The New Nation - Internet Edition

Ameen Izzadeen

SINCE the government proposed and accepted the 13th amendment to Sri Lanka's constitution as a means to devolve power within a unitary state, India's interference in the affairs of its southern neighbour is becoming increasingly clear - and even coming under fire.

None would dispute the claim that India has a role to play in Sri Lanka's ethnic crisis. After all, it was India which in the early 1980s trained, armed and financed several Tamil militant groups to fight the Sri Lankan government. It was India which came to the rescue of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and other militant groups when the Sri Lankan security forces were about to capture the Tamil Tiger stronghold of Vadamarachchi in 1987. It was India which imposed on Sri Lanka the 13th amendment to the constitution following a 1987 treaty. Even after Rajiv Gandhi, the former Indian Prime Minister, who browbeat Sri Lanka into accepting the 13th amendment, was killed in a Tamil Tiger suicide attack, India continued to play its role of running with the hare and hunting with the hounds.

Though India banned the LTTE as a terrorist organisation, for strategic purposes, it maintains some secret links with the LTTE. A case in point was when the LTTE laid siege on Jaffna in 2000, India, responding to a plea from the then Sri Lankan government, asked the rebels not to capture Jaffna.

India's interference in favour of the LTTE in 1987 and in favour of the Sri Lankan government in 2000 shows it was playing for both sides. Perhaps, the only exception was when Rajiv Gandhi sent more than 100,000 Indian peace keeping forces to Sri Lanka subsequent to the 1987 Indo-Lanka accord. Even during this period, some reports said India's Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) did not allow the Indian forces to capture or kill LTTE leader Prabhakaran though they cornered him twice.

It is because of this double-game played by India, however much Sri Lankan politicians say that 'India is our best friend', both India and Sri Lanka know that the saying is clouded by opportunism or political exigencies.

Last week, the Marxists-turned-nationalists, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna, sounded a warning that if India did not desist from playing its double game, the party would launch a nation-wide campaign to boycott Indian products. The warning came as many people here believe that it was to placate India that the government on January 23 agreed to devolve power to the north and east first through the 13th amendment and then through the final proposal of the All-Party Representative Committee.

JVP leader Somawansa Amerasinghe, a virulent opponent of devolution of power, told a public rally last week that his party believed that the Mahinda Rajapaksa government, under the pretext of devolving power, was actually giving way for "Indian expansionism."

He said the resurrection of the 13th amendment and a move to set up an interim council for the north were being done at the behest of India.

"We cannot allow that to happen. The JVP will campaign against it," he said.

He asked the gathering whether they knew who our enemies were. He said, "First it was Norway and thereafter Brussels, the European Union, Washington, Tokyo and other Western countries. They acted against us openly. There is another hidden enemy. That is New Delhi."

JVP's parliamentary group leader Wimal Weerawansa said, "India does not like to see the LTTE in full control, but equally it does not want the government to be in full control."

The utterances of the JVP leaders evoke memories of the party's revolutionary days.

During the 1988-90 insurrection, the JVP warned that anyone who bought or sold Indian products would be punished. Many shopkeepers took the warning seriously and even refused to sell lentils imported from Turkey because they were known in Sri Lanka as Mysore (the famous city in Karnataka) dhal instead of Masur Dhal.

The JVP's anti-India stance is rooted in its pro-China ideology. Prior to and during the first JVP insurrection in 1970-71, the party's leadership held indoctrination courses, consisting of five classes, for its comrades. One of the classes was titled 'Indian expansionism'.

This is what the party's founder leader Rohana Wijeweera said in his submission to the Ceylon Criminal Justice Commission, which tried him after his arrest.

"The idea of Indian expansionism was first put forward by the Chinese Communist Party. The editorial board of this party's daily newspaper, 'Renmin Rebao' published two articles titled 'the Chinese Indian border struggle and the Nehru doctrine'. These gave a lengthy exposé of the class needs of the Indian ruling class and its basic philosophy, and argued that the Indian capitalists aimed at spreading their economic and political dependence over their smaller neighbours. This process was named Indian expansionism."

The late JVP leader gave a Marxist interpretation to a fear almost all Sri Lankan leaders, since independence in 1948, have harboured. But what can little Sri Lanka do against a mighty neighbour other than following its dictates? We lost our independence to India the day we gained our independence from Britain.

While the government kept mum about the JVP's latest anti-India tirade, the main opposition United National Party, the government-in-waiting, rushed to defend India's role in Sri Lanka. The UNP's move only underscores the ground reality in Sri Lankan politics.

(Ameen Izzadeen is a Sri Lankan journalist based in Colombo)