India continues to influence events in Sri Lanka

Since the government proposed and accepted the 13th amendment to Sri Lanka’s constitution as a means to devolve power within a unitary state, India’s interference in the affairs of its southern neighbour is becoming increasingly clear — and even coming under fire.

None would dispute the claim that India has a role to play in Sri Lanka’s ethnic crisis. After all, it was India which in the early 1980s trained, armed and financed several Tamil militant groups to fight the Sri Lankan government.

It was India which came to the rescue of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and other militant groups when the Sri Lankan security forces were about to capture the Tamil Tiger stronghold of Vadamarachchi in 1987.

It was India which imposed on Sri Lanka the 13th amendment to the constitution following a 1987 treaty.

Even after Rajiv Gandhi, the former Indian Prime Minister, who browbeat Sri Lanka into accepting the 13th amendment, was killed in a Tamil Tiger suicide attack, India continued to play its role of running with the hare and hunting with the hounds.

Though India banned the LTTE as a terrorist organisation, for strategic purposes, it maintains some secret links with the LTTE. A case in point was when the LTTE laid siege on Jaffna in 2000, India, responding to a plea from the then Sri Lankan government, asked the rebels not to capture Jaffna.

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