Former Foreign
Secretary AP Venkateswaran is unsparing in his criticism of India’s
foreign policy vis-à-vis Sri Lanka. In an exclusive interview
to Tehelka, he says then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi disregarded advice
and sent the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF). In early 1987, Venkateswaran
quit as foreign secretary.
In the interview,
Venkateswaran slammed the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord of 1987 and felt he
might have continued as foreign secretary, if he had been a ‘yes-man.’
He comes down heavily on President Mahinda Rajapakse and believes the
Sinhala leader is gearing up for a military solution.
What is
your assessment of the present situation in Sri Lanka?
Asia Centre, the
organisation I am with now, and the Institute of Defence Studies and
Analysis, conducted a joint seminar on the situation in Sri Lanka recently.
The general assessment was that the situation in Sri Lanka was bad and
getting worse. It seems the Sri Lankan government, despite its protestations,
is not serious about finding a peaceful solution. On the other hand,
the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) has been left to its own
devices.
India, the only
country which could exercise some restraining influence on the course
of events in Sri Lanka, is keeping studiously away. India has to respond
in some way to the situation in Sri Lanka. In 1987, Rajiv Gandhi concluded
an agreement with the government of Sri Lanka and sent the IPKF there.
He was advised that a civil war was going on in Sri Lanka and that it
would not be advisable to send Indian forces, which were mainly intended
to protect the frontiers of India and not the incumbency of the head
of any foreign country. But that was the devious aim of (the then Sri
Lanka) President JR Jayawardene in getting India involved in the Sri
Lankan affairs at that time. He was under pressure from the Janatha
Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) in the South, and the LTTE in the North. He
even appealed to Rajiv Gandhi that if India did not come to his assistance,
his government would fall.
Eventually the IPKF
had to be withdrawn ignominiously. Jayawardene’s successor, Premadasa,
even helped the LTTE with arms and material to fight the IPKF. Perhaps
this is why India is keeping away from Sri Lanka now. But human needs
and human catastrophes cannot be ignored. Today, around two million
Tamil people are left helpless and international agencies including
states like Norway are speaking about the serious violation of human
rights and killings by Sri Lankan government forces in renewed fighting
in the North.
What role
do you think India should play now?
That is very difficult
to say, because I am afraid in New Delhi the concerns of particular
states are not taken fully into account. I know it sounds very strange
coming from me. I have worked in Delhi and I happen to know even at
that time that concerns of certain groups engaged more attention in
decision-making in Delhi than concerns of certain other groups. When
the linguistic commission was set up many years ago, Sardar KM Panicker,
a member of the commission, gave his view that Uttar Pradesh, the biggest
state, should be cut into three smaller states. Of course, it was not
heeded at that time because the decision-makers came from that state.
If I could
take you back to the 1980s, do you think if Rajiv Gandhi had listened
to you and not sent the IPKF, or had not signed the Indo-Sri Lanka agreement,
the history of Sri Lanka would have been different?
I certainly think
so. In fact, Rajiv Gandhi would still have been prime minister. He was
a young man then, full of life. His life was cut short. It (the assassination)
is ascribed to the LTTE, but I am not sure whether it was the head of
the LTTE (Prabhakaran) who decided (to carry out the killing) or some
lumpen elements. And that has alienated the decision-making authorities
in India even more.
It was on Sri Lanka
that you differed with Rajiv. Looking back, do you think you could have
stayed on as foreign secretary, if you had been a “yes man”?
I imagine so. But Sri Lanka was not the only matter I differed with
him. There were many other issues, but I would not like to discuss them
here.
But have
you ever regretted giving your views on Sri Lanka?
Certainly not. I
have no regrets at all about leaving the government. I gave my honest
views.
Do you think
you have been vindicated by the way events have played out in the subsequent
years?
That is a strong
word to use, because no one can determine the future shape of events.
Not even your favourite astrologers.
Going back
to the Accord, if you were to look at the Letters of Exchange, it seems
India was more concerned about its own geopolitical interests. There
was absolutely no reference to the Tamil question.
You may be quite
right. One of the clauses of the agreement was directly related to the
Voice of America broadcasting station in Sri Lanka. Today, the whole
geopolitical situation has changed. We are having a nuclear agreement
with the US, which had reneged upon its nuclear agreement for supply
of fuel to Tarapore atomic power station in 1974. So, it is very difficult
to go digging into the past. There is no point in digging up graveyards.
Looking
to the future, do you get the impression that President Rajapakse appears
to be gearing for a military solution to the ethnic crisis?
Certainly, I get
the impression. I wished President Rajapakse success in his peace efforts
when I met him during his visit to Delhi last December. I told him he
had a good chance of success if he conducted himself as the president
of all the people of Sri Lanka, instead of only a certain section of
them. But I don’t think he has shown an all-inclusive spirit for
finding a solution in his consequent actions.
During the
Indira Gandhi era, India was perceived to be more sympathetic to the
Tamil cause, but there was a sudden shift in approach after Rajiv Gandhi
became PM. Was it because of a change in India’s perception of
its own geopolitical interests or was it because of his advisers?
You are being slightly
unfair to Rajiv. He offered to send Indian forces, as he said, to protect
the Tamil people. He did not send the IPKF to fight the LTTE. In the
first months there was a lot of bonhomie between the LTTE and the IPKF.
Later on, for various reasons, the relationship between the two sides
broke down.
But don’t
you think he should have let the parties to the conflict come to an
agreement (instead of India and Sri Lanka signing an agreement)?
It is a very valid
point. The agreement should not have been between India and Sri Lanka.
It should have been signed between the Sri Lankan government and the
LTTE, with India, perhaps as a well-wisher, on the sidelines. On the
other hand, the agreement was between the two governments and LTTE was
not brought into the agreement directly, which is a pity. But all these
are reminiscences in retrospect. Well, since you are asking me, I may
say that before the Indo-Sri Lanka agreement was signed, I was still
in Delhi after leaving my post as foreign secretary.
One evening, I bumped
into N. Ram the present editor of The Hindu. I told him that
the Accord, the draft of which was known, was very badly conceived.
I felt the LTTE should have been made a party to the agreement, and
the Indian government should not have been a direct party with the Lankan
government. Ram said it was a bit too late to bring about any change
in the agreement, which was happening in the next week or two. He was
also travelling with the PM to Colombo for this “historic agreement”.
The rest is history.
To wind
up, let us have your opinion on the LTTE, because people have different
opinions about the LTTE and its leader Prabhakaran. Prabhakaran emerged
at a critical stage in the history of Sri Lanka after successive Sri
Lankan governments reneged on the promises made to Tamils and Sri Lanka
introduced a new constitution that discriminated against them.
I will tell you
a story about the signing of the declaration of independence by the
Americans in their struggle against the British government. The declaration
was signed in 1776. Benjamin Franklin, one of the signatories, a respected
leader, told the delegates from the 13 states, “Gentlemen, we
must now all hang together or assuredly we shall all be hanged separately”.
If the Americans had failed in their struggle for independence, the
British would have hanged all of them as traitors. But they succeeded
and we had the emergence of a country, which is today the most powerful
country in the world. So it is a question of not trying to project things
but looking at history as a whole.
