EDITORIAL : THE DAILY MIRROR, SRILANKA

Regional football

Sri Lanka’s relative and the world’s largest democracy, is gearing up for the elections again with all its complexities and fanfare across the ocean.
It is sad that Indian political leaders have resorted again to include Sri Lanka in their election campaigns.
Just like the political leaders here find it hard to let the LTTE factor go in their struggle for  survival, in India also, particularly in Tamil Nadu, the Sri Lankan (Tamil) Issue has become and had always been a crucial propaganda topic.
A recent statement by Sonia Gandhi, the widow of former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi has sent ripples of alarm in this country.
What politicians across the straits should realize is that this kind of acrobatics would never help in anyway soothe either the Tamils or the Sinhalese in this country and could only help further alienate the two groups rather than bringing them together.
Predictably, the Tamil Nadu politicians too have started singing the Sri Lankan Tamil concerns again in an effort to rope in any emotionally weak voters who could not be harnessed by other promises like free TV sets and free sarees.
On the opposite side Jayalalitha Jayaram has also started weeping for the Sri Lankan Tamils.
Many Sri Lankan Tamils would not forget the way how Jayalalitha, a ferocious LTTE critic, treated them when they went to Tamil Nadu during those days.
Unlike other election gundus the Tamil Nadu ‘actors’ can easily getaway with promises related to Sri Lankan Tamils once the elections are over.
It is pathetic that even Sonia Gandhi could not spare the Tamils here.
“In our neighbourhood, there is no issue closer to our hearts than the rights of the Sri Lankan Tamil people,” she has said. She was addressing an election rally along with Dravida Munetra Kazhagam president and Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu M. Karunanidhi.
Sri Lanka and all communities of Sri Lanka welcome Indian help in the rehabilitation of the war affected on humanitarian basis.
But Indian political leaders should understand that their Tamilian tantrums only aggravate the problems in a war torn country across the strait.
Last week a parliamentarian here also had urged the Indian political leadership not to use Sri Lanka as a football to create political chaos in the country as they did during the 1984/89 period.
What Sri Lanka has seen since then (Since 1990-2009) was too painful an experience even to remember, let alone go through it.
“We ask the leaders of the Congress Party, the BJP and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and the Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam not to use Sri Lanka as a football for their interests,” the MP had said.
It may be true that people are mere statistics when it comes to regional power politics. But it is sad how people’s lives are affected by regional actors.
The policies initiated by J.R. Jayewardene and reactionary policies of the then Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had seen many Lankan political leaders, including an Indian Premier and innumerable innocent civilians dead and thousands (including the IPKF) maimed.
India should act with more maturity and wisdom befitting its antiquity.