The Discontents Of A Foreign Policy, Made-In-Medamulana

By Tisaranee Gunasekara -November 24, 2013 

“Hail the Great Leader of the Commonwealth” - The wording on hoardings celebrating the Rajapaksa Commonwealth-Chairmanship

In 2012, Mahinda Rajapaksa asked India to send the Kapilawastu relics to Sri Lanka for a public exposition. A new round of provincial elections was being planned and the regime wanted to use the relics to bolster its Sinhala-Buddhist credentials.

After the 1995 exposition in Thailand, India had decided not to send the Kapilawastu relics out again, because of their ‘delicate nature’. But when Colombo made its request, Delhi complied: “making an exception, the Government of India decided to send them to Sri Lanka”[i].

The ‘Tamil issue’ is an irremovable factor in Indo-Lanka relations but its importance is not a constant. Publicly, Delhi will always pay lip service to ‘Tamil interests’. But in actuality, the ‘Tamil Nadu factor’ becomes significant only during election seasons. In between, Delhi tends to accord more priority to appeasing Colombo (to keep it out of Beijing’s orbit and to promote Indian business interests) than to satisfying Tamil Nadu.

But such variations and nuances are beyond the comprehension of the Rajapaksas. Thus they turned PM Singh’s presence at the Colombo Commonwealth into a public tug-of-war between Sri Lanka and Tamil Nadu. They failed to appreciate that given the proximity of elections and the challenge posed by the Modi-factor, the Congress Party would not want to take any risks with the Tamil Nadu votes.

In today’s world even the sole super power cannot ignore global public opinion or expect uncritical and unconditional support, ad infinitum. The Rajapaksas, lacking in both material and moral force, think that they can ignore global opinion and have their way, with impunity. They regard international relations through the same distorting ‘us vs. them’ prism they use in national politics. Either you support us unconditionally under all circumstances or you are our enemy is becoming the Siblings’ approach even in the international arena.

An independent and sovereign country cannot permit the world to decide its agenda. However a rational government, in fashioning its agenda, cannot ignore the concerns of the international community nor act totally at variance with these concerns. If a country is financially dependent on external sources, as Sri Lanka is, political autarky becomes even more unaffordable. Such a country should try to take a sober view of its problems, prospects and options and come up with the most optimum compromise possible, by balancing varying and conflicting interests, instead of allowing the megalomania of its leaders to chart not just its national but also its international course.

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