India recalibrates Sri Lanka policy

India rightly recalibrates Sri Lanka policy

New Delhi emphasises on historical linkages that have shaped South Asia’s geopolitical traditions, apart from enhancing the existing economic engagement with Colombo

By Seema Sengupta, Special to Gulf News
Published: 16:33 May 25, 2017
Gulf News
 

The recent back-to-back visit of Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe to New Delhi and Indian Premier Narendra Modi to Colombo reinforces the two neighbouring countries’ commitment to strengthen a long-standing partnership that seeks to enhance all-round prosperity and development.

By embarking on his second visit to the island nation since assuming office in 2014, Modi seems to have given a clear message that New Delhi is determined to reverse the prolonged neglect of a special relationship, which is not only more than 2,500 years old, but often marked by a lack of understanding on the part of India of Sri Lankan nationalism. As Nihal Rodrigo, former Sri Lankan foreign secretary, who had also served as the secretary-general of South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, put it candidly: “India and Sri Lanka have had deep relations, not always cooperative and yet mutual engagement with each other has more often led to be a major asset to both countries.” Indeed, Modi’s effort to transform India-Sri Lanka bilateral relations, through a calibrated mix of cultural diplomacy and robust economic cooperation attains great significance at a time when China is aggressively harnessing its strategic One-Belt-One-Road initiative to make deeper forays into India’s extended neighbourhood in South Asia.

Recognising its shortcomings in conventional economic diplomacy, because of the inability to invest lavishly in transcontinental infrastructure initiatives unlike China, New Delhi has taken the right approach of giving special emphasis on historical linkages that have shaped South Asia’s geopolitical traditions, apart from enhancing the existing economic engagement with Colombo.

Very rightly, Indian foreign office mandarins are carefully extricating the India-Sri Lanka ties from the morass of mutual distrust, caused by the interventionist policies of the 1980s, in order to try and create a conducive and harmonious atmosphere for greater economic integration. But then, that is easier said than done. In the words of Professor S.D. Muni, former Indian diplomat and an eminent South Asia expert, apart from being the first Indian to be conferred ‘Sri Lanka Ratna’ — Sri Lanka’s highest national honour: “Sri Lanka has a strong and alert middle-class that does not always sees all its interests tied to India economically, as it would like to play competitive forces based on its strategic location.” Muni believes there will be reservations in Sri Lanka on issues like speedy conclusion of second-generation trade agreements and that “economic relations between India and Sri Lanka will grow depending on the areas of mutual interests and may not be defined by any one side, least India.”

Former deputy governor of Sri Lanka’s Central Bank, Weerakoon Wijewardena, agrees that negative sentiments may lead to truncated agreements, but emphasises simultaneously on his country’s need for deeper economic engagement with India to successfully align with the Asian supply chain. India, being Sri Lanka’s second-largest trading partner after the United States and a source of about 20 per cent of its imports and 5 per cent of exports, is of great importance to Colombo so far as trade and commerce is concerned, feels Wijewardena, while recollecting how India came to Sri Lanka’s rescue when the latter was facing a severe external sector crisis. “On many occasions, New Delhi had extended a generous SWAP facility to the Sri Lankan Central Bank for enabling Colombo to wade through foreign currency shortages to meet its external sector obligations,” says Wijewardena.
Indian policymakers hit a real masterstroke by invoking Buddhism to mend the derailed India-Sri Lanka tie. After all, it was a Sri Lankan Buddhist monk, Anagarika Dharmapala, who played the most distinct role in preserving Buddhist heritage in the Indian subcontinent through his Kolkata-based organisation, Maha Bodhi Society. Moreover, spiritual diplomacy not only helps India to put the contentious baggage of interventionist Tamil political agenda of the past to the backburner — without compromising her support for inclusive reconciliation agenda to usher lasting peace in Sri Lanka though — but also underlines New Delhi’s disinclination in challenging Sri Lankan sovereignty any longer in the garb of protecting minority rights. Undoubtedly, Lord Buddha is a great leveller, presenting a self-awakened India longing to bring real progress to the people in her neighbourhood through mutually beneficial partnership based on sovereign equality.

The cornerstone of India-Sri Lanka relations is seeking cooperation through consultations based on mutual compromises and avoiding unnecessary confrontation. Global politics is replete with instances of how calibrated diplomacy, painstaking negotiation and hard compromise have helped accomplish the most unexpected results. According to Rodrigo, “India and Sri Lanka are close in much more than their geographic proximity and do provide even a sample for courage in cooperation and consultations.” Saarc would benefit from the example of Indo-Sri Lanka compromises and cooperation rather than excessive competition, asserts the former Sri Lankan foreign secretary.
Professor Muni, while acknowledging the role and responsibility of both nations in stabilising the Indian Ocean region, however, warns that Colombo may not like to work with India alone on all strategic and regional prosperity issues, partly because New Delhi has never been very enthusiastic in responding to Sri Lankan initiatives on matters pertaining to regional security, that involves countries like Pakistan or China.

Seema Sengupta is a Kolkata-based journalist and columnist.
 

மன்செஸ்ரர்: வெஞ்சினத்தை விதைத்தவர்களே விளைவுகளுக்குப் பொறுப்பாளிகள்!

Jeremy Corbyn links foreign policy to growing terror threat
Friday 26 May 2017 09.31 BST  First published on Thursday 25 May 2017 22.00 BST 

Jeremy Corbyn will return to campaigning for the general election on Friday morning after the pause following the Manchester bombing. He plans to give a speech criticising police cuts and drawing a link between British foreign policy and terror attacks.

With less than a fortnight until polling day, the Labour leader will tell an audience in London that a government led by his party would provide more resources for law enforcement and the NHS to ensure people were “not protected and cared for on the cheap”.
 
The longtime peace campaigner and former chair of the Stop the War coalition will also argue that it is the responsibility of government to ensure that “our foreign policy reduces rather than increases the threat to this country”.

Jeremy Corbyn

Corbyn will say: “Many experts, including professionals in our intelligence and security services, have pointed to the connections between wars our government has supported or fought in other countries and terrorism here at home.

“That assessment in no way reduces the guilt of those who attack our children. Those terrorists will forever be reviled and held to account for their actions. But an informed understanding of the causes of terrorism is an essential part of an effective response that will protect the security of our people that fights rather than fuels terrorism.”

He will argue that the government should admit the “war on terror” had failed and rethink its approach.

Ben Wallace, a Conservative security minister, criticised Corbyn’s comments as “crass and appallingly timed” and defended the government’s record on security spending. “He needs to get his history book out,” Wallace told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “These people hate our values, not our foreign policy.”

Tim Farron, the Lib Dem leader, also criticised Corbyn’s intervention: “A few days ago, a young man built a bomb, walked into a pop concert and deliberately slaughtered children. Our children. Families are grieving. A community is in shock. Jeremy Corbyn has chosen to use that grotesque act to make a political point.”

Farron added: “I don’t agree with what he says, but I disagree even more that now is the time to say it. That’s not leadership, it’s putting politics before people at a time of tragedy.”

The Labour leader was defended by Barry Gardiner, the shadow trade secretary. He said: “What Jeremy [Corbyn] is saying is that we need to profoundly reassess the way in which there are linkages. What we did there was we made a military intervention and then withdrew. That country has been in chaos. There was no planning for what might happen afterwards. Now that country has women being sold in slave markets in its cities. That country is in chaos.
 
“Military intervention has gone in hard then lost its way. You can look back to Iraq, Afghanistan and see that the stabilisation of a country is so important.”

Corbyn and his close aides have long held the view that British foreign policy, including the involvement of troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, which he vehemently opposed, has exacerbated the risk of terrorist attacks by destabilising the Middle East and fuelling suspicion of the west.

In a speech at the Chatham House thinktank in May, he suggested a Labour government would seek to rely on a “triple commitment” to defence, development and diplomacy, to protect Britain’s interests, rather than a “bomb first, talk later” mentality.

After the terror attack on Manchester, the Conservatives are likely to seize on the intervention as evidence that Labour would be soft on terrorism.

But Corbyn will highlight Labour’s pledge to put 20,000 more police officers on the streets, saying: “Labour will reverse the cuts to our emergency services and police. Once again in Manchester, they have proved to be the best of us. Austerity has to stop at the A&E ward and at the police station door. We cannot be protected and cared for on the cheap.”

Many election candidates across the country resumed low-key campaigning, delivering leaflets and knocking on doors on Thursday, after a minute’s silence was observed in the morning to honour the victims of Monday’s deadly attack.

Corbyn’s speech will mark the full resumption of national campaigning. He will say: “No government can prevent every terrorist attack. If an individual is determined enough and callous enough, sometimes they will get through.

“But the responsibility of government is to minimise that chance – to ensure the police have the resources they need, that our foreign policy reduces rather than increases the threat to this country and that at home we never surrender the freedoms we have won and that terrorists are so determined to take away.”

He will also talk about the “British values” seen in the aftermath of the Manchester Arena attack, saying: “I want the solidarity, humanity and compassion that we have seen on the streets of Manchester this week to be the values that guide our government. There can be no love of country if there is neglect or disregard for its people.”

Corbyn and a small group of aides have planned a “phased return” to electioneering after the pause, which was agreed to by the major parties.

Andrew Murray, another former Stop the War chair and former communist, who was recently drafted in to Labour HQ to help with the campaign, shares many of Corbyn’s views, regarding Britain’s involvement in Middle East conflicts, including in Syria, as “western imperialism”.

Labour had appeared to be eating into Theresa May’s poll lead last weekend as the Conservatives struggled to explain the social care policy that was the centrepiece of their manifesto.

The prime minister executed an abrupt U-turn on Monday, announcing that she would consult on introducing a cap on total costs, so older people did not face unlimited liability. At an awkward press conference in Wrexham, she repeatedly insisted “nothing has changed” and played down accusations that the Tories would impose a so-called dementia tax.

But May halted the campaign to take direct control of the aftermath of Monday night’s attack, chairing meetings of the Cobra emergency committee and delivering a defiant speech in Downing Street insisting British values would prevail over terrorism. She will go to Taormina in Italy on Friday to attend a summit of the G7 industrialised states, but other ministers will return to campaigning.