On my watch |
Lucien Rajakarunanayake |
India’s own confrontation with terror
“Terrorism continues to rear its ugly head in our region. It remains
the single biggest threat to our stability and to our progress. We
cannot afford to lose the battle against the ideologies of hatred,
fanaticism and against all those who seek to destroy our social
fabric....
“Terrorists and extremists know no borders. The recent attack on the
Indian Embassy in Kabul and the serial blasts in Bangalore and Ahmedabad
in the last few days are gruesome reminders of the barbarity that still
finds a place here in South Asia. We must act jointly and with
determination to fight this scourge. We must defend the values of
pluralism, peaceful coexistence and the rule of law”. Those are the
words of Indian Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh addressing the 15th
SAARC Summit in Colombo on August 3, this year.
Indian Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh and Tamil Nadu Chief
Minister Karunanidhi |
There have been more terrorist bombings in India since then, and
there is a strong body of opinion in the country that the Indian
Government must take even tougher measures than at present to stem the
tide of terrorism that seems threatening to overwhelm democratic and
secular politics. No doubt Dr. Manmohan Singh remains convinced of the
need to be firm and determined to defeat the forces of terror. It is
this determination of the Prime Minister and the Union Government that
appears to be making the forces in Tamil Nadu that support the terrorism
of the LTTE, to bring pressure on New Delhi to change its position on
defeating terrorism in Sri Lanka, and by association in India and the
rest of South Asia, too.
The sudden pleas on behalf of the Tamil people of Sri Lanka, who one
is told are facing genocide and a host of other perils at the hands of a
ruthless Sinhala military are heard only when the LTTE, which makes a
palpably false claim to be the sole representative of the Tamils of Sri
Lanka (and when it pleases Prabhakaran, even the Tamils of South India
and Fiji, too) is facing a strong challenge to its military power.
Today, the situation has changed to that when even the former
commanding officers of the IPKF agree that it is not a situation of the
LTTE facing a tough adversary in the Sri Lankan Armed Forces, but is in
fact facing inevitable defeat. Therefore, those who are ready to appease
the forces of terror on both sides of the Palk Strait, see the need for
pressure on New Delhi.
The politicians of Tamil Nadu, whether from Karunanidhi’s DMK, parts
of the Left Front, and a few other rump organisations that have little
following even regionally, are suddenly emerging as the saviours of the
Tamils of Sri Lanka, as they see the opportunity for new heroism in
Tamil Nadu with a general election due very soon.
It is desperation in the face of the new challenge of elections, at a
time when the Indian voters could well opt for major change that may see
all or most of its old or ageing political faces being pushed aside,
that prompts these parties and politicians to suddenly take up the cause
of the Sri Lankan Tamils; and seek to embarrass New Delhi into
precipitate action that works more against India’s own interests in the
continuing battle being waged against terror.
Mix of extremism
Being the world’s largest democracy, India is bound to have the
widest range of political opinion, which swings from one extreme to
another. Yet, as each general election has come and gone one sees the
hold of the middle grow stronger.
In the midst of a palette of extremists of many aims and hues, the
middle ground has held, as one can see happening in that other large
democracy - the USA - where the forces of the extreme right are having
short shrift despite what some believed was the attraction of a Sarah
Palin, and an ageing war veteran who does not blush at stoking the fires
of racism and hatred, but is being rejected for that very reason.
There is little doubt that New Delhi will feel the pressure from
Tamil Nadu. It must certainly be feeling the pressure from other
extremist and obscurantist forces that seem hell bent in dragging India
into an age of intolerance.
Yet, New Delhi did face up to much stronger pressure when the Left
Front threatened, and finally withdrew its support from the Congress-led
Alliance over the nuclear deal with the USA. Dr. Manmohan Singh was able
to withstand that pressure, making what at one time seemed a dead-deal
very much part of modern reality in India.
Similarly, it was only last week that New Delhi confronted the forces
of religious extremism, especially in the South, when it informed the
Supreme Court that the Ram Sethu, or Rama’s Bridge has nothing to do
with the Hindu religion, and signaled the Government’s decision to go
ahead with the Sethusamudram Project.
It was a major step in support of the secularism that underlines the
Indian Constitution, and gave a significant blow to the forces of
religious extremism, that can pose considerable threats to New Delhi.
All this give cause for more than mere hope that New Delhi also
stands firmly in support of its own policy on Sri Lanka and LTTE terror
that it has consistently followed for the past several years, especially
after the LTTE’s assassination of Rajiv Gandhi.
It has been a policy of not being in any way supportive of the LTTE,
on the question of Sri Lanka’s sovereignty and territorial integrity;
and also its support of Sri Lanka in the common battle that is being
waged against terror by both countries.
It is a situation where New Delhi has continued to regard the LTTE as
a terrorist organisation that deserved to be banned by the Indian
Government, and where its two leading members, Velupillai Prabhakaran
and Pottu Amman, are wanted by the Indian courts for their role in the
assassination of Rajiv Gandhi. What the agents of extremist Tamilian
pressure in Tamil Nadu, led by Chief Minister Karunanidhi are seeking,
is to make New Delhi do a complete volte-face of its studied position on
the situation in Sri Lanka, only to please the electoral dreams and
racist ambitions of increasingly opportunist politicians.
What genocide?
Genocide is a handy word in the lexicon of those in the NGOs and
INGOs eager to destroy the image of a country, with no relevance to the
actualities taking place there.
We have seen it being used very liberally against countries or
societies that are not the most favoured by the Western powers; while
there is a conspiracy of silence over such allegations when they seem
more warranted in countries and societies that carry out policies
satisfying to the resource and influence hungry West.
Yet Karunanidhi & Co have also accused Sri Lanka of practising
genocide against the Tamil people, in the attempt to pressure New Delhi
to tango to their tune in support of the LTTE.
As these unquestioned agents of the LTTE and its forces of terror,
who have been silent all these years about the brutality suffered by the
Tamil people including their children, at the hands of the LTTE, are now
trying to come forward as their defenders take delight in bandying
“genocide” against Sri Lanka, it is relevant to quote a more
knowledgeable person on the subject.
This is what former Indian Law Minister Subramanian Swamy said on the
allegation of genocide in an article in the New Indian Express last
Wednesday (Oct 15): “Recently there have been hectic efforts to get the
Government of India to pressure the Sri Lankan Government to end the
“genocide” of Tamils and to enter into negotiation with the LTTE. Is
there genocide going on in Sri Lanka? No, if one goes by the United
Nations definition of genocide.
The 1948 International Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of
Genocide signed by 135 countries including India and Sri Lanka has
elaborately defined the term “genocide”.
“By this definition that is available to any literate person by just
going to the Google, we can say there is no genocide of Tamils in Sri
Lanka.
“There are a large number of Sri Lankan Tamils who say that there is
no genocide in their country, including well-known persons such as
Anandasangaree of TULF, SC Chandrahasan of Ofer, Devananda presently a
Minister and Karuna an MP. May be the pro- LTTE parties in India have a
new definition of genocide, which is that if the Sri Lanka Army kills
then it is genocide, but if the LTTE kills then that is part of a
freedom struggle. The truth is that the internationally banned terrorist
organisation, the LTTE, is losing in the battlefield, and it is only a
matter of time before its headquarters in the jungles of Jaffna is
overrun.”
Tamil Nadu apologists
It is obvious that the Tamil Nadu apologists for the LTTE are now
confusing suicide with genocide. What is seen in the continued refusal
of the LTTE to accept the reality of impending military defeat is its
propensity to suicide. If there is even a trace of genocide or something
even akin to it, it is the danger that the LTTE puts the Tamil people
into by forcing them to be in the areas of military confrontation, for
the purpose of using them as human shields, and also giving a false
slogan to its supports in Tamil Nadu to use in pressuring New Delhi to
change its policy on terrorism.
Subramanian Swamy poses the question whether India should intervene
to prevent the inevitable decimation of the LTTE? He sees this as the
question of importance for India, and that now is the moment of truth
for clarity and transparency.
As he explains it: “There is confusion now in our approach to Sri
Lanka because of a hidden compulsion of the UPA government.
The confusion is manifested in the following contradiction: On the
one hand, the Indian government has banned LTTE as a terrorist
organisation because of its murderous activities, including the killing
of Rajiv Gandhi; on the other hand, despite the continuing
assassinations by the LTTE of pro-Indian Sri Lankan politicians and its
open interference within India by financing pro-LTTE politicians and
training other terrorist organisations, the Indian government
pontificates that the “peace dialogue” of the Sri Lankan government with
the LTTE must take place. This has in effect ended up legitimising the
terrorist outfit and thus making the ban meaningless.
“We have to remove the fault line in our policy towards the LTTE, and
secure our geographical neighbourhood.
We have to regard the LTTE a part of the problem and not part of any
solution of the crisis because of that outfit’s links with India’s
terrorists such as PWG, Naxalites and ULFA, and with ISI of Pakistan and
even al-Qaeda as well as with de facto separatist Indian political
parties such as the DMK, PMK, Dalit Panthers and not to mention 38
paramilitary connected terrorists outfits roaming the forest areas of
Tamil Nadu.”
The voices that are heard in India over the Sri Lankan policy of
seeking to eliminate terrorism from our midst, and hopefully also across
the Palk Strait, are certainly not confined to the raucous led by
Karunanidhi today.
There are many sober voices that command attention among Indians, as
a countervailing force to the voices of extremists that we now hear
calling for unmitigated support for the LTTE. One more such voice of
sanity that certainly gives more importance to India’s own interests in
the current situation is that of Malini Parthasarathy, the Executive
Editor of The Hindu, who said thus in an article on “The dangers of
Tamil chauvinism” published on October 14.
“Time appears to have stood still for most Tamil Nadu’s politicians
who seem completely insulated from the complex ground realities that
mark India’s new political landscape.
India’s political establishment and civil society are anxiously
grappling with the enormity of the horrific new threat to Indian society
- terrorism - fast becoming an everyday reality on the streets. But
oddly enough, seemingly oblivious of the contradiction, political
parties in Tamil Nadu, led by the MDMK and the PMK, have recently
plunged into high-pitched activity aimed at garnering support for the
LTTE, a deadly terrorist organisation.
Dead giveaway
“These parties have launched a campaign in the State ostensibly to
express solidarity with the Sri Lankan Tamils trapped in the war zone in
northern Sri Lanka but the timing of this campaign which appears to have
materialised overnight, is a dead giveaway.
The Sri Lankan Army, just two kilometres away from the LTTE’s
administrative capital, Kilinochchi, has successfully encircled the
Tigers and their leader who are virtually trapped in their bunkers.
For the first time in years, the Sri Lankan Government appears to be
on the brink of a major success in its battle with terrorism. There is
now the very real prospect of the capture of the elusive LTTE chief,
Velupillai Prabhakaran, who is behind the assassination of a former
Prime Minister of India, Rajiv Gandhi.
“Tamil Nadu’s politicians clearly have different standards for India
and for Sri Lanka.
It would appear that they accept that battling terrorism in India and
saving Kashmir from Islamist Jihadis are important national tasks but
not so in Sri Lanka which has been menaced for more than two decades by
the LTTE.
It was the LTTE which pioneered terrorism in South Asia and produced
two generations of suicide bombers who have claimed numerous
high-profile victims.
For far too long have the legitimate aspirations of the Sri Lankan
Tamils been held hostage to the hegemonic ambitions of the LTTE chief
Prabhakaran who has consistently sabotaged all attempts to find
political solutions to the ethnic conflict.”
Malini Parathasarthy adds: “There is a strong sense of deja vu,
listening to the rhetoric and speeches of leaders in Tamil Nadu, whose
understanding of the Sri Lankan political situation is mired in a
time-warp, their images of the ethnic conflict drawing primarily from
scenes of two decades ago, particularly the flashpoint of 1983, when the
Welikada prison massacre highlighted dramatically the plight of the Sri
Lankan Tamil community and brought thousands of refugees to Indian
shores. But after the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, the Indian national
psyche recoiled from a continued engagement with the Sri Lankan ethnic
crisis.
“Since the 1990s, New Delhi’s policy has been to acknowledge the
terrorist character of the LTTE and the imperative of a military
confrontation with that organisation, while continuing to offer moral
encouragement to Colombo to find a political solution that would provide
a framework to empower the Tamil community.
Meanwhile, India made clear its utter repugnance for the LTTE by
banning it not just because it was involved in the murder of Rajiv
Gandhi but because it viewed the LTTE as a terrorist movement that would
continuously strive to stimulate the secessionist sentiment in Tamil
Nadu as long as Sri Lanka continued to have ethnic strife.
“The situation in Sri Lanka itself has undergone profound changes
since the 1980s, when it was easier to conceptualise purely political
solutions and rule out military responses to the violent dimensions of
the conflict.
“At that point in time, it was indeed possible to sideline the
militant groups of Sri Lankan Tamil politics by engaging the political
interlocutors in the Tamil community such as the urbane leaders of the
TULF, notably Appapillai Amirthalingam, who recognised the key to
political empowerment lay in the democratic process.
But with the ruthless elimination of every credible interlocutor in
the Tamil community by the LTTE which insisted that it was the sole
representative of the Sri Lankan Tamils, the space for a political
solution has narrowed over the years, rendering null and void the
several exercises seeking devolution of power to the Tamil community.”
The forces of extremism and obscurantist racism that are hitting the
headlines in Tami Nadu today, are clearly not the only voices heard on
the Sri Lankan situation. As much as they are in a time-warp on the Sri
Lankan situation, there are political groups here too trapped in a
similar time-warp about the intentions and interests of India in the
current context.
There is the need for better understanding today that the Forces of
terror are as bad or even worse a threat to India than it is to Sri
Lanka.
What is needed is to see a genuine confrontation of thought in India
on the issue of terrorism and the continuity of its policy against
terrorism, whatever be the source or origin, as enunciated so well by
Dr. Manmohan Singh at the recent SAARC Summit in Colombo. |