Brahma Chellaney, 10.09.09, 12:01 AM Forbe
Colombo's victory over the Tamils shows India's power on the wane.
India's waning leverage over Sri Lanka is manifest from the way it now has to jostle for influence there with arch-rivals China and Pakistan. Hambantota--the billion-dollar port Beijing is building in Sri Lanka's southeast--symbolizes the Chinese strategic challenge to India from the oceans.
Even as some 280,000 displaced Tamils--equivalent to the population of Belfast--continue to be held incommunicado in barbed-wire camps, India has been unable to persuade Colombo to set them free, with incidents being reported of security forces opening fire on those seeking to escape from the appalling conditions. One of the few persons allowed to visit some of these camps was U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who said after his tour in May: "I have traveled around the world and visited similar places, but these are by far the most appalling scenes I have seen ..." Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said
recently that India has conveyed its "concerns in no uncertain terms to Sri Lanka on various occasions, stressing the need for them to focus on resettling and rehabilitating the displaced Tamil population at the earliest." But India seems unable to make a difference even with messages delivered in "no uncertain terms."
The story of the loss of India's preeminent role in Sri Lanka actually begins in 1987, when New Delhi made an abrupt U-turn in policy and demanded that the Tigers lay down their arms. Their refusal to bow to the diktat was viewed as treachery, and the Indian army was ordered to rout them.
Since then, Sri Lanka has served as a reminder of how In
dia's foreign policy is driven not by resolute, long-term goals, but by a meandering approach influenced by the personal caprice of those in power. The 1987 policy reversal occurred after then Sri Lankan President J.R. Jayewardene--a wily old fox--sold neophyte Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi the line that an "Eelam," or Tamil homeland, in Sri Lanka would be a dangerous precursor to a Greater Eelam uniting Tamils on both sides of the Palk Straits. In buying that myth, Gandhi did not consider a simple truth: If Bangladesh's 1971 creation did not provoke an Indian Bengali nationalist demand for a Greater Bangladesh, why would an Eelam lead to a Greater Eelam? (More)
India's waning leverage over Sri Lanka is manifest from the way it now has to jostle for influence there with arch-rivals China and Pakistan. Hambantota--the billion-dollar port Beijing is building in Sri Lanka's southeast--symbolizes the Chinese strategic challenge to India from the oceans.
Even as some 280,000 displaced Tamils--equivalent to the population of Belfast--continue to be held incommunicado in barbed-wire camps, India has been unable to persuade Colombo to set them free, with incidents being reported of security forces opening fire on those seeking to escape from the appalling conditions. One of the few persons allowed to visit some of these camps was U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who said after his tour in May: "I have traveled around the world and visited similar places, but these are by far the most appalling scenes I have seen ..." Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said
recently that India has conveyed its "concerns in no uncertain terms to Sri Lanka on various occasions, stressing the need for them to focus on resettling and rehabilitating the displaced Tamil population at the earliest." But India seems unable to make a difference even with messages delivered in "no uncertain terms."
The story of the loss of India's preeminent role in Sri Lanka actually begins in 1987, when New Delhi made an abrupt U-turn in policy and demanded that the Tigers lay down their arms. Their refusal to bow to the diktat was viewed as treachery, and the Indian army was ordered to rout them.
Since then, Sri Lanka has served as a reminder of how In
dia's foreign policy is driven not by resolute, long-term goals, but by a meandering approach influenced by the personal caprice of those in power. The 1987 policy reversal occurred after then Sri Lankan President J.R. Jayewardene--a wily old fox--sold neophyte Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi the line that an "Eelam," or Tamil homeland, in Sri Lanka would be a dangerous precursor to a Greater Eelam uniting Tamils on both sides of the Palk Straits. In buying that myth, Gandhi did not consider a simple truth: If Bangladesh's 1971 creation did not provoke an Indian Bengali nationalist demand for a Greater Bangladesh, why would an Eelam lead to a Greater Eelam? (More)
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