Dixit Vs Jayewardene and the Indian factor

I was staying with India High Commissioner J.N. Dixit at Colombo when I interviewed President Jayewardene.

Dixit had nobody else living at the house – a huge, double-storey structure. He was operating from there because India was considered an enemy country by the Sinhalese. Only a week earlier had extremists among them burnt down Indian shops and houses in the capital to vent their anger against New Delhi. They generally believed that it helped the 'hostile Tamils' in the North who were out to carve out a separate country, Eelam, from Sri Lanka. This was not true because New Delhi could not be so foolish to establish a Tamil independent state in Sri Lanka when the embers for the demand for a sovereign Tamil Nadu were still smouldering even after a decade or so. The then Tamil Nadu chief minister M.Karunanidhi was in constant touch with the Eelam proponents but only to keep them on his side. But he kept New Delhi informed that his interest lay in getting a better deal for the Tamils in Sri Lanka lest India should be swamped by refugees seeking shelter from the Sinhalese bias.

What I saw in Colombo left me in no doubt that the burning or demolition of Indian shops and houses had been done meticulously with the connivance of authorities. In a row of Sinhalese properties, only Indian shops had been selected for destruction. I had seen the same pattern during communal riots in India where a Muslim establishment was destroyed but not the ones belonging to a Hindu next door. Indians in Colombo were fairly well off.

Dixit agreed with me that the Sinhalese were upset with India but it was a phenomenon which would not last long. He believed that they had no recourse but to face the fact of India's "size and might." Dixit was a hawk. I had watched him working, first at Dhaka and later at Islamabad. But it must be said to his credit that he was keen to have good relations with neighbouring countries, although on India's terms. He had a similar attitude towards Sri Lanka. But I could also discern a soft corner for the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). But it was only to the extent of articulation for the Tamils' share in the affairs of Sri Lanka.

He was firmly opposed to the LTTE's stand for a separate homeland, realising its repercussions on India. He, however, favoured autonomy for the "North" within Sri Lanka. Dixit too was keen to know what Jayewardene would say in the interview to me because there was practically no diplomatic contact between New Delhi and Colombo. Sri Lanka was indignant with India because of the training and arms it had given to the LTTE. Dixit was not unnecessarily worried over this point. His unhappiness was that India's involvement had got leaked out.

To me, India's role betrayed duplicity. On the one hand, we avowed friendship to the Sri Lankan government and on the other we gave training and weapons to the LTTE. Probably, this was politics. This was precisely what Jayewardene conveyed when he suddenly summoned me. "Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi is the captain of the South Asian ship," he said. "Wherever he takes us will be the destination. It all depends on him, India, and you. The question that bothers me is are you taking the right course?"

Jayewardene was buoyant and confident in sharp contrast to a figure of difference and worry one year ago when I interviewed him last. Asked what had happened between then and now to change his tone and tenor, he beamingly said: "I am winning the war."

Subsequently, he said: "I find Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi more accommodating than his mother, Mrs Indira Gandhi. He must do in Sri Lanka what he did in Punjab and Assam. As I said at the SAARC meeting, he cannot fail us."

"Why do you doubt India?" I asked him. He said: "Because you have trained the LTTE. You still give them arms. What can I do when you give them shelter after they have killed my people and destroyed our property? You can take a stern action against the LTTE by cutting off aid. But it is strange that you should help them when they are out to break up my country."

Jayewardene sounded bitter and threatened to seek help from Pakistan, China or America to thwart what he described as "India's double-face policy" to run with the hare and hunt with the hound . After ventilating his pent-up anger, he was relaxed and resumed smoking his cigar ("they are from Cuba. Fidel Castro sends me the consignment regularly").

"I shall have a military solution to what I believe is a military problem. After doing so, I shall tackle the political side," he said. I knew he was annoyed with India but still depended on it to improve relations with the Tamils in the North. I was anxious to know how far he was willing to accommodate the Tamils, possibly give provincial autonomy to the areas where the LTTE was strong. New Delhi had suggested this to him. But he never came to accept the suggestion because his was sold on the unitary form of government and did not want any trace of federal structure.

He believed in force and felt that if India were to stay away, he would succeed militarily and crush the LTTE's 'insurgency'. Whenever he mentioned a solution, he only talked in terms of military action and 'foreign assistance'. He made no secret of the fact that he was training a large contingent in Pakistan and Israel. His child-like belief was that once he had trained his army, he would be able to eliminate Eelam. Yet he was willing to come to some settlement because he knew that India would not leave the Eelam supporters in lurch.

What surprised me was when Jayewardene said that he was all for devolving power to the Tamils. But there were many ifs and buts. The Tamils could not have any share in the law and order machinery.

All the time Jayewardene asked me about New Delhi's attitude. He was struck by Rajiv Gandhi's gesture of removing a rigid G.Parthasarathi from the talks and putting Foreign Secretary Romesh Bhandari in his place (Jayewardene had expressed distrust in GP who had put pressure on Rajiv Gandhi not to remove him because he (GP) had the confidence of Tamil leaders in India).

On my return, I gave the gist of my interview with Jayewardene to Dixit. I could never know what was so urgent or so important in the interview but Dixit scurried a message to Rajiv Gandhi. New Delhi already knew that Jayewardene was training his troops in Pakistan and Israel. This couldn't be the reason for Dixit's SOS. Probably, Jayewardene's observations that Rajiv Gandhi could lead the region struck Dixit as something favourable and a starting point of talks with Jayewardene.

Following the publication of Jayewardene's interview, there was optimism in India. New Delhi intensified its efforts to span the distance between the LTTE and the Sri Lankan government. Ultimately, Colombo was able to persuade New Delhi to send its forces, the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF). It was a failure. Dixit had misread the Sri Lankan message. However, it made India wiser. It decided to not to get involved in the affairs of Sri Lanka any further. It still has not.