LANKAN TAMIL ISSUE SNOWBALLING OMINOUS

By Swapan Dasgupta

The silly blow-hot-blow-cold games involving the Congress and the Samajwadi Party have, perhaps naturally, agitated the political class and prompted endless speculation over the timing of the next general election. The political turbulence has affected the capital markets and given rise to fears that the sense of drift which has affected economic decision-making will make a mockery of Finance Minister P.Chidambaram’s attempts to talk up the economy and prevent a further loss of investor confidence.

The concerns are real but the Congress-SP spat pales into insignificance compared to the larger implications of the one-upmanship games that are beginning to plague Tamil Nadu. The past week has witnessed a deliberate attempt by both the AIADMK and DMK to up the ante over the Sri Lankan Tamil issue. The Tamil Nadu Assembly has passed a resolution pressing the Centre to harden its stand against Sri Lanka, view it as an unfriendly country and insist on a referendum in the Tamil-dominated provinces. A spate of orchestrated demonstrations throughout the state has led to Sri Lankan cricketers having to opt out of the IPL matches in Chennai; and the MDMK leader Vaiko has demanded the prosecution of Sri Lanka’s High Commissioner to India on charges of sedition for a purported email that suggests that the island nation has historical links not merely with the Tamils but with the people of Orissa and Bengal.

To view these developments as bouts of seasonal madness that affects different parts of India at the onset of summer is, of course, tempting. In a more serious vein, however, the developments in Tamil Nadu are more ominous and need to be viewed far more seriously.

For a start, there is a blurring of lines between human rights and political aspirations. I don’t think there is anyone in both Delhi and Colombo who can deny that the last phase of the civil war in 2009 was particularly grim and bloody. However, it is also conceded that excesses were committed by both sides, and not least by the LTTE which gambled on being able to extract a cease-fire by using Tamil civilians as human shields. The meddlesome human rights industry in the West may like to paint the civil war as a one-sided offensive by the state but those familiar with Sri Lanka know that the real forces of darkness were led by V.Prabhakaran.

Whether four years after the conflict, a so-called independent inquiry into human rights abuses will resolve anything is a matter of debate. If such an inquiry helps in the larger process of ethnic reconciliation it would be welcome. However, if it becomes an instrument for the surreptitious political rehabilitation of the fascist LTTE, it must be avoided.

In any case, the issue of “war crimes” is about the past. What is more relevant at the moment is the larger question of the political accommodation of the Tamil minority in the Constitutional structure of Sri Lanka. This is a problem that has dogged Sri Lanka since its Independence in 1948 and has been complicated by the somewhat irrational paranoia in the Sinhala community over a ‘federal’ Constitution. Equally, there has been a lot of intransigence on the part of the Jaffna Tamils—a privileged community during British rule—which has veered from provincial autonomy to secessionism. The Jaffna Tamils have pressed for the merger of the Northern and Eastern provinces as the ‘Tamil homeland’, something that it totally unacceptable to the Muslims and Sinhala people of the Eastern Province. Today, they are pressing for the full implementation of the 13^th amendment which gives the Northern and Eastern provinces exceptional autonomy, including control over education and land. Colombo’s hesitation is based on its reluctance to transfer full police control to the provincial governments.

The wariness is understandable since there is still insufficient confidence in the ability of the Tamil National Alliance to prevent the LTTE from regrouping. Four years is still too little a time to be absolutely certain that the one-party Eelam the LTTE espoused and even succeeded in translating into reality for some time, has been totally uprooted.

What is clear is that the debate over the 13^th amendment is an internal debate of Sri Lanka. It is of no business of either India or other members of the UN. Yes, New Delhi can privately encourage the Sri Lankan Government to hasten the confidence-building process. But ultimately it is for a democratic government in Colombo to grapple with the problems posed by differentiated citizenship.

The recent agitation in Tamil Nadu, bankrolled in many cases by those who earlier sponsored the LTTE, have a clear purpose: to transplant the remnants of a defeated secessionist movement in Sri Lanka into India. There is a calculated attempt to suggest that the rest of India doesn’t care about Tamil interests and that Tamil Nadu must chalk its independent foreign policy route, if possible with the Centre’s help and if necessary independent of New Delhi. Those who made Eeelam their life’s only mission now see opportunities to link Jaffna and Chennai in a common endeavour.

We are witnessing, for the first time since the Dravidian movement abandoned separatism after Independence, an attempt to sow the seeds of a new separatism that links Northern Sri Lanka, the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and the overseas Tamil diaspora. The threat can’t be left to acquire a menacing dimension. 

Sunday Pioneer, March 31, 2013

SOUND AND FURY - The belief that the UPA’s position is not critical is unfounded

By Swapan Dasgupta

Despite the peremptory withdrawal of support to the United Progressive Alliance Government by the DMK and the incessantly awkward noises being made by the leadership of the Samajwadi Party, the consensus in Lutyens’ Delhi is that there will be no abrupt collapse of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s Government. Although all discerning observers and particularly the financial markets anticipate a period of turbulence, nail-biting uncertainty and policy drift, the overall belief is that Indians are unlikely to get a chance of voting in a new government until 2014 unless, of course, there is an accident which upsets all calculations.

Common sense should suggest that the Congress is viewing its government’s survival on a life-support system with considerable trepidation. Yet, despite the additional nervousness created by heir-apparent Rahul Gandhi’s strange utterances and unpredictable conduct, there is a quiet belief that the position of the UPA is not as critical as may appear. Thisapparently  bewildering optimism is based on a number of factors which may or may not be based on reality.

First, there is dogged faith in the ability of L.K. Advani and RSS to create a stalemate in the BJP over the projection of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi as the leader of the pack. The Congress believes or, rather, hopes, that uncertainty on this count could lead to a dispirited BJP whose foot-soldiers are solidly behind Modi.

Secondly, there are tantalising whispers that the CBI assault on the family of the late Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy in Andhra Pradesh is beginning to yield dividends that will, in time, lead to an understanding of sorts between the Congress and the Jaganmohan Reddy-led YSR Congress. Likewise, the pressure of investigative agencies would also ensure that the DMK’s departure from the UPA would deter it from adopting a belligerent anti-Congress stand. There are sections of the Congress that even believe that an undercover electoral understanding with the DMK is still possible, and that Finance Minister P.Chidambaram who is extremely vulnerable in his present Lok Sabha constituency can be accommodated from Pondicherry.  

Thirdly, in the past weeks, there is frenzied speculation that Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar will be tempted by financial lollipops to finally walk out of the National Democratic Alliance, citing the pre-eminence of Modi as the reason for taking a stand on ‘secularism’. The groundwork for this is being readied and those who claim to speak for Nitish seem to be openly flaunting their anti-BJPism more than their desire to end a decade of Congress rule.

The Bihar Chief Minister’s moves seem to be based on two assumptions. First, he is working on the assumption that a political break with the BJP on the question of the ‘communal’ Modi will endear him to the Muslim electorate of Bihar and have the same effect as Lalu Prasad Yadav’s arrest of Advani during the rath yatra of 1990 had. In short, if Nitish is able to detach the Muslim vote from Lalu, retain his Kurmi-led backward caste vote and secure a sprinkling of the Congress’ upper caste following, he will be home and dry. The Janata Dal (United), it is being said, need not enter into a pre-poll pact with the Congress. But if it can bring in some 25 MPs into the next Lok Sabha, it can play a role similar to that of the DMK in the UPA. Certainly, the composition of those who have climbed on to the Nitish bandwagon suggests that he wants to play a meaningful role in the next government at the Centre. As a first recourse he will try to torment the BJP into sending Modi back to Gujarat. In case that is not possible, he may be willing to explore a post-poll pact with the Congress.

Of course, this scenario is based on the premise that Nitish will squeeze both Lalu’s Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Congress to the margins in Bihar and engineer a contest that involves only the JD(U) and the BJP. My own sense is that Nitish has underestimated the potential appeal of Modi among Bihar’s OBC voters—something that, judging by anecdotal evidence, Lalu has not. If there is indeed a visible momentum in favour of Modi in Bihar (as a section of the state BJP believes), many of these calculations could change mid-course. In that case, Nitish may put his energies into finding a way of remaining in the NDA without losing face.

Nitish’s second assumption centres on triggering a blend of sub-nationalism and regional pride. At the heart of this approach is the demand for ‘special status’ and a compensatory package for backwardness which, ironically, is at odds with the claim that Bihar (and not Gujarat) is setting the pace of economic development. In his Budget speech, Chidambaram spoke about the need to redefine ‘backwardness’ in a way that exceptional benefits are no longer confined to the ‘special category’ states viz. the North-eastern, Uttarakhand and Jammu and Kashmir. It is believed that with the concurrence of the Planning Commission, Bihar could gain an additional Rs 12,000 crore from the Backward Region Growth Fund under the 12^th Five Year Plan. Although this is well short of the Rs 40,000 crore of special assistance that Nitish has demanded from the Centre, the promise of additional resources may be a lifeline to Nitish who has encountered political upheaval (such as the temporary teachers agitation) on account of budgetary constraints.

However, in banking excessively on the political fragility of the UPA to wrest financial concessions from Delhi, Nitish may have overplayed his hand. Given the fiscal predicament of the Centre, its scope for showering political largesse has shrunk considerably. Nor does it have the political muscle to pressure the National Development Council to modify the ‘special category’ list. In trying to firm up his electoral plank, Nitish, it would appear has allowed the larger fight against a skewed federalism to be overshadowed by his faith in his ability to exploit the Centre’s discretionary powers. He has unwittingly given a new lease of life to the philosophy of a redistributive Centre, an idea that contributed to the economic devastation of eastern India after Independence and which, mercifully, was diluted following the liberalisation of the economy in 1991. Where he should have been pressing for more statutory rights and control over regional decision-making, Nitish has been content to agitate for grace marks from an indulgent examiner. His approach is risky: he may have made Bihar’s development a hostage to the political mood of the Central Government.  record.

Finally, the Congress has been enormously encouraged in recent weeks by the overtures of friendship coming from Mamata Banerjee. Following the three by-polls, Mamata may have arrived at the conclusion that the decline of the Left hasn’t been accompanied by a sharper erosion of Congress support. In short, there is every possibility that a three-way split in votes could benefit the advantage of the Left. This could be more so in view of the possibility that a Modi-led BJP could secure as much as 12 per cent of the popular vote in Bengal, even if the moribund local local BJP leaders sits idle. No wonder there are already unmistakable indications that Mamata may be reviewing her no-holds-barred assault on the UPA.

Together, all these developments add up to the likelihood of a bitterly contested election campaign where the expectation of change could well be spiritedly countered by the fears of change. As India persists with its gloomy economics, its politics is simultaneously acquiring an autonomous dimension. 

The Telegraph, March 29, 2013

Burning Lanka doesn't always work out well

By Swapan Dasgupta

Diplomacy, it has been said, essentially involves lying for your country. By that logic, there is likely to be widespread sympathy for the complete loss of face for India’s representative to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.

Just about a week ago, India’s envoy was busy engaging with the US and other countries on the draft of a resolution which, while paying token obeisance to Tamil victimhood, would not trigger a ferocious xenophobic reaction in the rest of Sri Lanka. The objective was laudable: to soften the blow on Colombo while accommodating some of India’s domestic concerns.

When he returned to Geneva for last Thursday’s crucial session, he was armed with a new brief: to impress upon the DMK and the global Tamil diaspora that India’s sympathies lay with those who have trying unceasingly to secure the partition of Sri Lanka.

It is fortunate that procedures prevented India from rehabilitating the LTTE before the international community. Yet, this cynical grandstanding, aimed exclusively at preventing Congress stalwarts from losing their Lok Sabha seats at the next election, made India a laughing stock in the region. The ire of Colombo will not be directed at the US which sponsored the resolution. Washington is too powerful and too remote for Sri Lanka to even attempt any meaningful retribution. The blow will fall on India which, ironically, was more than happy when the fanatical Tigers were militarily decimated in 2009. India’s economic and strategic interests in Sri Lanka will suffer and the beneficiary will be China. More to the point, India’s foreign policy will be perceived as wildly erratic and susceptible to sectional pressures, even of the disreputable variety.

It is mildly reassuring that this self-defeating misadventure in Geneva wasn’t accompanied by a resolution in Parliament pillorying Sri Lanka for “human rights abuses” and “genocide”. Mercifully there were enough MPs who prevented this needless bullying of a small country with which India has a deep civilizational relationship.

Nor are these links confined to the Jaffna Tamils and Tamil Nadu. The Sinhala people too look up to India as a pilgrimage centre for the land of the Buddha. And, to stretch the point further, the Sinhala people also trace their ancestry to Orissa and Bengal, the home of the legendary Vijaya who established the first Sinhala kingdom around 543 BC. Sri Lanka’s India connection is clearly not confined to Tamil Nadu.

And, if civilizational links determine diplomatic posturing, would the Government have dared contemplate a resolution attacking China for its assault on Tibetan identity? Why did Parliament contemptuously repudiate the Pakistan National Assembly’s gratuitous resolution on Afzal Guru? Consistency may be the virtue of small minds but wildly erratic conduct doesn’t behove a country that has pretensions of emerging as a global player.

There are times when it is politically rewarding to rise above sectional pressures and do what is in the larger national interest. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh did precisely that in 2008 when he called the Left’s bluff over the Indo-US nuclear agreement. It was his resolute stand for a larger purpose that gained the UPA considerable goodwill and was a factor in its re-election in 2009.

That the UPA leadership chose to unsuccessfully placate the DMK which used the Sri Lankan Tamil issue as a ruse to sever an alliance that had otherwise become a liability is revealing. It suggests that there already weak central command structure of the Government has become almost non-existent. The Government gives the appearance of being a replica of the later-Moghul Empire where a nominal badshah in Delhi lacked authority and was buffeted by different regional pressures—a situation deftly exploited by the East India Company.  This incoherence has, quite predictably, affected India’s foreign policy—a field that is the sole responsibility of the Centre. Our think-tanks can pontificate endlessly over a foreign policy ‘doctrine’ and dissect the nuances and calibrations but the reality is cruel. India has lost its capacity to be a meaningful global player. Today, national security merely implies a game of transfers and postings.

Elections may be a year away but more than ever India needs a government with a mandate. And, if possible, a Prime Minister with clout.

Sunday Times of India, March 24, 2013 

A Scapegoat for Political Games

By Swapan Dasgupta

Since issues and ‘causes’ are most often a fig leaf for other hard-nosed calculations, there is an understandable reluctance to take the formal pronouncements of political parties at their face value. This is particularly true of the Dravidian parties of Tamil Nadu. Although the main Dravidian parties trace their political ancestry to the pre-Independence Justice Party and the anti-Brahmin social movement launched by E.V. Ramaswamy Naicker, there is precious little in their present day actions to suggest that they are guided by lofty ideas. Having alternated control of the state government since 1967 and having become stakeholders at the Centre since 1996, Dravidian politics has conveyed an unmistakable impression of being guided by venality alone.

Given this backdrop, it is hard to completely discount the suggestion that the DMK’s dramatic withdrawal from the UPA last Tuesday morning—a move that has left the Congress completely at the mercy of two Uttar Pradesh-based parties who can barely tolerate the sight of each other—was guided by a touching concern for the plight of the Tamils of Sri Lanka. Had that indeed been the case, the DMK (which always had a soft corner for the separatist Eelam movement) would have exercised its clout to force India to join other Western countries in 2009 and press for a cease-fire across the Palk Straits. True, DMK chief M.Karunanidhi did go on a symbolic fast to highlight his concern over the military elimination of the dreaded LTTE. But it is an open secret that despite nominal appeals for restraint, New Delhi was not unhappy that the LTTE was roundly vanquished and its leader V.Prabhakaran eliminated.

Yes, there was some concern at the high civilian casualties during the final stages of the bitter civil war. At the same time, New Delhi, through its bitter experience of the IPKF misadventure, knew very well that LTTE showed scant respect for the Geneva Convention and other rules of military engagement. The use of civilians and particularly children as a human shield was a recurring feature of the LTTE’s military strategy. Indeed, the reason Prabhakaran’s last stand turned out to be such a bloody affair was precisely because the LTTE had gambled on the fear of collateral damage forcing the Sri Lankan army to stall. If Colombo refused to blink, it was due to a corresponding realisation that it was confronting one of the most brutal and fanatical armies ever raised. Those familiar with Ian Kershaw’s The End, a masterly study of the final five months of the war against Nazi Germany in 1945, will see parallels with what happened in the Northern Province of Sri Lanka four years ago.

Of course, the term ‘human rights’ hadn’t entered the vocabulary of international politics in 1945—a reason why the expulsion of ethnic Germans from Poland and erstwhile Czechoslovakia has been erased from Europe’s collective memory. In any case, the application of human rights to a regime that organised the Holocaust would have been laughable.

Likewise, the invocation of human rights to a dispensation that combined brutality with unwavering fanaticism and which controlled the Tamil areas through efficient intimidation seems as out of place today as it would have in Germany 1945. There has been a brutalisation of Sri Lanka ever since the civil war began in 1983. But the hardening of the Sri Lankan military—which used to be a ceremonial force—is in direct proportion to the blood-thirstiness of the LTTE. The efficacy and wisdom of Tamil separatism in Sri Lanka may occasion legitimate debate. But there can be no debate over the fact that the LTTE personified evil.  

The irony is that the pundits in New Delhi and the political class in Tamil Nadu are fully aware of the real face of the LTTE and even the danger it posed to India. It is relevant to recall the LTTE’s calculated, cold-blooded murder of Rajiv Gandhi during the election campaign of 1991. It is also pertinent to refresh public memory of the Congress Party’s dissociation from the United Front Government of I.K. Gujral in 1998 after the Jain Commission reported the cosy relationship between the DMK and LTTE. True, the imperatives of coalition politics may have forced the Congress to enter into an alliance with Karunanidhi’s party after 2004. But domestic expediency is no reason to forget the past entirely, particularly the unhappy chapters relating to the manner in which Prabhakaran did a Bhindranwale on a cynical regime.

There are a lot of forces and individuals who were responsible for Sri Lanka’s nightmare years. The Bandaranaike family cannot escape responsibility for triggering the process of ethnic polarisation in 1956; other Sinhala politicians cannot disown their roles in the marginalisation of moderate Tamil politicians; and even the Buddhist clergy had a role in stoking a regressive majoritarian outlook. But among those responsible was also India. Would the LTTE have emerged as a force had it not been for New Delhi’s covert support?

Finance Minister P.Chidambaram has sought to send a “resolute” message to Colombo. Perhaps President M. Rajapakshe could do with some softening. But will New Delhi show the same resolve in attacking China for its treatment of its Tibetan minorities? Is Colombo being targeted because it is a small player? Are the principles of ‘constructive engagement’ determined by the electoral calculations of Tamil Nadu? Let’s not make Sri Lanka a scapegoat for the political games we play at home. 

Asian Age, March 22, 2013