Modi Has Asked Wickremesinghe To Act On Tamil Issue, Eyeing 2024. But, It's Easier Said Than Done

Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s visit to India last week was although high on connectivity, trade and investment plans between both countries, it did little to resolve the decades-long controversy that continues to strain the relationship — and that is the issue of Tamil reconciliation that continues to stir up the bloody past of the civil war in Sri Lanka and New Delhi's historical intervention in the matter. While Prime Minister Narendra Modi once again urged President Wickremesinghe to “ensure a life of respect and dignity” for the Tamil minorities in the island nation with the full implementation of the 13th Amendment, New Delhi was also politely told that the matter is an internal issue of Sri Lanka, and that their Parliament will take the call in this matter. 

The matter has indeed turned more complex in the island nation since it was introduced in the Sri Lankan constitution due to the Indo-Sri Lankan Peace Accord of 1987. Since then the bilateral relationship between India and Sri Lanka has undergone a paradigm shift even as New Delhi continues to face a difficult and complex neighbourhood. Thus, it will save India significant embarrassment if New Delhi distances itself from the matter and not interfere too much to the extent that even the Tamilian parties of Sri Lanka get upset. Earlier this week, Sri Lanka’s ruling party Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) said the President does not have the “electoral mandate” to discuss or settle the matter. The SLPP made this statement hours after Wickremesinghe’s meeting with Modi in New Delhi, and maybe that is one of the reasons why the issue of full implementation of the 13th Amendment was not mentioned in the joint statement — Promoting Connectivity, Catalysing Prosperity: India-Sri Lanka Economic Partnership Vision — issued after the meeting between both leaders.

On Wednesday, July 26, in less than a week since his 15-hour trip to New Delhi, Wickremesinghe called an all-party conference to discuss the implementation of the 13th Amendment, which basically aims to give equal rights and powers to the Tamil community there. During the meeting, Wickremesinghe made it clear that like him, his predecessors also had no authority in bringing the changes since that power lies solely with Parliament. But unlike his last meeting with the Tamilian parties, this time he agreed on granting police powers to the Provincial Councils as outlined in the 13th Amendment of the Constitution, albeit after consultation and voting by all parties. 

The creation of ‘Provincial Councils’ has been stipulated in the 13th Amendment aimed at granting autonomy to the nine provinces, especially those related to police and land. The Indo-Sri Lanka Accord of July 1987, which was signed by the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and former Sri Lankan President JR Jayawardene, has never been able to garner support from the successive Sri Lankan governments. The issue is considered to be sensitive as well as controversial by both sides because it is linked with the civil war there as well as with . The Sinhala majority there sees the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord as a direct result of India’s "intervention" in their internal matters even as the Sinhala-Tamil ethnic conflicts continue to simmer there. 

Renowned Sri Lankan historian KM de Silva notes in his book, A History of Sri Lanka, that the creation of Bangladesh and India’s role in that had a “profound influence” on the Tamil separatist groups of Sri Lanka. He even called India to be playing the role of a “regional hegemon”. “The Indian intervention of 1983 was an exercise in realpolitik. Despite the fact that similar violent ethnic conflicts were a familiar feature in many parts of India at that time, in Punjab for instance and particularly in India’s northeast, India sought to intervene in Sri Lanka’s ethnic conflict invoking the political strengths of a regional hegemon,” he wrote. 

For present-day India, the Tamil reconciliation issue has become a matter of vote-bank politics. BJP state president in Tamil Nadu K Annamalai recently said the declining Hindu population in the northern and eastern provinces of Sri Lanka is a cause of concern as he reiterated the need for implementing the 13th Amendment. The BJP leader had even presented a proposal to External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar in February, seeking India’s “intervention” for the implementation of the amendment. Needless to say, the political landscape in southern India has a direct influence on Sri Lanka’s Tamil majority areas. A section of Indian Tamils continues to support LTTE's chief Prabhakaran and refuse to believe that he has been killed by the Sri Lankan forces. The LTTE, or Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, under him fought a deadly war demanding a separate homeland for the Tamils. In February this year, Pazha Nedumaran, President of the World Confederation of Tamils, claimed that the LTTE supremo was “alive” and will soon “announce a plan for the liberation of the Tamil race”.

China Can Also Strategic Leverage On Tamil Issue

India is also well aware of the fact that China is also in the prowl to strategically leverage the Tamil reconciliation issue by way of implementing faster projects and grant of aid to the community there thereby gaining their confidence. In December 2021, China’s Ambassador to Sri Lanka, Qi Zhenhong took an unprecedented step to visit Tamil-majority Jaffna and performed Hindu rituals wearing a traditional attire at the Nallur Kandaswamy temple leading to soaring temperatures in New Delhi.  

He also visited the Adam’s Bridge that connects the north-western Sri Lanka with mainland India. After the visit, he told the local media there: “This is the End, but also the Beginning”. While this move by the Chinese official came as a shock to many in India, it was a highly calculative move by Beijing.

That was not all, last year Qi also wrote an editorial titled, ‘From One-China Principle to ‘Yuan Wang 5’: Let’s Join Hands and Resolutely Safeguard Our Sovereignty, Independence and Territorial Integrity’, in one of Sri Lanka’s leading news outlets as tensions rose between India and Sri Lanka over the visit of Chinese spy ship ‘Yuan Wang 5’ at Sri Lanka’s strategic Hambantota Port, which New Delhi had objected to.

Taunting India’s objections, Qi wrote in his article that China and Sri Lanka have together “resisted the rude and unreasonable interference from third parties.” He even said that Colombo has overcome “aggression by (its) northern neighbour”. India responded to the article stating that “Sri Lanka needs support, not unwanted pressure or unnecessary controversies to serve another country’s agenda” accusing the Chinese diplomat of violating diplomatic etiquette.

So while Sri Lanka has become a hot new battleground for strategic heft and influence between India and China, both sides will continue whipping up the Tamil reconciliation issue. But whether the matter will actually reach its logical conclusion or not remains to be seen. As of now it appears to be an extremely onerous task considering the latest incidents of violence in Sri Lanka between Sinhala extremist groups and Tamils to commemorate the 40th anniversary of ‘Black July’ when violent clashes broke out between Tamil separatists and Sinhalese-dominated Sri Lankan government, the roots of which lied in the passing of the ‘Sinhala Only Act’ in 1956.

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