Tamils are skeptical about the outcome of Indian Foreign Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee’s forthcoming visit to Colombo. Their doubt stems from the detailed accounts of the December 4 meeting Tamil Nadu political party leaders led by Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi had with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

The reports quoted three of the party leaders- Thol. Thirumavalavan of the Viduthlai Chiruthaikal, Vijaya D, Rajendar of Iladchiya D.M.K. and D. Pandiyan, Secretary, Tamil Nadu branch of the Indian Communist Party- as saying that the meeting was disappointing. Thirumavalavan has said that he got the impression that Manmohan Singh was arguing against a ceasefire for which they went to plead.

Thirumavalavan and Rajendar have told the Tamil Nadu media that Manmohan Singh and Mukherjee who replied to their plea had told them of the three reasons President Mahinda Rajapaksa gave them for rejecting the Ceasefire call:

• The LTTE had never honoured the Ceasefire.
  
• It made use of it to rebuild itself.
  
• It may kill him and his family making use of the Ceasefire.
  Pandiyan told the Sunday Leader” Not only Rajapaksa, but Manmohan Singh also has a closed mindset.”
  

In view of the stand Indian Central Government is following, the general thinking among the Tamil people is that Mukherjee would not ask President Rajapaksa for a Ceasefire, but may press him to come out with a viable devolution package for the Tamils of the north and the east. Such a package would serve New Delhi to calm down Tamil Nadu saying that it had acted on behalf of the Tamil people while sticking to its foreign policy agenda.

Foreign policy
Indian foreign policy agenda was first spelt out by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi to the then Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) triumvirate A. Amirthalingam, M. Sivasithamparam and R. Saampanthan when they called on her on August 14, 1983, soon after the July riots. She told them that India was opposed to the creation of a separate state for the Tamils, but supported the establishment of an autonomous region for them in the northeast within a united Sri Lanka. The Indian foreign policy then and now, is to have a friendly Sri Lankan Government and a pro- Indian provincial administration in the North and East. It was to attain that objective that Indira Gandhi started the process of destabilising President J.R. Jayewardene’s Government which India felt was tilting towards America in the then cold war environment.

Third agency
She established a super intelligence agency called Third Agency to take over the destabilisation process from the RAW, and the decision to give arms training to Tamil militant groups was part of that process. India saw that the training and the arms given to the Tamil militant groups were sufficient only for the destabilisation operations.

Trouble between the RAW and the LTTE began by 1985 when Indian intelligence agencies discovered that LTTE chief V. Pirapaharan was not pliable to its designs. They found that he was a strong Sri Lankan Tamil nationalist who was keen on establishing a separate state. From then on they distanced themselves from Pirapaharan and groomed TELO chief Sri Sabaratnam. The LTTE killed him in 1986 and destroyed TELO. The Indians then made use of LTTE’s guerilla activities to force President Jayewardene to accept the 1987 Indo- Sri Lanka Agreement while keeping Pirapaharan “almost a prisoner” at Ashok Hotel in Delhi. Tamils were not made party to the Agreement. Indian interest was the only factor taken into account.

I asked the then Indian High Commissioner J.N. Dixit a week after the signing of the treaty this question: To whose benefit was the Agreement signed?

He answered: “I am the Indian High Commissioner. My duty is to look after India’s interest. That’s my answer. That’s strictly off the record”.

Soon after the signing of the Indo-Sri Lanka Agreement, India started sidelining the LTTE and commenced strengthening the EPRLF which was more subservient to it. The role Dixit and the Indian Peace Keeping Force played in putting an EPRLF administration in power in the northeast is well known. The list of candidates who were to contest the Provincial Council election in the northern province was prepared in the Indian High Commission, and the IPKF ensured that no other person went to the respective kachcheries to file nomination papers.

New President
The election of Ranasinghe Premadasa as the new President, and a change of Government in Delhi upset Indian plans. IPKF was withdrawn in March 1990, and in desperation the EPRLF administration created an Armed Force called the Tamil National Army. President Premadasa made use of the LTTE to destroy it.

The developing situation is completely different. The possibility of Delhi’s policy failing is greater. The latest indications are that the emotional upsurge in Tamil Nadu is turning against Sri Lanka and New Delhi. Pandiyan’s fear expressed in the Sunday Leader interview that the youths in Tamil Nadu will revolt against Delhi, is becoming real.

He said, “I may not speak for separation or division of India. But, not my son. I can’t prevent my son from speaking about it or taking up the flag. Wherever I go and meet the college students, high school students, industrialists, workers, despite all these differences, they are unanimous in one voice that our Government should speak on our behalf.”

The Communist Party has already conducted a demonstration against the Indian central government. Today, at 11:00 a.m.Vaiko will lead a black flag demonstration against Sri Lanka. That will have repercussions here.