Daily Times

The victory of Gotabaya Rajapaksa in recent presidential elections of Sri Lanka with 52 per cent votes was as surprising as the defeat of his elder brother, Mahinda Rajapaksa, in 2015, which he entirely attributed to Indian manipulations. The arrival of Gotabaya in the presidential office has eventually ousted the Mathiripala Sirisena regime, which arrived in the power corridors of Colombo by defeating the Rajapaksa clan in 2015. Besides this, elder brother Mahinda Rajapaksa was appointed the PM by the newly elected president. This reflects that the past practice of power-sharing within the Rajapaksa family circle would continue unhesitatingly. It can be rightly called the effect of globalization that a routine democratic change today in little Sri Lanka is being viewed with different lenses in capitals of big countries like China, the US, India and Pakistan.

Back in 2015, Mahinda Rajapaksa, after successfully ruling the country for ten consecutive years, met an unexpected electoral defeat. Rajapaksa’s ten years brought glorious victory against three-decades-long of terrorism as the LTTE eventually melted and opted to quit the armed struggle for the creation of an independent Tamil state in the North-Eastern areas of Jaffna, Beticolava, Ampara and Trincomalee. Against all expectations, the public voted in favour of Mithripala Sirisena of Srilankan Freedom Party, who had been persistently blaming Mahinda Rajapaksa regime for political nepotism and human rights violation against Tamil Hindus. There was a time once in addition to the president himself that four members of the Rajapaksa family were at prominent positions in Sri Lanka. Defence Secretary, Minister of Economic Development and Parliament Speaker were his brothers whereas his son remained the member of the parliament for ten years. Recently, elected-president, Gotabaya, was controlling operations against LTTE as secretary of defence. Most of the allegations of human rights violations were raised against him by the opposition. Though the insurgency ended, the Sinhali-Tamil rift persisted in Sri Lankan Society. Deep roots of this rift can be easily traced back in India, which vigorously backed and patronised the Tamil separatists against Sri Lanka. It is mysteriously interesting to spot an obvious Pakistani connection in Indo-Sri Lankan tense chemistry.

It was back in the early ’70s, immediately after the creation of Bangladesh, when Indian PM Indira Gandhi conceived the idea to carve out a Tamil state from Sri Lanka. It was primarily aimed at teaching a lesson to a small neighbour, who facilitated Pakistan by providing the refuelling facilities to PAF and civil aircrafts at Colombo Airport during the Indo-Pak 71 war. Indian active conspiracies against Sri Lanka slowed down after the assassination of Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards in 1984.

However, Rajiv Gandhi kept manipulating the Tamil factor and thus pushed Srilanka towards the 1987 accord, which revolves around rights of Sri Lankan Tamils. In the light of this accord, the 13th constitutional amendment was made to grant maximum rights and sovereignty to Tamils within the state framework of Sri Lanka. The Sinhali-Buddhist majority has always been apprehensive about Indian advances or interferences in Sri Lankan affairs. 30 per cent of North Eastern territory of Sri Lanka, the dream Tamil state of LTTE, is dominated by 11.9 per cent Tamil Christians and 9.2 per cent Tamil Muslims.

A threat becomes more potent with comparative statistics of population. With 21.44 million population, Sri Lankan Sinhali Buddhists are rightly frightened of being converted to a minority if Indian Tamil Nadu, with more than 65 million population, joins hands with Sri Lankan Tamil Hindus and Muslims, who jointly form approximately 21 per cent of the total population of Srilanka. Fear and hatred towards India were so strong in retaliation that during a formal review of guard of honour at the presidential palace in Colombo, one Sri Lankan sailor physically assaulted the Indian PM, Rajiv Gandhi, on July 30, 1987. The Indian policy of coercing neighbours was later reversed by Atal Bihari Vajpai, during his tenure as PM, but to no effect. The BJP, under PM Modi, has revived the old policy of coercing the neighbourhood and specifically playing the Tamil card in Sri Lanka. In the past, PM Modi reminded Sri Lanka to implement the 13th constitutional amendment to grant rights to Tamils in Jaffna. Some suggestions have been cunningly repeated by Indian Foreign Minister, who tried to charm the Sinhali-Buddhist circles by misquoting the illegitimate separation of Ladakh from Jammu and Kashmir as a step to free the Buddhist majority from the Muslim influence. A baseless argument could not work because as per Indian census record, the Buddhist population is just 36 per cent and Ladakh remains a Muslim majority area.

In response to such meaningful suggestions, Mahinda Rajapaksa has rightly shown a mirror to India by reminding the recent revocation of the special status of Occupied Kashmir; exposing the dual face of Modi regime by saying that how could a human rights abuser state suggest or lecture the world about sovereignty or freedom?

Unlike the Indian establishment, Pakistan proved that the requisite support to Sri Lanka is an hour of need, which enabled her to effectively deal with the RAW-sponsored proxy of LTTE

India still has a backlog of multiple pending issues with China, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bhutan. Unlike the Indian establishment, Pakistan proved that the requisite support to Sri Lanka is an hour of need, which enabled her to effectively deal with the RAW-sponsored proxy of LTTE.

The sinking of huge investments in the LTTE was hard to digest for New Delhi. Therefore, multiple plans were hatched for the ouster of UNP, which represented the Sinhali Buddhist majority under Mahinda Rajapaksa. Plans succeeded in 2015 elections as Rajapaksa met defeat with all fingers raised towards Indian manipulation. A vertex of controversy could be gauged from the fact that RAW’s station chief was ordered to move out from Columbo for plotting with opposition the ouster of President Mahinda Rajapaksa, before elections. Mahinda Rajapaksa had been comfortable with China and Pakistan because both regional players rescued Srilanka from Indian economic and militant coercion. New Delhi was also focused that two major irritants in Sri Lanka, Chinese economic connection with Hambantota port and Pak support against Tamil insurgents, could only be neutralised with the ouster of Rajapaksa from president’s office. Unlike Rajapaksa, president Mathripala and his PM Ranil Wickremasinghe had an obvious tilt towards India. Despite transferring power to the PM office through 19th constitutional amendment, President Mathripala could not transform Srilanka from presidential to the parliamentary system; primarily due to the pressure of Sinhali majority. Almost everything was moving as per New Dehli’s plan until Easter bombing in April this year which took 250 lives of Sri Lankan citizens with obvious Indian backed Tamil involvement. This tragedy once again ignited flames of Sinhali – Tamil rift. Rajapaksa clan got a golden chance to sell Indian backed Tamil Hindu threat to Sinhali Buddhist population. Similarities are being drawn between Rajapaksa and Modi’s electoral strategies as the later too sold anti-Pakistan rhetoric in India. The friendly stance of the Rajapaksa regime towards Pakistan and China will never remain unnoticed in New Delhi and Washington. Sri Lankan arena will not only be a contesting ground of Sinhali Buddhists and Tamil Hindus rather it would surely witness a tug of war between global players. Chinese presence at Hambantota port and obvious future involvement of Sri Lanka in OBOR initiative are not at all following the Asian order perceived by the US. Most obviously the arrival of Sinhali Buddhist nationalists in little Sri Lanka might create a greater impact in Asian arena by dragging global players, the US, China and Russia, who are already pitched in a complex battle against each other through respective regional stakeholders like India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran.

The writer is a freelance columnist