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What Delhi must do

"Delhi can bring the LTTE to the negotiating table." This is what Sri Lanka President Chandrika Kumaratunga said nearly three weeks ago. All have been looking towards India since. But its policy is: wait and watch. Neither the Cabinet Committee on National Security nor the Strategic Policy Group of the National Security Council have given any indication of the efforts, if any, to make the LTTE talk with the Sri Lanka government.

It is nobody's case that the situation is easy. The solution is, indeed, difficult. But what has New Delhi done to help Colombo when it is, in fact, acting as India's first line of defence? Prabhakaran said in an interview five years ago: "Eventually I have to battle India, which will not allow us to create Eelam because of its own 35 million Tamils." He wants to be the Prime Minister of Eelam, comprising north-east of Sri Lanka and Tamil Nadu.

New Delhi has said again and again that it supports the territorial integrity of Sri Lanka. But these are only pious words. When the Indian Peace Keeping Force-like experiment is ruled out and when Colombo, on its own, cannot compel the LTTE for a dialogue, New Delhi has no alternative except to use all avenues to make talks possible.

No doubt, the Prime Minister needs a holiday, particularly after the insipid reshuffle of the Cabinet. But should he be away from the capital at the time of Sri Lanka's life-and-death battle to survive as a single country. Vajpayee should have been seen sitting continuously with leaders from Tamil Nadu instead of retreating to the hill resort of Manali. He copies Jawaharlal Nehru, who used to go to Manali for rest. But Nehru did not absent himself from Delhi when a friendly neighbouring country needed his help.

Sitting with the Tamil Nadu leaders would have meant harnessing the services of Chief Minister K M Karunanidhi and PMK leader Vaico to prevail upon LTTE chief Prabhakaran to sit across the table with Kumaratunga. Both Tamil leaders have close contacts with him. Both have made no secret of their sympathy with the cause of Eelam, an independent Tamil state. Prabhakaran is indebted to Karunanidhi, who even led a march through the streets of Chennai when the LTTE was ousted from Jaffna some five years ago.

The last time Vajpayee met Karunanidhi was a month ago. They may have talked to each other on the phone after that. But this does not reflect the sense of urgency New Delhi should show. Karunanidhi is on record as saying that he has faith in the Centre. But he has also said that he would be happy if the Eelam came into being. What should Colombo infer from this?

Vaico is not even discreet. He expresses support to the LTTE openly and repeatedly. His PMK in Tamil Nadu is propagating the formation of Eelam. And there is nothing Vajpayee has done to silence Vaico, who is a member of the ruling National Democratic Alliance.

Sri Lanka has always nourished the belief that Karunanidhi can bring about a settlement. I recall when I was India's High Commissioner in London, my counterpart from Sri Lanka, D S Attygalle, told me that Karunanidhi could solve the problem in no time. Attygalle was once associated with talks with the Tamil militants. He said: "There has to be a political solution to the problem, not a military one."

New Delhi has taken the line of least resistance. Understandably, it does not want to get embroiled. But, at the same time, it does not do anything to ward off the situation of being sucked in, whether it likes or not.

Suppose Jaffna were to fall, the LTTE would have the upper hand. What would India do then except to evacuate the beleaguered Sri Lanka troops on 'humanitarian grounds', a key phrase of the Vajpayee government's policy on Sri Lanka? Colombo would be so weakened after the defeat at Jaffna that it could itself wonder about the utility of talks.

Take the opposite scenario. Colombo wins the battle of Jaffna. The gain will be only psychological. After all, Jaffna has been under Sri Lanka for the last five years. The LTTE has been battering at Colombo's defences since then. And there has been no change in the LTTE's policy of assassinating key Tamil leaders. Prabhakaran wants no challenge either the Eelam or Tamil Nadu. Both Karunanidhi and Vaico should know this.

True, Colombo has belatedly realised that it has to share power with the Tamils. Most Sinhalese may still be biased towards the Tamil population. But Kumaratunga is openly working for a polity where power will be decentralised and where every part of Sri Lanka, including the north, the area in which the LTTE's writ runs, will administer its own affairs and have specific subjects transferred to it. Her eyes are fixed on a federal structure in place of the unitary system the county has.

Perhaps something less would have worked if there had been a settlement during President Jayawardhene's rule. Then Mrs Indira Gandhi's special envoy, G Parthasarathy, had drafted the annexure 'c' of the document on the devolution of power to Tamils. Jayawardhene was not serious about it - the intractable Sinhalese opinion that he represented. Instead, he manoeuvred the intervention of India forces to clean up the mess which Mrs Gandhi had created by training and arming the LTTE.

His successor, Premadasa, was so anti-India that he joined hands with the LTTE to frustrate the IPKF in its operation. Kumaratunga is trying to sort out the fallout from the policies of Jayawardhene and Premadasa and naturally encountering the difficulties on the ground.

The biggest snag is the ethnic distance between the Sinhalese and the Tamils. They refuse to forget the past which is littered with memories of estrangement, killing and looting. New Delhi has readily sheltered Tamil refugees, but it has done little to help Colombo allay Tamil fears.

It appears that the danger of Eelam distorted New Delhi's normal reaction to the problems of a friendly neighbour. This is still there. The ban on the LTTE in India has been extended not because of the organisations's record of duplicity and murder, but because it's concept of Eelam.

The sympathy for Tamils in India is more exaggerated than real. They have had experience of the LTTE when its members were given shelter in Tamil Nadu a few years ago. Violence and crime engulfed the area where they were settled. The Tamils in India do not want to go back to those days. At the same time, they do not want the Tamils in Sri Lanka to be only drawers of water and hewers of wood. They want them to enjoy equal citizenship in Sri Lanka.

This is why New Delhi's role to bring the LTTE to the negotiating table is crucial. The 'wait and watch' policy has only exacerbated the problem. Vajpayee must put pressure on Karunandihi and Vaico to make Prabhakaran realise the futility of violence and hold talks.

This is also an opportune time for the LTTE to wrest the maximum concessions from the Sri Lankan government and to ensure that the Eelam enjoys full autonomy within Sri Lanka. This will require changes in the Sri Lankan Constitution as well as a consensus among political parties in the country. New Delhi can see to it once Prabhakaran comes round.

Kuldip Nayar