IPKF in Sri Lanka: Superpower Compulsions

Source: Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 24, No. 28 (Jul. 15, 1989), p. 1574
Published by: Economic and Political Weekly
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4395074
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 IPKF in Sri Lanka: Superpower
Compulsions
A Correspondent
India's decision to stay on in Sri Lanka makes eminent sense when
viewed in the perspective of the presumed regional role that this
country has prescribed for itself.
IT is no use getting indignant over the
refusal of prime minister Rajiv Gandhi to
concede to the demand of the Sri Lanka
president Premadasa for the withdrawal of
the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) from
the island by July 29, the second anniver-
sary of its arrival on the island. President
Premadasa is too shrewd a politician not to
know the Indian prime minister's domestic
compulsions as well as the even more press-
ing compulsions of living up to the 'image'
presented in recent highly publicised reports
in the western press about India's achieve-
ment of the status of a regional superpower.
There is no denying the sense of immense
gratification in Delhi about these 'certi-
ficates' on the growing strength of India.
Indeed, India's intervention in Maldives and
Sri Lanka have substantially contributed to
this 'image' of a regional superpower to
whose benevolent care the stability of the
region could be (and according to some,
ought to be) entrusted-though, of course,
there are also some apprehensions about the
potential of this benevolent regional super-
power which would need some watching.
Such a combination of admiration and
watchful wariness is exactly the kind of 'im-
age' that eminently gratifies the establish-
ment and its apologists in Delhi and other
metropolitan areas.
So, India is now having its own version
of the Monroe Doctrine, with freedom to
intervene in the countries of the region-
which, with the recent demonstrated success
in IRBM technology, is not going to be con-
fined only to south Asia. Only cantankerous
malcontents would point out that none of
the stated arguments for not complying with
the request of the Sri Lankan president are
convincing; on the contrary, India's decision
to stay on makes eminent sense when viewed
in the perspective of the presumed regional
role that this country has prescribed for
itself..
The costs of such persistence in the Sri
Lanka misadventure are, however, going to
be very high. The IPKF was sent to Sri
Lanka on the invitation of the Sri Lankan
government, to assist that government in
maintaining and protecting the territorial
integrity of Sri Lanka and also to ensure that
the Tamil-speaking minority in the nrth and
the est would enjoy a measure of regional
autonomy-something incidentally that the
Sri Lankan government too was anxious to
grant. Having gone there on the request of
the Sri Lankan government, one would have
1574 Economic
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thought a request by the same government
for withdrawal of these forces should have
been enough, especially since the stated ob-
jectives of the governments of India and Sri
Lanka were the same. Indeed, the request for
withdrawal of the IPKF should have been
grabbed since it is becoming clear that this
country has got into an impossible situation
and the rank and file of the IPKF, for
no fault of theirs, have simply been led
to slaughter in that uniformly hostile
environment.
But no: it now transpires that the IPKF
was sent to Sri Lanka not to safeguard the
territorial integrity of Sri Lanka, then as now
under attack by Tamil chauvinists, but in
order to protect Tamil lives. Going by this
logic, since people speaking one or other of
the Indian languages and ethnically similar
to Indians live in every other part of south
Asia (and even farther beyond), would India
send troops whenever and wherever any of
these communities is perceived by India to
be imperilled? If India can send troops to
save Tamil lives in Sri Lanka (and decide to
stay put even if the group in order to save
which India sent its troops are now deman-
ding that India should leave) should it
not also send troops to save Bengalis in
Bangladesh, Nepalis in Nepal, or Urdu,
Punjabi and Sindhi speakers (all Indian
languages included in the eighth schedule to
the constitution) in Pakistan?
Some even more pressing domestic com-
pulsions appear to have influenced Delhi's
decision to stay put in Sri Lanka. It is now
clear that elections to the Lok Sabha will be
held almost certainly on October 31,
the anniversary of Indira Gandhi's
assassination-a day and an occasion ready-
made to rouse the worst chauvinistic pas-
sions among the people, especially the
Hindu majority. Further, this majority
which has now been almost wholly ap-
propriated by the communalists in the con-
text of the Rarp. Janambhoomi-Babri Masjid 'territorial integrity' of 'Eelam', would more
controversy, has to be wooed back to the
C9ngress(I) fold.
The memories of India's military triumph
under Indira Gandhi against the only coun-
try against which winning a war matters to
the overwhelming majority of Indians-
Pakistan-are now only a historical
memory; few of the 'youth' so assiduously
being wooed by the Congress(I) have any
memory of those days whose political
mileage was anyway fully secured in 1972.
Since then, it has been a decline; India has join forces.
and Political Weekly
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not had any notable military victory or even
an opportunity to show its military muscle.
Siachen has been a stalemate, Maldives was
a walkover and the benevolent intervention
in Sri Lanka which it was thought would be
roses, roses all the way, has now degenerated
into a nightmarish quagmire, with mounting
casualties. The IPKF is now formally
described in Sri Lanka as an occupation
army which president Premadasa has
threatenrd to confine to the barracks if it
does not leave by July 29.
Indeed, the initial mistake was in getting
involved at all either, as publicly stated, in
order to preserve the territorial integrity of
Sri Lanka or, as it is now being revealed, to
protect Thmil lives. For both the Sinhalas
and the Tamils are under the influence of
two of the most chauvinistic outfits; and
India's own tender concern, the Tamils of
Sri Lanka, are split into factions each more
hostile to the majority Sinhala people.
Over and above all, there is no mistaking
the strategic objective of each and every
Tamil group in Sri Lanka: the destruction
of Sri Lanka as a political and geographical
entity, sustaining different communities
united by bonds of history and geography.
Straightforward self-interest should have
persuaded India not to encourage such a
band of potential Pol Pots in Sri Lanka bear-
ing different initials and acronyms against
their names, for the ethnic and linguistic mix
in India is far more explosive than in Sri
Lanka. But then, can a regional superpower
pass tip such temptations to play god in its
own backyard?
Everything in Sri Lanka now points to a
developing scenario where increased
intervention, at vastly increased human and
material cost, is inevitable, and is probably
also being actively planned. To counter the
threatened confining of the Indian troops
to their barracks after July 29, the union
government's alter ego Subrahmaniam
Swamy has adviced the EPRLF administra-
tion in the north to unilaterally declare
independence on that day. There is no reason
to think that Varadaraja Perumal will not
oblige, just as there is no reason to think that
Prabhakaran would not have obliged had be
been in the same predicament (and possess-
ing the same tactical advantages) as
Varadarajan. Thereafter, if the 'prime
minister' of 'Eelam' were to seek Indian
assistance to defend the 'independence' and
troops be sent to form a permanent presence
in the north? Can a regional superpower
worry overmuch if Sri Lanka were to go to
the United Nations, or boycott SAARC
meetings? The TV serial on Ramayana has
anyway prepared the Indian public for a full-
scale invasion of sinful Lanka by the
righteous forces of Sri Rama. And at a
pinch, on the platform of patriotism and
great nation chauvinism, most of the
opposition parties too may be persuaded to
July 15, 1989