It should be obvious by now to even the most dim-witted observer that the regional parties of Tamil Nadu have no understanding of foreign policy. And even if they do, they are willing to subordinate the country's interests to their own petty politics.
The resolution which the State Assembly recently adopted, that called for economic sanctions against Sri lanka and a referendum on a separate Tamil Eelam, demonstrates just how far our parochial-minded politicians can go in torpedoing a robust relationship between two countries. Only days ago, India had voted for a motion in the United Nations Human Rights Council against Sri lanka.
Since the Government has gone along with a UNHRC resolution tabled by the US, it ought to also take a leaf out of the American foreign policy book. The closeness in ties between India and Sri lanka — at least before the recent developments happened — and the differences between them on certain issues, can be compared in some measure to the proximity between the US and Israel. US President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are not the best of friends. From all accounts, there is trust deficit between the two leaders. While Netanyahu believes that Obama is promising the moon to the Palestinians, Obama believes that the Israeli leader's aggression over settlements in the disputed region is a hindrance to peace. Both have made their positions known in unambiguous terms. Many members of the Obama Administration share the President's dismay and anger over Netanyahu's attitude. According to reports, after being subjected to a lecture by Netanyahu, a fuming American official had later retorted, “Who the f**k does he think he isIJ Who's the fu****g super powerIJ”
Yet, when it comes to censuring Israel on international platforms, the US has been careful to not join any such chorus. It believes that doing so will alienate Israel and make the task of crafting peace in West Asia even more difficult. In addition, Washington, DC, also realises the folly of humiliating an ally before the world and allowing ‘non-friendly' countries like Iran to gain bargaining points in the process. That is the reason why, despite its known displeasure with Netanyahu, the US blocks any resolution in the UN that is overly critical of Israel. But we have done just the opposite with a friendly Sri lanka.
Interestingly, while New Delhi had demonstrated such (misplaced) resolve to upbraid Colombo, it has been generally soft on countries that are far from being its friends. look at how we have been coy in censuring Iran in the United Nations. For instance, some 15 months ago, India abstained from voting in the UN General Assembly which overwhelming approved a resolution condemning elements in the Iranian establishment for their role in a plot to assassinate the US envoy to Saudi Arabia. New Delhi had then said, unconvincingly, that it had abstained because the “substance (of the resolution) deals with a specific case in which we are not in the possession of full facts and the matter is sub judice.” More recently, although India has gone along with the West's resolution expressing concern about Iran's nuclear programme, it hasn’t not show the belligerence which it has towards neighbouring Sri lanka.
The tragedy is that none of the bellicose measures is going to deliver justice to the Tamil nationals of Sri lanka. Passions will be inflamed there and Colombo could go slow on the rehabilitation of the Tamils who were caught in the crossfire between the country's forces and the liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. With the lTTE decimated, the Sri lankan regime, especially the one led by President Mahinda Rajapaksa, had initiated several measures to draw the Tamils into the national mainstream. The lessons learnt and Reconciliation Commission was one such measure. The llRC was a Commission of Inquiry appointed by Rajapaksa to, besides other things, investigate the failure of the ceasefire agreement which had been made operational in February 2002, and suggest ways to promote national unity and reconciliation among all communities. Colombo has also been pushing the Tamil National Alliance — a conglomeration of various parties that are promoting the interests of the Tamil people there, to cooperate with the Government in finding ways to enhance the participation of Tamils in governance.
But the resolution in the Tamil Nadu Assembly leads one to wonder if the Dravidian parties are indeed serious about improving the lot of their fellow Tamils in the island nation. The call for a separate Tamil state is obnoxious; no State legislature should adopt a call for the division of a friendly country. There are of course issues that New Delhi has with Colombo regarding the implementation of measures which will benefit the Tamil population in Sri lanka, but they can be best addressed not by seeking to humiliate Colombo on public platforms such as the United Nations. It is far easier to persuade a friendly nation (the State resolution has even called for withdrawing the ‘friendly nation' tag from Sri lanka) through dialogue based on mutual trust. We seem to have lost that opportunity, because, much as the two countries say that they are still friends, a deep crack has appeared in the relations between them.
It must not be forgotten that the DMK has all along been a hypocrite. When its members visited Sri lanka as part of a parliamentary delegation some three years ago — after the ‘genocide' that the party is now claiming Colombo had engineered against the Tamil population — prominent leaders not just met Rajapaksa (now a ‘war criminal’, according to the DMK) but also exchanged gifts and blessings. The team included party stalwarts like TR Baalu and Kanimozhi. When the so-called genocide was taking place and New Delhi-Colombo ties were at a peak, the DMK was part of the Congress-led UPA. Yet it did not walk out. If the DMK has done so now, when Colombo has begun taking measures to address the grievances of its Tamil population, it is because the party is desperate to reoccupy the political space in Tamil Nadu which it has lost to the AIADMK.
This brings us back to the conduct of the Union Government. Had the Congress-led UPA regime shown some spine from the start and called the bluff of regional parties such as the DMK, it would not have landed in such a mess. Such was the Government's desperation to placate the DMK that it even agreed to a resolution being brought in Parliament against Sri lanka. That was thankfully thwarted by the Opposition. Meanwhile, even the DMK, for whom it made a mockery of the country’s foreign policy, has deserted it.
At the end of the day, we do not have any strategy to counter the adverse fallouts of our disastrous handling of Colombo. China has already begun to inch into the space that India is seen to be vacating; and with it, Pakistan cannot be far behind. Neither the DMK nor the AIADMK will be of any use when India has to face the China-Pakistan-Sri lanka axis.