India comes back into focus

India is back in focus. A top-level six-member military delegation headed by Army Commander Sarath Fonseka is now in New Delhi discussing exchange of information, training and the current military operations in the north. The delegation went on the invitation of Indian Army Chief General Deepak Kapoor.

Navy Commander Vasantha Karannagoda, who visited Delhi in mid-February to attend the Indian Ocean Symposium, an initiative to harness inter-operability among the navies of the member states, held talks on cooperation between the navies of Sri Lanka and India on the problems of fishermen and the LTTE.

Since then, the problem of cross border poaching had emerged an irritant for India and Sri Lanka. Last Friday, Sri Lankan Navy arrested 25 Indian fishermen from Kanyakumari and seized two boats, when over 400 Indian vessels were fishing in the Gulf of Mannar. Within an hour, the Indian Coastal Guard arrested 21 Sri Lankan fishermen and seized two boats fishing near Karaikal.

The matter that resembles tit-for-tat arrests is now before Delhi, which has developed the art of defusing tension in Tamil Nadu through the process of mutual exchange of fishermen. In recent times it has assumed political colour with Tamil Nadu political parties vying to exploit the vote bank there. Indian Communist Party, a prop to the Manmohan Singh government had taken up the arrests and sea-mining by the Sri Lankan Navy, with Delhi.

In addition, pro-LTTE activist Pazha Nedumaran has again seized the matter to send food and medicines to Jaffna, to create new agitation. He announced at Trichy on Sunday that he had invited all political parties in Tamil Nadu for discussions.

In Sri Lanka, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) has unleashed an attack on India in general, and on its High Commissioner in Colombo Alok Prasad in particular. JVP Propaganda Secretary Wimal Weerawansa told a media meeting at the JVP headquarters last Wednesday that President Mahinda Rajapaksa-Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe talks was held at Prasad’s initiative.

Weerawansa charged that Prasad was having grand design once more for Sri Lanka, obviously referring to J.N. Dixit’s role during the signing of the July 29, 1987 Indo-Sri Lanka Pact. JVP Leader Somawansa Amerasinghe used stronger words when he addressed the Foreign Correspondents’ Association. He indicted India of “engaging in cross-border terrorism” and accused New Delhi of trying to return to the path of intervention of the 1980s.

Anura Kumara Dissanayake, a JVP hardliner, elaborated the JVP thinking in an interview with our sister paper The Nation. He said, “It was like this back in 1987. When the armed forces succeeded with the Vadamarachchi Mission, India invaded our territories and managed to bring President J.R. Jayewardene to his knees. They introduced separatism to the country in terms of the Indo-Lanka Accord. This is exactly what we see today as well.”

The JVP is worried about India’s insistence on ‘full’ implementation of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution and it started an anti-India agitation last month. It threatened to return to its 1987 campaign of boycotting Indian goods. In 1987, the JVP even killed the sellers of big onions because they were called ‘Bombay’ onions.

The JVP launched its anti-India agitation before the 13th Amendment came into focus, charging that India was strangling Sri Lankan economy. Dissanayake charged in The Nation interview, “India has already started interfering in terms of the economy. Today, close to 33% of our oil market is controlled by India. Now they are encroaching into our electricity market. India is also slowly invading our small and large scale industries and garment industry. In order to maintain this economic dominance over Sri Lanka, they expect to bring our country under their control.”

There is substance to JVP’s fear. India had invested heavily in the vital sectors of the Sri Lankan economy - oil, hotels, plantation and transport. India is trying to get another third of the oil trade. It is entering power generation and supply, cement production and banking. A project to link Sri Lanka to the Indian power grid is also under study. India is also claiming the right to excavate oil in the coast of Mannar.

“While US$ 220 million worth of Indian investment is already there in Sri Lanka, as much as US$ 2 billion of investment by Indian business houses into the Island country are under discussions,” India’s Minister of State for Commerce Jairam Ramesh told reporters at the Indo-Sri Lankan Investment Seminar held in Colombo on February 11.

The JVP’s irritation against India heightened when the United National Party (UNP) took up India’s case by announcing a campaign to counter the JVP’s agitation against India. It was infuriated when Ranil Wickremesinghe offered to help the government to ‘fully’ implement the 13th Amendment.

The JVP has an additional fear. It feels that India is demanding the holding of the Provincial Councils election in the north and east, so that it could fill them with RAW agents.