Looking back at Indo-Sri Lanka Accord :

Lessons learnt and implemented

Continued from yesterday

R Hariharan

The strong sympathy of the people of Tamil Nadu for their brethren in Sri Lanka was an important factor in shaping India's policy. Sri Lanka had to reckon with this factor in its strategic calculus in its three military campaigns against the Tamil militant group. However, India's benign Sri Lanka posture after its ill-fated military intervention and gory aftermath enabled Sri Lanka to build bridges with India.

Wisely, India also did not allow the frictions of the intervening decades to come in the way and reciprocated Sri Lanka's efforts. Both countries have adopted a win-win strategy to build upon the positives of their relationship. These efforts culminated in the signing of India's first-ever free trade agreement with Sri Lanka in 2000. As a result, India-Sri Lanka relations now have a unique status in South Asia.

Mahinda Rajapaksa was elected President in 2005; his campaign focus was on defeating the LTTE and crushing Tamil separatism. The advantages of close relations with India came in handy when he decided to clip the LTTE's wings after the peace process of 2002 failed to make progress even in three years.

Crippling terrorism

Though India was not a significant arms-supplier during Eelam War 2006, it had helped train the Sri Lankan Armed Forces and provided valuable intelligence inputs on the LTTE's intricate international logistic and support network. Sri Lanka managed to dismantle this apparatus and crippled the Tigers, paving the way for their defeat. More than all this, the Governments in New Delhi and Chennai together managed the tricky fallout of the Eelam war in Tamil Nadu and saw to it that things did not get out of hand.

This thwarted the efforts of the pro-LTTE parties and supporters in Tamil Nadu to create a pro-Tiger upsurge. As a result, the LTTE could neither use Tamil Nadu as a logistic and support base nor influence India's political decisions during the war. India's own bitter experience with the LTTE probably shaped its public posture during Sri Lanka's war. At the same time, perhaps India realized that it would be untenable to allow the LTTE, which had grown into one of the world's strongest insurgent groups, to operate as a loose cannon in its strategic neighbourhood. This was perhaps one of the reasons for India's hands-off attitude as the Sri Lankan Army relentlessly pursued and ultimately crushed the LTTE.

Unfortunately, India was unable to significantly influence the Sri Lankan Government in the aftermath of war. Even a year after the war ended, a political solution to meet the Tamil minority's demands has not been evolved. Normal life has not been restored to a sizeable population affected by the war in the Northern Province. They are yet to recover from the trauma of war as the pace of reconstruction is not consistent with their colossal needs.

The writer is a military intelligence specialist on South Asia, served as head of intelligence of the Indian Peace Keeping Force in Sri Lanka between 1987 and 1990. [email protected]

 The Hindu