Tuesday, Oct 26, 2004
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By V.S. Sambandan
COLOMBO, OCT. 25 . Emphasising the need for a "bipartisan consensus" between the ruling Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) and the Opposition United National Party (UNP), the Editor-in-Chief of The Hindu , N. Ram, said today a "genuine breakthrough" would be made in the island-nation's efforts to solve the ethnic conflict "if a common minimum programme (CMP)" could be worked out by the "two big parties on the nature and unit of the federal structure" for the North-East. Delivering the Gamini Dissanayake Memorial Lecture, Mr. Ram termed the need for a bipartisan consensus on "the issue of interim administration and the relationship of the arrangement to a final political settlement" as "absolutely inescapable." Tracing the evolution and the present state of New Delhi's role in the island's conflict resolution process in the lecture on "India and Sri Lanka: The Emerging Future," Mr. Ram said: "It appears that the post-1991 policy, which is neither activist, nor isolationist, has strong public support."
`Reality check'
Providing a "reality check" on bilateral ties — during a 60-minute address attended by the Prime Minister, Mahinda Rajapakse, the former Prime Minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe, and a host of dignitaries — Mr. Ram said that after the "costly distortions of the 1980s," India and Sri Lanka had "handled bilateral relations in a constructive and mature way." There was now a "political consensus in India" that its policy in the 1980s, directed by realpolitik, was "schizoid and deeply-flawed," and had "proved disastrously-counter productive," despite India's "honourable, moderate intentions," he said. The 1987-India-Sri Lanka Agreement, though "highly controversial and divisive in its time," had "substantive content, values and lessons" today. Its conceptual framework was "more or less the working model for those who are seeking to resolve it within the island state's unity, sovereignty and territorial integrity," he said, pointing out that the late Gamini Dissanayake's "vision and new thinking are very much alive."
Continuity in policy
Referring to the post-1991 "continuity" in New Delhi's position, despite "subtle shifts and nuances" in "development and articulation," Mr. Ram said: "the continuity and consistency of the policy course that took shape after the IPKF's return was set, virtually in stone, after (former Prime Minister) Rajiv Gandhi's assassination by the LTTE." On the path ahead for bilateral ties, Mr. Ram said: "It is a given that India cannot play any direct role in Sri Lanka's peace process at this juncture." Official India, he pointed out, "cannot sit across the table with the LTTE, a banned organisation designated as a terrorist under Indian law, let alone facilitate or mediate a process in which it is involved." Terming the October 2003 Joint Statement issued in New Delhi after the visit of the then Sri Lankan premier, Ranil Wickremesinghe, as "the clearest elaboration" of Indian policy, Mr. Ram said: "the Manmohan Singh Government has reiterated its commitment to the same policy" and "it is extremely unlikely that this policy will change in any significant way in the conceivable future." Predicting that India's role "in the foreseeable future," will "become more important than anyone imagines today," depending on the course of events in Sri Lanka, Mr. Ram said: "having learnt the salutary lessons from the 1980s, India must play that role in an exemplary and constructive way, in the best traditions of good neighbourliness." Navin Dissanayake, MP, vice-president of the Gamini Dissanayake Commemoration Society, Mr. Rajapakse, the Speaker, W.J.M. Lokubandara and Mr. Wickremesinghe, were among those who recalled the services rendered by the late Gamini Dissanayake.
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