With a sizeable population and the tendency to vote en bloc, the Tamils can make or mar political fortunes in Sri Lanka. This truism in mind, politicians from the island nation have been busy wooing India aggressively in the run-up to the presidential polls in late January.
After combined opposition nominee Sarath Foneska made a trip to New Delhi and made politically correct statements recently, it’s the turn of the Sri Lankan Freedom Party’s (SLFP) Mahinda Rajapaksa to send the right message across. A high-power delegation from Colombo will have consultations with New Delhi on Thursday on Tamils. The team includes Rajapaksa’s two brothers — defence secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa and presidential adviser Basil Rajapaksa — as well as secretary to the president Lalit Weeratunga.
Though part of the regular interaction between the two sides, the emphasis this time is on rehabilitation of Tamils, who are living in refugee camps since the elimination of the top LTTE leadership. The Indian side will be led by national security adviser MK Narayanan, foreign secretary Nirupama Rao and defence secretary Pradeep Kumar.
Ironically, for the Tamils the choice is between tweedledum and tweedledee. After the annihilation of the LTTE by the Lankan army and the excesses during the military operation, they have an axe to grind against the island’s Sinhala politicians. But, they have to choose between Fonseka and Rajapaksa, both flaunting Sinhala pride while claiming credit for the success against the LTTE. While president Rajapaksa ordered the action against the LTTE, Fonseka was the commander of the forces.
The island’s Tamil population, though disappointed with New Delhi refusal to bail out the LTTE or bat for the civilians caught in the crossfire during the last days of the military campaign, continues to give weightage to India, basically because of the Tamil Nadu connection. Also, they know that in case of ethnic clashes their only refuge is finally neighbour India.
Just after the war Colombo had promised New Delhi that the 1.95 lakh refugees would be sent home by the end of the year. The process is on and a definite time frame about resettling the refugees is expected to be shared with India.
New Delhi, which had kept a low profile during the military campaign, had been pushing president Rajapaksa to come out with a political settlement of the ethnic problem and give the Tamils living in the northern and eastern provinces some amount of autonomy. He has so far shown no sign of delivering on this issue, saying that he had to have a two-third majority in parliament before announcing the political package. He had also talked of a “Sri Lankan solution” to the ethnic issue. However he never spelt out what this means.
