TN MORE EXPLOSIVE THAN TNT

The attacks on two Buddhist monks in Chennai this week have created a parallel drama that does not quite go well with the scripted denouement that most of our own pundits had for the Geneva UNHRC sessions.

For one thing, the assaults on Buddhist monks, of all persons, has suddenly cast Sri Lanka in this particular piece of political theatre, as the aggrieved party.

The attacks were ghoulish and would be a blot on India’s image without the slightest doubt, though it’s granted that the Indian political establishment or the Indian people as a whole have nothing to do with them. This behaviour would invite instant condemnation from anybody concerned with these events, politically or otherwise.

That aside, it could however be one of those exquisite occasions in which some providence -- divine or otherwise -- grants the much needed deliverance for the regime here, and the Sri Lankan people.

With this kind of loutish behaviour, loosely put, the hunter can become the hunted. The Tamil Nadu state political actors are adorning themselves in shame, condoning or encouraging these activities, and this would cast Sri Lanka as the wronged party though Sri Lanka in fact has been the wronged party anyway -- though not always seen as such, particularly in that part of India that is under review in this comment.

Now, Tamil Nadu will be seen as the needless aggressor, and this will deflect from the spurious war crimes charges that are being made against the Sri Lankan state.

The Indian centre meanwhile finds itself torn between appeasing Tamil Nadu’s anti Sri Lankan sentiment for politically expedient reasons, and maintaining good relations with a neighbouring country, when the aggressor in this developing drama is from home, and in part, from within the ruling coalition.

The Sri Lankan defence establishment has already issued a travel advisory to Sri Lankans to refrain from heading for Chennai on business or otherwise. This necessary measure casts doubt over India’s ability to govern in member states of the Indian union, and therefore once again raises the specter of Tamil Nadu separatism within India.

That could be further providence coming our way at a crucial juncture where the regional giant’s behaviour is being closely watched by international players for very good reasons, with regard to the Sri Lankan issue.

While the two countries are exchanging messages couched in the usual polite diplomatic speak, the drama that is unfolding in Delhi, Geneva and Colombo is riveting.

India which opposed country-specific resolutions at the UNHRC in her own interests, last year betrayed her own long held principles in voting against Sri Lanka and with the United States on the floor of the UNHRC -- and would this year seek a certain redemption on this score, but for the rumblings and the circus now going on in Tamil Nadu.

The External Affairs Minister Salman Kurshid is a extremely pragmatic person who wanted the Indian policy establishment to vote with Sri Lanka this year, apparently, but he has been facing almost insurmountable pressure from the survival conscious government which also seems to have acquired delayed pangs of ‘conscience’ for having tacitly supported the elimination of Prabhakaran which is read curiously in Tamil Nadu and other quarters as a ‘rebuff of the Sri Lankan Tamils.’

It’s excellent at this time then that Sri Lankan regime and people, have not taken cudgels against India. Why should they? India’s problems with regard to the Sri Lankan issue seem to be more troublesome than Sri Lanka’s own!

It is almost ensured that when things are weighed in the balance, India will not under any circumstances do anything that is detrimental to the interests of Sri Lanka.

In one way, what the rest of the UNHRC membership does is of diminished importance when India the regional power is cautious about Sri Lanka for various reasons, as enumerated above.

When India seemed poised to intervene in the last stages of the 2009 war, the Mumbai blasts made it impossible for the country to intervene on behalf of a terrorist even if anybody in India wanted it to happen. There is always, providence then – well, almost divine providence!