S.M. Krishna takes a walk in Robert Blake’s shoes

 (by Malinda Seneviratne)

When this appears in print a new Cricket World Champion would have been crowned.  It will be either Sri Lanka or India.  Sri Lanka beat New Zealand in the first semi-final and India beat Pakistan in the second.  The India-Pakistan match was played under the inevitable shadow of long standing political rivalry.  There was a lot of jingoism surrounding the encounter to the point that some Indians have said that India won the match that really counted.  The Sri Lanka-India final will be about cricket. Not politics. As it should be.  The better team on the day would prevail.  Congratulations and commiseration will follow.  The loser, whoever it is, need feel no shame.  Political egos will not be boosted nor bruised as the case may be.  This is good.

That a sport is left untouched by politics is a good sign.  This does not mean that things between the two nations on the political front are all rosy and fragrant, however.  India has been a friend but there’s ample evidence that India’s friendship has come with a price tag.  India has shown hospitality to terrorists, armed and trained them, thrust a ‘solution’ to a misdiagnosed problem down the throats of a disenfranchised polity, sent in an army to protect the imposed legitimacy of a claim that has little substantiation as well as the principal articulator of the claim, the separatist, land-grabbing, ethnic-cleansing LTTE.  India has also insisted (!) that the Sri Lankan Government accept and inhabit India’s version of the Sri Lankan political reality and consequently ‘resolve’ deliberately mis-formulated grievances on India’s terms. 

S.M. Krishna, India’s External Affairs Minister, appears in this regard to be giving that ace meddler from the United States, Robert Blake who is currently powwowing with the Diasporic rump of the LTTE regarding ways and means of recovering lost political space and arm-twisting ability in Sri Lanka.  The other day, it was reported Krishna had advised Jaffna District TNA Parliamentarian, Mavai Senadhirajah to ‘demand something beyond the 13th Amendment from the Mahinda Rajapaksa administration,’ during a discussion held at the Indian Consulate in Jaffna. 

When the Indian Consulate in Jaffna was set up, there were whispers that it was for on-the-spot involvement in ‘ethnic issues’.  Well, Krishna has just confirmed that this is exactly what India wanted, if we are to believe what Senadhirajah has told the Daily Mirror.  

Let’s get some perspective here.  Let’s assume that Sri Lanka has a consulate in Kashmir.  G.L. Peiris, Minister of External Affairs, visits the consulate and has a chit-chat with some Kashmiri politicians who favour independence from India.  Or let’s make it even more one-on-one.  GL visits a Sri Lankan Consulate in Gujarat where let’s say some two-bit politician who was at one time an ardent supporter of a terrorist group talks to him about his vision for his people.  GL can proceed in either case to advise the relevant person to seek from Manmohan Singh something that is not sanctioned by the Indian Constitution.  Just imagine what Manmohan Singh would do!

Let’s see what this pundit’s country is like.   It is well known that the people in a number of Indian states have suffered or are suffering brutality at the hands of the Indian Armed Forces. We know about the barbarism against Sikhs in Golden Temple, savagery against Christians in Manipur, burning of Muslims in Ahmedpur and brutality in Kashmir. At present there are 123 independence movements in India struggling for rights of self-determination. Apart from these movements there are sort of on-going struggles for social and economic justice.  It is well established that the Indian Government condones the torture of prisoners.  Prisoner abuse in Kashmir includes electric shock treatment, sexual and water torture and ‘roller abuse’ where a round metal object is placed on the thighs of a sitting detainee and then sat on by guards to crush the muscles.  If Krishna is capable of sobriety, the following fact should put him right: more than 250,000 Sikhs have been eliminated/tortured by Indian governments between 1994 and 2008. 

Now let’s talk about the Sri Lankan reality and the ‘logic’ of devolution in terms of Tamil grievances and aspirations.  More then 50% of Tamils live outside the North and East.  Devolution of power, in terms of the 13th Amendment (or beyond it) therefore cannot sort out any grievances.  The ‘self-determination’ model cannot be applied when a community is not contained or even desires to be contained in a specific geography.  Historical evidence is lacking when it comes to claims associated with ‘traditional homelands’.  On the ground reality includes the fact that the Tamils living in the North and East and subject to all manner of deprivation on account of a war launched by separatist terrorists and sponsored by Delhi are now living in peace, sans gunfire, explosions, eviction, displacement and dismemberment. 

Let’s assume that all Tamils lived in the North and East of the country. Let’s assume that no other community lives in the areas claimed as ‘exclusive homelands of the Tamil people’ by myth-mongering Eelamists.  Let’s assume that these areas were in fact peopled by Tamils from time immemorial and that all archaeological evidence and other historical transcripts support this thesis.  The point is that even if this were the case, Krishna’s ‘advice’ remains an insult to Sri Lanka and Sri Lankans, constitutes abuse of diplomatic privileges, is an act of aggression, is indecent and warrants description as ‘ill-informed, meddling, busybody’.  I would say ‘thug’. 

Senadhirajah says ‘the Tamils do not have confidence in the 13th Amendment and as a basis to resolve the ethnic issue and it does not meet the aspirations of the Tamil community’. He has every right to say this.  Anyone can have aspirations.  Nothing wrong in that. There’s nothing to say, however, that governments and others who could be impacted by the delivery of such aspirations have to offer it all on a platter, especially if history, geography and demography rebel against the foundational clauses of the articulated ‘aspirations’. 

It is ok for any citizen of this country to want something, even the full moon, even every night and right over his/her garden.  It is something else for a meddling busybody to assume he/she has the right to prescribe for Sri Lanka and Sri Lankans. 

Dr. Manmohan Singh is an intelligent man. He knows that India has a lot of firepower.  He knows that this firepower has proven ineffective in managing conflict in his country.  He knows that a large population, a big army and heavy weapons can be used to arm twist a smaller neighbour.  He knows that political instability can be orchestrated. His predecessors did just that by arming and training the LTTE.  He knows that power prevails over morality in the short term.  Perhaps this is why he sends a thug like Krishna to Sri Lanka to make some noises which will indicate what Delhi wants Colombo to do.  He must know why people the world over despise the ‘Ugly American’.  I don’t know if he wants India to earn a similar sobriquet.  India is getting there, though. He can thank Krishna for helping. 

What am I saying?  Dr. Manmohan Singh should thank himself, for Krishna is but his emissary, his pawn!