Turning a new leaf in Indo-Lanka relations

Delhi readies to warmly welcome Ranil:

by Stanley Mathews

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi with Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe in Colombo, May 2015

When Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe meet in New Delhi on September 15, the atmosphere will be suffused with a kind of friendliness never experienced during the nine-year-long Presidency of Mahinda Rajapaksa.

From 2005 to 2014, there was a wall of mistrust and apprehension preventing the two sides from communicating with each other freely, going beyond routine diplomatic courtesies.

Rajapaksa saw India with blinkered eyes. He believed that India was out to subjugate Sri Lanka, prevent it from choosing its friends, and brow beat it on the Tamil issue in cynical conjunction with a hostile West. India, on its part, believed that Rajapaksa would not deliver on any of his promises on the ethnic issue which was vital for peace in Tamil Nadu and the integrity of the Indian Union.

There was an apprehension that Rajapaksa was going to provide a secure base for India’s adversaries – namely China and Pakistan –, both of whom were showing interest in entering South India via Sri Lanka.

The Chinese had asked India to permit the opening of a mission in Chennai and Pakistan was suspected to have encouraged a couple of Sri Lankan Muslim radicals to plan attacks on US establishments in South India.

Indian state-sector projects like the Sampur coal fired power project, were stalled and there were threats to end the deal over the oil tanks in Trincomalee. The grant of 20 hectares of land to China at the proposed Colombo Port City was seen as a threat by India as Indian transshipment accounted for 70 percent of Colombo port’s business.

Economic partnership

The Rajapaksa regime had also stalled Indian attempts to enter into a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) with Sri Lanka as the next logical step towards greater bilateral economic integration.

India had been seeing CEPA as a way to address the issue of trade imbalance between the two countries, but Sri Lanka saw it as a threat to its economy and political independence.

In India’s view, CEPA would increase Indian investments in Sri Lanka and the products of these investments could be sold in India using the existing Free Trade Agreement, thus reducing the trade deficit which in 2014 stood at US$ 3.3 billion (in India’s favour).

Through CEPA, Sri Lanka could also be made part of the supply chain of industries located in India, which in turn, would increase Sri Lankan exports to India and narrow the trade gap.

However, the Rajapaksa government scuttled CEPA at the last minute by encouraging street protests.

On the ethnic issue too, the Rajapaksa government failed to honour a promise made during Eelam War IV, that in return for Indian assistance to defeat the LTTE, Sri Lanka would implement the 13 th Amendment to the Constitution and go beyond it by devolving more power to the Northern and Eastern Provinces.

Pleas to reduce the military presence in the Tamil-speaking Northern Province and to replace the ex-military officer Governors of the North and East by civilians, fell on deaf ears.

But the new government of President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, installed after the January 8 Presidential election, has been a different kettle of fish.

It has replaced the ex-military men in the Governor’s posts at Jaffna and Trincomalee; has given back to Tamil civilians more than 1000 of the 6,000 acres of farm land seized by the armed forces during the conflict; reduced the military’s presence in the Northern Province and nullified the military’s role in the civil administration of the North.

Recently, the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe government had got Tamil National Alliance (TNA) leader, R.Sampanthan, appointed Leader of the Opposition in parliament overlooking the claim of 57 MPs of the United Peoples’ Freedom Alliance (UPFA) to be recognized as the official opposition. Sampanthan’s appointment is seen by large sections of Tamils and Sinhalese as a welcome step towards ethnic reconciliation.

In the Constitutional Council, which appoints chairmen and members of the various Independent Commissions to oversee the work of various arms of the State, there are three Tamils, namely, R. Sampanthan, M.A. Sumanthiran and Radhika Coomaraswamy. There are three Tamils in the Cabinet, D.M. Swaminathan, P. Digambaram and Mano Ganeshan. There are two Tamil Ministers of State, V. Radhakrishnan and Vijayakala Mahenswaran. A Tamil has been appointed as Chairman of Committees in parliament.

War crimes and ethnic question

However, the new government is yet to move on setting up a credible mechanism to address the issue of ‘war crimes’ during the 2006-2009 war and violations of human rights thereafter. But it has promised to do so, under pressure from the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC).

It remains to be seen if the promise is kept. India will certainly press Sri Lanka to set up a credible domestic mechanism so that Colombo can be defended at the UNHRC, where Western nations, egged on by vociferous international human rights groups, will be demanding, in strong language, that justice be rendered to the victims of war.

In fact, the idea of having a credible domestic mechanism has been India’s. Having rejected the demand for an international inquiry on the grounds that it will intrude into a country’s sovereignty, India has been demanding a domestic inquiry which the UNHRC could assist to see that the inquiry is conducted as per international standards. India was dismayed when the Rajapaksa regime rejected even a domestic inquiry.

India has reasons to be happy now that the successor government in Colombo has agreed to a domestic inquiry and is in the process of setting up a suitable mechanism. Modi is expected to urge Wickremesinghe not to lose time in setting up a domestic mechanism and getting it to start work quickly. India is vitally interested in finding a solution to the ethnic issue because it spills over into Tamil Nadu arousing Tamil nationalism there. Tamil nationalism had been separatist till the early 1960s, and this rankles New Delhi though there is no separatist movement now.

All Tamil Nadu political parties take up the Sri Lankan Tamil issue because no party wants to be dubbed anti-Tamil and rejected at elections. The ruling All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), enjoying an overwhelming majority in the State Assembly, has already got the legislature to pass several resolutions calling for action against Sri Lanka.

The resolutions had called for an international investigation and trial of the perpetrators of war crimes by an international court. The AIADMK resolutions had also called for economic sanctions against Sri Lanka.

The opposition Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) had, this week, called for the rejection of the US decision to support a domestic investigative mechanism in Sri Lanka, saying that domestic mechanisms had never worked in Sri Lanka. The DMK also reiterated its stand that the future of the Tamils of Sri Lanka, whether they should be part of Sri Lanka or not, should be decided by a referendum conducted among Sri Lankan Tamils resident in Sri Lanka and abroad. New Delhi has reasons to fear that Colombo’s neglect of Tamil sentiments might trigger Tamil radicalism in North Sri Lanka. Northern Chief Minister C.V. Wigneswaran appears to bless radical groups like the Tamil National Peoples’ Front (TNPF) which are demanding self determination with the right to secede. Though these radical groups were roundly defeated in the August 17 parliamentary elections, they seem to have the support of a vocal section of the Tamil Diaspora and the local and foreign Tamil media.

Radical Tamil nationalist demands in North Sri Lanka could trigger pan-Tamil nationalism which could, in turn, be a threat to peace in Tamil Nadu and eventually to India’s unity. To put it bluntly, ethnic reconciliation in Sri Lanka is a sine qua non for India’s unity.

It will be Prime Minister Modi’s task to convince his Sri Lankan counterpart not to delay work on reconciliation including power devolution. Thus far, Prime Minister Wickremesinghe has been non-committal and evasive on power devolution or the full implementation of the 13th Amendment, saying that the issue will be settled in parliament on the basis of a multi-party consensus.

India sees that there is a possibility of a parliamentary consensus on this issue given the formation of a ‘National Government’ comprising the two main Sinhala parties, the UPFA and the United National Front for Good Governance (UNFGG). It will be New Delhi’s hope that the National Government will go beyond the two-year time period presently set for it, because the issues facing the island country, especially the ethnic issue, need time to sort out.

More immediately, New Delhi’s concern will be to address the challenge thrown at Colombo by the UNHRC session. Sri Lanka has assented to the US proposal to present a “collaborative resolution” at the UNHRC. This, it is hoped, will bind Sri Lanka to certain courses of action, the need for which India sees very clearly.

Indian investment

At the New Delhi meeting, Modi will urge Wickremesinghe to facilitate Indian investments and prepare the ground for the eventual signing of a CEPA, as this is the only way India and Sri Lanka can grow together and reduce the yawning trade deficit.

On his part, Wickremesinghe will urge India to tone up the existing Free Trade Agreement to include a “Mutual Recognition Agreement” to fix product standards. He would also urge New Delhi to save Sri Lankan exports from debilitating State-level taxes by introducing a General Sales Tax to make India a single market. On its part, India would urge Wickremesinghe to speed up the work on the long- pending Sampur power plant and facilitate the full utilization of the Trincomalee oil tanks by the Lanka Indian Oil Corporation.

While New Delhi is aware that it cannot match China in financial terms, it does have a strategic interest in participating in infrastructural development in Sri Lanka. For example, the public sector IRCON will bid for more road and rail projects.

Both India and Sri Lanka would like to solve the fisheries or poaching issue in the Palk Strait. Modi will ask for time to divert Tamil Nadu fishermen to deep sea fishing and urge Sri Lanka not to jail intruding fishermen. But Sri Lanka would ask India to take preventive measures, as its own fishermen are becoming restive over the issue of being denied full utilization of their own marine resources.