Lanka Accord of
1987, which was backed by a military threat, did not work. India could
only force Colombo to sign an Accord but it could not force it to
implement it. As the saying goes: “You can take the horse to the water,
but you can’t make it drink.”
As on date, while the Tamils are continuing to spurn India’s offer of
help to improve their economy, at least a section of the leadership of
the majority Sinhalese community in South Sri Lanka, is open to
accepting India’s plans to boost trade and investment in mutual
interest.
The government of President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister
Ranil Wickremesinghe is certainly interested. Even a staunch opponent of
the government and a Sinhalese nationalist leader, former President
Mahinda Rajapaksa, is interested, as was evident during his meeting with
Modi on May 11.
Therefore, India sees openings for itself in the Sinhalese South, rather
than the Tamil North. India is keen on having a hold on the Colombo and
Trincomalee ports – the former because 70% of that port’s business is
with India, and the latter because it has strategic value in the light
of India’s plan to keep the Bay of Bengal as an Indian lake safe from
Chinese intrusions.
Renewed Ties With Indian Origin Tamils
India is looking to re-build its ties with the Indian Origin Tamils
(IOT) in the plantations. The IOT community is about 1,500,000 strong.
In colonial times the welfare of the IOT was partly the government of
India’s responsibility and the latter had posted an Agent in Kandy. To
this day, there is an Indian diplomat posted in Kandy as an Assistant
High Commissioner.
After India and Sri Lanka got independence in 1947-48, the Sri Lankan
government denied citizenship to the IOT and wanted them to get back to
India. But India would not take them as it felt that overseas Indians
should become citizens of their host countries. This resulted in the IOT
remaining “stateless” for years. The problem was partially solved in
the 1960s when the Sirima-Shastri pact gave some Indian and some Sri
Lankan citizenship, leaving a residual category as “stateless”.
Eventually, thanks to the foresight and political bargaining skills of
the IOT leader, S.Thondaman, all IOT got Sri Lankan citizenship.
However, the IOT remained the most backward of the main communities in
Sri Lanka. They continued to live in crowded estate ‘Line Rooms’, had
little education and economic opportunities. They had no land to build
their houses and government welfare schemes were denied to them because
they were supposedly looked after by the plantation companies they
worked for.
The government of India, which had previously had some scholarship
schemes for the IOT, stepped up its aid. After the war, a project to
build 4,000 houses for them was started. And on May 12, Prime Minister
Modi announced the decision to build 10,000 more. The IOT leaders have
asked for a total of 20,000 which in all likelihood, New Delhi will
give.
Modi and the government of India are pleased that the IOT and their
leaders are themselves seeking development assistance from India, unlike
the leaders and opinion makers of the Tamil North who not only do not
want such assistance but mock at it as an unwanted gift.
The IOT, besides being of recent Indian origin, are also part of the
Indian Diaspora in contrast to the indigenous Sri Lankan Tamils who are
not. Successive Indian governments have interacted with and fostered
relations with the Indian Diaspora through the Global Organization of
People of Indian Origin (GOPIO). IOT are part of it and as such their
leaders have had opportunities to attend GOPIO conferences, interact
with top Indian leaders and businessmen and present papers on their
condition and aspirations.
Modi’s visit to Sri Lanka this time round is a clear indication that henceforth India will focus on the Indian Origin Tamils and the Sinhalese majority in the south with only a marginal involvement with the issues of the Sri Lankan Tamils.
Modi’s visit to Sri Lanka this time round is a clear indication that henceforth India will focus on the Indian Origin Tamils and the Sinhalese majority in the south with only a marginal involvement with the issues of the Sri Lankan Tamils.
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