Britain steps in as India refuses to touch Sri Lanka with a bargepole

No discussion on contemporary Sri Lanka will be complete without reference to India. Not that the history of the island nation is independent of the India heritage. Both the warring factions in the current imbroglio, namely the Buddhists and the Tamils, had originally gone to the island from across the Palk Straits, the former in the days following Emperor Ashoka and the latter during the reign of Rajaraja Chola.

Two basic questions arise when one discusses the Sri Lankan Tamil issue from the Indian angle. First, the Indian involvement, past, present and future. Second, the Indian interests -- strategic and diplomatic. The first should flow from the second, but it is not like that not any more.

The failure of the Indo-Sri Lankan accord and the IPKF disaster have both made New Delhi wary of taking any diplomatic initiative on the Sri Lankan front. Which can prove counter-productive in the long run, though the fact remains that the mandarins of the North Block would find it difficult to work out a formula and methodology to get India involved in the ongoing peace process.

The Indian dilemma is understandable. After the IPKF experiment, no political party or organisation in India wants New Delhi involved in the peace process. Both the Sinhala government and the Tamil militants of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam variety, which control the majority opinion on either side of the great divide, look at India with suspicion. It's the academic minority, and the less-effective Tamil groups, rendered toothless by the Tigers in every way, that are looking up to New Delhi for taking whatever initiative possible in piloting the peace process.

The Indian government faces another practical problem. With V Prabhakaran being named in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, his imminent arrest by the Colombo government, and subsequent extradition to India becomes a fait accompli, whenever the Tiger supremo comes out of his jungle hideout as part of any peace settlement. Politically, it would be a disastrous course for any Indian regime to let Prabhakaran go scot-free even if it helps in implementing a peace accord. Diplomatically, a regional power like India would feel terribly weakened if a common criminal under its penal law is not brought to book, whatever the reason.

One other basic question remains. What role does India assign itself in the sub-continental scheme of things? Even before the evolution and invocation of the Gurjal doctrine, India had been more than accommodative and responsive to the needs and demands of the Colombo government, irrespective of the sentiments expressed by the local Tamil population. First, it involved the signing of the Sirimavo-Shastri Pact of 1964, when India agreed to the repatriation of the ''Plantation Tamils'' of recent Indian origin, compared to the Jaffna Tamils. The former had gone to the island nation in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to work in the tea gardens in the central highlands.

Later, during the Emergency, when Tamil Nadu was under President's rule, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, unilaterally gave away Katchateevu, which Indian fishermen had been using as a landing post since times immemorial. The on-again off-again Sri Lankan navy's firing at these fishermen thus has a historic reason, as much as the Colombo government's suspicion of their involvement in the LTTE's gun-running operations.

Whatever the Indian attitude towards Sri Lanka Tamils in the days following the failure of the Rajiv-Jayewardene accord, and the Rajiv assassination, there is no denying the initial encouragement that the militant groups like the LTTE got from New Delhi. The India-sponsored training centres for these militants, both in Tamil Nadu and outside, and run mostly by the Research and Analysis Wing are well documented. India's frustration and disillusionment after the IPKF failure are also well known. What, however, seems to have been forgotten mostly is the very Indian motive for involving itself in Sri Lanka, even before an ethnic issue presented itself.

Not many may care to recall it now, but the fact remains that India was justifiably concerned about Colombo's move to provide the US with a military base at Trincomalee in the multi-ethnic part of the eastern region during the late seventies and the early eighties. India also had cause to suspect the US motive in trying to acquire a transmission post for Voice of America in Sri Lanka. There were fears and suspicions that this might turn out to be a listening post and coordination point for CIA-based communication in the region.

This element of ''Indian interest'' was voiced by the Tamil militants in the early eighties. They used to consistently refer to the proposed naval base and the VOA station, and it was anybody's guess whose concerns they were projecting.

Incidentally, Indian concerns apart, New Delhi's role in solving the ethnic strife flowed from its pre-eminent position as a regional power. Where both Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi failed was in the methodology. Detractors suspected Indira Gandhi of trying to use the Sri Lankan issue to her electoral advantage nearer home, before her assassination in October 1984. For his part, Rajiv Gandhi committed the grave blunder of signing an accord with the Sri Lankan president, for and on behalf of the LTTE, when their own position was not far to seek. He also committed the sin of using the ''RAW handlers'' of the LTTE to negotiate the deal, without involving the professional competence of the external affairs ministry for most parts.

The result is there for everyone to see. India has been running away from its responsibilities, as also rights, on the Sri Lanka front. It may do Prime Minister I K Gujral's international image some good if he extended his neighbourhood doctrine to the island's politics. But that would also be a self-negation of India's regional role, a process which had been set in motion by Rajiv Gandhi, and followed up with greater effect by V P Singh and P V Narasimha Rao.

Britain has stepped into the vacuum created by India's exit. A peace pact on the island nation without India's involvement could mean only two things. A nation beholden to the West, irrespective of its ethnic denominations. And a nation that is not beholden to India in anyway so as not to consider any anti-India act by a future government impossible.

The end of the Cold War and the disintegration of the Soviet Union might have rendered a possible Trincomalee base redundant for the West, but it can still have the diplomatic upper hand when it comes to helping Colombo take decisions on issues involving India, both in international fora and in regional equations with China and Pakistan. If one neighbour, looking up to India, can be turned against it, for whatever reason, there is no reason why others too cannot be made to follow suit, now or later.

India now finds itself overtaken by events. The greater Indian purpose would be served only by a unified Sri Lanka, but not a divided nation. This has been India's position all along, but was not conveyed to the LTTE in friendlier days. Traditional links between Tamil Nadu and the Tamil Jaffna has led to New Delhi's fears of a possible ''Tamil Eelam'' projecting a future base and hope for dormant separatist hopes this side of the Palk Straits.

The idea was obviously to send a message across to Colombo on the proposed US base, when it all stated, but India has ended up sending wrong messages to both the government and the separatist militants in Sri Lanka. Now it has distanced them both, and has to work from a position of equal disadvantage if it has to have a say.

India has to regain the majority Sinhala trust and confidence. Nor can it afford to ignore the efforts and sacrifices of the Tamils, whose cause is all the more genuine. It also has to reverse the trend, where in the last round, then Sri Lankan president J R Jayewardene was seen as using Rajiv Gandhi to fight the Sinhala war.

The 'Gujral doctrine', at least in the case of Sri Lanka, should not mean that India should be foregoing its legitimate interests. It should be a mechanism to build mutual respect and confidence and should not be a methodology to offer give-aways to smaller neighbors. And this confidence should be properly channelised for India to play a constructive role in regional matters, with a clear eye on its long-term interests, without surrendering its traditional role and rights. For obvious reasons, genuine Tamil needs should not be sacrificed. The present Sri Lankan scenario can thus be a test-case for India.

EARLIER STORY:Sri Lanka inches towards victory, not peace