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| Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi hosted visiting President Anura Kumara Dissanayake last week at Red Fort, New Delhi during later's first official state visit. |
By Veeragathy Thanabalasingham
How does President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s (AKD) visit to India last week differ from the visit to India last year by the former President Ranil Wickremesinghe? It has been a tradition for Sri Lankan presidents to visit New Delhi as their first official foreign visit after assuming office. President Dissanayake upheld this tradition with his visit to India.
Narendra Modi, who is serving as India’s Prime Minister (PM) for the third time, has handled relations between the two countries with four Sri Lankan presidents. President Dissanayake is the fifth Sri Lankan President that PM Modi has met.
Based on Dissanayake’s status as the President who received a resounding mandate at the Parliamentary Elections, an Indian journalist wrote last week that PM Modi was hosting not just one of Sri Lanka’s most powerful presidents but also a leftist leader from the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) party or the People’s Liberation Front (PLF), that once furiously opposed India and its perceived “interventionist” role in Sri Lanka.
Continuing former measures
President Dissanayake, who is continuing the same economic restructuring measures that the former President had undertaken with the help and guidance of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), seems to be adopting Wickremesinghe’s approach even with regard to relations with India.
It has been widely observed that the joint statement, released in New Delhi last Monday (16), at the end of President Dissanayake’s discussions with PM Modi, did not convey any new ideas compared to what was said in the joint statement released during Wickremesinghe’s visit last year.
Regarding the projects of strategic importance, PM Modi does not appear to have shared anything new with President Dissanayake. In that regard, he has reiterated to the new President what he expected previous Sri Lankan governments to carry out.
However, the President has not made any practical promises regarding India’s expectations of Sri Lanka and has returned to the country after agreeing to continue the discussions.
Change in political views
The leaders of the JVP, the flagship party of the National People’s Power (NPP) that had fiercely opposed several projects that previous Sri Lankan governments had agreed to jointly implement with India, will now face a major challenge in justifying the positions that their Government has now taken in reverse.
In particular, President Dissanayake as the JVP Leader strongly opposed the negotiations that the Government, led by then President Maithripala Sirisena and then PM Wickremesinghe, began eight years ago with a view to concluding an Economic and Technological Cooperation Agreement (ETCA) with India.
President Dissanayake has expressed his agreement in New Delhi to continue negotiations on the same agreement that he had vowed at the time that he would never allow to be signed. There have already been 14 rounds of discussions with Indian officials on ETCA under previous governments.
Former President Wickremesinghe issued a special statement last week praising the agreement expressed by President Dissanayake in India.
“I appreciate President Dissanayake’s agreement to advance negotiations on ETCA to deepen and strengthen cooperation between India and Sri Lanka and to develop Trincomalee as a regional power and industrial hub,” he said in the statement.
The Opposition parties, keen on seizing every opportunity to criticise the NPP Government, have embarked on efforts to find fault with the India-Sri Lanka joint statement.
Foreign Minister Vijitha Herath, who accompanied the President to India, informed Parliament last week that they had not returned from Delhi after making any agreement that would betray the interests of the nation.
As for President Dissanayake, he joined the movement during the second armed uprising of the JVP against the Indo-Sri Lanka Peace Accord in the late 1980s. Therefore, anti-India sentiment must have been at the forefront of his political thinking.
Maintaining international relations
Now, as the country’s President, he has completed a full circle in his political career by visiting India and committing to strengthening relations between the two countries. His official visit to India has also given the NPP Government under his leadership a full recognition in the international political and diplomatic system.
Expressing his gratitude for the economic support and cooperation extended by India to Sri Lanka during the economic downturn and its aftermath, President Dissanayake has assured that his Government will never allow Sri Lankan soil to be used for any activity that is detrimental to India’s security interests and regional stability – a pledge that previous presidents had also given.
The President seems to be keen to maintain a balanced relationship with India and China, keeping them at equal distance. Sri Lanka’s current economic crisis makes it necessary for the country to maintain relations that do not antagonise the major powers of the international community.
The President, who returned home with a list of what India expects from Sri Lanka, is set to visit China next month on an official visit. He will have to return home with another list from Beijing as well.
It will certainly be a major challenge for President Dissanayake and his Government to steer Sri Lanka without getting caught up in the geopolitical tug-of-war between the two Asian giants in safeguarding their economic and strategic interests in Sri Lanka.
Omission of the 13th Amendment
This being the case, PM Modi’s comments on the ethnic issue in Sri Lanka after his talks with President Dissanayake this time are in stark contrast to what he has said in the presence of previous presidents.
In his talks with former Sri Lankan presidents and joint press conferences with them, the Indian PM stated that India’s expectation was that the island nation’s Government should fully implement the 13th Amendment to the Constitution that was brought to introduce the Provincial Council system after the 1987 July Peace Accord.
However, when he met the press with President Dissanayake in New Delhi last Monday (16), Modi did not mention the 13th Amendment. That omission has received particular attention among the political and diplomatic circles.
Not only that, the joint statement issued covering 31 aspects that include political, economic, and strategic cooperation, did not mention anything regarding a political solution to the ethnic issue, post-war reconciliation, and the aspirations of the Sri Lankan-Tamil people.
“We hope that the Sri Lankan Government will fulfil the aspirations of the Tamil people. And that they shall fulfil their commitment towards fully implementing the Constitution of Sri Lanka and conducting the Provincial Council elections,” said PM Modi, at the joint press conference.
It seems that he purposely avoided mentioning anything about the 13th Amendment.
In response, President Dissanayake said: “All communities from all provinces, north, south, east, and west, have contributed to the mandate we have received. As a leader entrusted with such an important responsibility by the people, I clearly understand that the essence of democracy lies in the coexistence of diverse political views and groups.”
In past joint statements, the implementation of the 13th Amendment was certainly emphasised in the references to the Sri Lankan-Tamil problem. It does not seem that the Sri Lankan-Tamil political parties and their leaders have shown any concern about what Indian PM failed to insist to President Dissanayake.
However, albeit with different motives, mainstream press and political observers of both countries are seen to be taking special notice and commenting on it.
India may drop 13th Amendment discussion
An editorial in the New Indian Express on Friday about Dissanayake’s visit to India noted that the implementation of the 13th Amendment to the Sri Lankan Constitution, a fixture in the past joint statements on Tamil rights, had been missing this time since Dissanayake was against it. The Hindu also pointed out Modi’s failure to mention the 13th Amendment.
However, former Member of Parliament of the Ilankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi (ITAK) and its Spokesman M.A. Sumanthiran did not see it as a problem. He told the media last week that since the Indian PM had urged the Sri Lankan Government to fully implement the Constitution of which the 13th Amendment was also a part, they were welcoming his stand.
One is at loss to understand that Sumanthiran, a seasoned politician well versed in constitutional matters, failed to take a serious note on the fact that the 13th Amendment was conspicuous by its absence in Modi’s remarks at the Delhi press conference.
It seems that Modi is very careful not to make any comment on the Tamil issue that could cause discomfort to President Dissanayake. It will not be surprising if India gives up talking about the 13th Amendment in the course of time in the vastly changed political context.
Most of the Tamil political parties are wandering in a utopian political world and do not care about the amendment. Why is India, after decades of bitter experience, going to care so much about something that the Sinhalese and Tamils don’t like?
Tamil people and concerns
In such a context, it would be useful to bring to attention of the Tamil people and their politicians some excerpts from an article titled ‘Reality check on Sri Lanka’s Tamil question’ written by The Hindu newspaper Colombo correspondent Meera Srinivasan last Friday after the Sri Lankan President’s visit to India.
“The recent elections have given President Dissanayake and the NPP Government rare national momentum and unprecedented legislative influence. The Government now has a real chance to reimagine the political solution through people’s post war realities.
“Meanwhile, Sri Lankan-Tamil polity too faces a big challenge. After the electorate delivered a clear message to the regional Tamil parties in the recent polls – the NPP beat them in all but in one district in the north and east – the Tamil polity is struggling to regain its voice.
“After habitually looking to the international community to push for Tamil rights, the Tamil political leadership is now forced to confront its own failure. Those counting in India would do well to understand that the Tamil question is no more an issue that serves a domestic compulsion or provides diplomatic leverage to New Delhi.
“It is time they recognised India’s waning interest and influence on the Tamil question. Besides, they must ask if India has any moral standing to ask another country to treat minorities better.
“Tamil polity’s core strategy of engaging western powers dominating UN bodies, India, and the Tamil diaspora has clearly not yielded substantive progress on the ground. To remain relevant and rebuild credibility, the Tamil polity appears to have little choice but to reorient itself to the people it seeks to represent.
“Tamil people in Sri Lanka have reminded their leaders, who were busy talking to actors elsewhere for years, to listen to them now.” (The writer is a senior journalist based in Colombo) Courtesy: The Sunday Morning
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