Monday 24th July, 2023

President Ranil Wickremesinghe has returned from New Delhi with a to-do list given by the Modi government. He will have Big Brother breathing down his neck hereafter. It has been reported that the SLPP-UNP government is planning to hold an all-party conference on the ethnic issue. Some of India’s dictates have not been to the liking of the SLPP stalwarts as evident from their whimpers of protest.

President Wickremesinghe had a discussion with the Tamil political parties in Colombo, last week, before leaving for India. The TNA has expressed its displeasure at President Wickremesinghe’s modus operandi and said something uncomplimentary about him. It is seeking New Delhi’s intervention to amp up pressure on Colombo to grant its wishes.

Sri Lanka should be allowed to get its priorities right at this juncture lest its economy should go back into a tailspin, causing untold suffering to all its citizens regardless of their ethnicities or religions.

President Wickremesinghe is performing a high-wire act on the economic front without a political safety net, as it were, and he should not be distracted from this task under any circumstances. Putting the national economy back on an even keel must be Sri Lanka’s No. 01 priority, which should not be subjugated to the interests of Prime Minister Modi, his Rockefeller, Adani, or Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. K. Stalin.

There is no way India can take the moral high ground and pontificate where Sri Lanka’s ethnic issues are concerned; it cannot absolve itself of the blame for some of Sri Lanka’s never-ending problems, or fault Colombo for not implementing the 13th Amendment fully.

If India, which created, trained and armed Tamil terrorist groups here, had fulfilled its pledge to disarm the LTTE in keeping with the Indo-Lanka Accord, perhaps Sri Lanka’s war would have been over in late 1980s, and tens of thousands of lives and properties worth billions of US dollars could have been saved; there would not have been so much resistance to the full implementation of the 13th Amendment, which India rammed down Sri Lanka’s throat.

Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, who, in his wisdom, opted for a Tiger ride, made the same mistake as the lady of Niger, who smiled as she rode on a tiger only to return inside it. This is the price that has to be paid for using terror as an instrument to further geopolitical interests. A proper estimate of Sri Lanka’s losses due to terrorism should be prepared, and we can bet our bottom dollar that they will exceed all the foreign aid this country has received over the past several decades.

That said, India’s economic assistance has stood Sri Lanka in good stead during the current crisis. But for the precious dollars that came from New Delhi, this country would not have been able to procure essentials and end fuel queues, which went out of control, and almost unleashed anarchy. But there is no such thing as a free lunch. India will not be able to prevent Sri Lankans from thinking less of it if it is seen to be compassing its geopolitical ends by taking advantage of this country’s economic crisis.

The Modi government should refrain from bringing undue pressure to bear on Colombo to commit itself to any undertakings that have the potential to cause havoc on the political front and derail the ongoing economic recovery programme.

There is no gainsaying that Sri Lanka’s ethno-religious problems have to be sorted out to forge national unity, but first of all its economy has to be straightened up and political stability consolidated for all other issues to be addressed in a meaningful manner.