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India’s troubled neighbours : Security implications |
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Harjit Singh
The turmoil in two of India’s embattled neighbours – Sri Lanka and Nepal – does not augur well for India’s security. Though smaller in size, they serve as security outposts of the country and the forces arrayed against the Governments there are not well disposed towards New Delhi. While in Sri Lanka, the LTTE is on a collision course with hardline President Mahinda Rajapakse, accusing him of harbouring the renegade Karuna faction, and stepping up attacks which have killed hundreds of people in the last few weeks, undermining the Norwegian peace mission and demanding the pull out of EU monitors from the ceasefire monitoring mission, in Nepal, Maoist leader Prachanda who has emerged as the king maker, is calling India “expansionist” and cautioning the Koirala Government against singing any long term agreements with this country. .
After the June 16 meeting with the SPA leaders, Prachanda has virtually been anointed as the future leader of the country. Under the eight-point agreement they hammered out, the Maoists rebels will join the interim Government which would be formed after dissolution of both houses of Parliament. What must worry India is his demand that the rebel forces and the Nepal Army should be merged which means the militants of yesterday would become the law enforcers of today. With the restive and open Indo-Nepal border, and the well established links the Maoists of Nepal enjoy with the Naxalites of India, the arrangement will not be in the security interest of this country.
Prachanda believes that during the years of insurgency, it was mainly the supply of weapons by India that enabled the King and the successive Governments in Nepal to withstand the Maoist pressure. Had India refrained from arms supplies, as it did during the direct rule of King Gyanendra, his outfit could have fulfilled its mission of Communist takeover of the Himalayan Kingdom with ease and without loss of their cadres. The events of the coming days are already casting their shadows on neighbouring States like Bihar. There have been reports of a meeting of Indian and Nepali Maoists in the Bihar city of Rajgir where the ultra outfits from Bihar and Nepal drew up a roadmap for violent action, including an attack on the State’s political leadership and government establishments. The Maoists declared that they would abduct politicians in Bihar and kill them.
The SPA-Maoist agreement also saw the Indian policy of giving the King at least some ceremonial role in a diluted monarchy lie on the roadside. The eight-point agreement hammered between the Maoists and the SPA makes no mention of the monarchy. In fact, at a function where Koirala spoke in favour of maintaining the monarchy at least in a ceremonial form, the Maoists opposed it and some stormed two campuses in the capital on June 15 raising slogans against the monarchy and burning effigies in protest against the insistence on retaining a ceremonial monarchy. India’s position on the sensitive issues of the role of the monarch and the Maoists is that there is no room for a large role of the monarchy in Nepal and at the same time there is no room for Maoists in the country’s political space if they do not shun violence.
The coming days will see Maoist leader Prachanda making the demand for release of their cadres and leaders from Indian jails and any refusal to do so will see the two sides on a confrontational course. In fact, when Nepalese Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala came to New Delhi on June 6 on a four-day visit, the Maoists had told him to raise the issue of the release of an estimated 140 Maoists being held in Indian jails. On the eve of Koirala’s visit to New Delhi, Prachanda demanded that all agreements with India should be cancelled and the special relationship reviewed. Suspicious of India’s intentions, the Maoists told Koirala not to sign any long-term agreement with India during his visit, on the plea that the present Government was headed towards dissolution and so had no authority to sign any landmark agreement. The Maoist leaders are viewing every thing Indian with suspicion. For example, when India announced a Rs. 1000 crore aid package for Nepal during Koirala’s visit, Prachanda said the Indian Government’s economic package “smacked of a deep conspiracy” to delude Nepalis that India could resolve Nepal’s problems. When Koirala came to New Delhi, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh expressed his anguish over anti-Indian statements being made by Prachanda and cautioned him that such a stand could have negative consequences on the deepening relationship between the two countries.
Nepal is thus emerging as a burden rather than an advantage after the fall of monarchy for New Delhi, contrary to India’s expectations. The Maoists seem to be inclined to cut their nose to spite the Indian face.
The other source of disquiet is Sri Lanka where a full scale war is on the horizon. Ever since the election of President Mahinda Rajapakase and the company he keeps – two Sinhala chauvinist parties – in his SLFP-led ruling coalition, the situation is sliding towards a full scale war. The ceasefire is almost over, with none of the two sides observing it sincerely. The role of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission [SLMM] has been compromised and at one time, a ship on which SLMM monitors were being ferried came under LTTE fire. The Norwegian efforts to revive the ceasefire and ensure the safety of the ceasefire monitors came to a naught when an LTTE delegation traveled to Oslo to attend a meeting called by the Norwegian Government but refused to sit across the table with the Government delegation. There have been at least two murderous attacks by suicide bombers – one against the Army Chief, Gen. Fosenka who however, escaped, but the number three in the Army, Gen. Kulatgunga, was not so lucky when a motorcycle-riding suicide bomber drove his vehicle into his official car, killing him instantaneously.
These developments are not in the interest of India. Any large scale instability and the escalation of fighting, especially the Sri Lankan air raids on the LTTE bases in the North, would have serious implications for India. There would be hordes of refugees leaving the Sri Lankan shore, and crossing into Tamil Nadu, straining the State’s economy and creating another major refugee problem for this country. In fast, when the Sri Lankan Foreign Minister came to New Delhi last week to brief the Prime Minister on the situation in his country, he was advised not to do anything that would uproot the people from their homes and prompt them to cross over to India.
The developments in Sri Lanka have a direct bearing on the politics in Tamil Nadu and its reverberations are felt in New Delhi as well. There are parties in the DMK-led Government in Tamil Nadu which are sympathetic towards the cause of the Tamil Tigers. The DMK led by Chief Minister Karunanidhi itself was at one time an open sympathizer of the demands of LTTE chief V. Prabhakaran. Since the Congress Party is an ally of the ruling DMK in Tamil Nadu and the DMK is an alliance partner of the UPA Government at the Centre, relations between the two threaten to unravel if New Delhi sticks to its policy of not playing any pro-active role in the ongoing trouble in Sri Lanka. Already, the implications which New Delhi could face in the South have restrained UPA Government from signing a military cooperation agreement with Sri Lanka.
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