Civil War in Sri Lanka and India’s Vietnam Part II
Rohan Rajesh
Last week, I began a series on Sri Lanka’s civil war. I wrote about the demographic situation in Sri Lanka, Sri Lanka’s colonial history, the major pre-Civil War events, and the rise of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. In this article, I will discuss India’s involvement in the conflict and how the conflict became India’s Vietnam.
Indian Involvement
From 1983 to 1987, India’s intelligence agency – the Research and Analysis Wing sided with the LTTE and other Tamil separatist groups. This was because of outrage among Indian Tamils (on whose votes Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and her Indian National Congress party were dependent) over human rights abuses against their brethren by the Sinhalese-dominated government and military and due to Sri Lanka’s increasing closeness to Pakistan and the West (this was the Cold War after all). While the Indian government did not want an independent Tamil Eelam to be formed (because that would have excited the secessionist-adjacent views of prominent Indian Tamil leaders), they nonetheless chose to support the LTTE. Tamil separatists also gained support and refuge in Tamil Nadu.
In 1987, President Jayawardene asked Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi (Indira Gandhi’s son) to help mediate and end the conflict. Under an accord signed by Colombo and New Delhi, an Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) was flown into Sri Lanka, a ceasefire was declared, and the Sri Lankan government gave political concessions to Tamils. Eventually, 48,000 Indian troops would be flown into the island. This created resentment among Sinhalese nationalists (who viewed it as a violation of Sri Lankan sovereignty) and the LTTE (who thought India supported them). The LTTE dragged its feet in disarming, so, in October 1987, the IPKF launched Operation Pawan to eliminate the LTTE stronghold in Jaffna. They succeeded, but it was a Pyrrhic victory due to the loss of life and the fact that the IPKF was now viewed as an occupying force among Sri Lankan Tamils. The LTTE regrouped in the jungle and harried and sniped the beleaguered IPKF, who were not used to this type of irregular warfare. The Indian public demanded that the troops be returned. The debacle was a significant factor in Gandhi’s losing the 1987 election, and his successor pulled out the last troops in 1990. 1,200 Indian soldiers were killed, and the entire affair was referred to in the press as “India’s Vietnam.”
In 1991, a now-out-of-office Rajiv Gandhi was campaigning in Tamil Nadu when a 17-year-old girl approached him with a bouquet of flowers. Little did Mr. Gandhi know that a bomb was hidden in those flowers. Thenmozhi Rajaratnam (alias Dhanu) was an LTTE suicide bomber and succeeded in killing Rajiv Gandhi.
Conclusion
Thus ended a dark chapter in India’s history. Memories of the IPKF blunder are not as powerful in India as the memory of the Vietnam War in the United States. I suspect that this is because the Sri Lanka intervention was followed by increasing Indian confidence from its economic rejuvenation, its acquiring of nuclear weapons capabilities, and its defeat of Pakistan in the brief but tense Kargil War while America was reminded of Vietnam by the quagmires in Afghanistan and Iraq.
But the brutal conflict raged on in Sri Lanka, and its legacy is keenly felt today. Only in 2009 did the war end when the Sri Lankan military decisively defeated the LTTE and regained control over the Tamil-majority areas. However, 40,000 mostly Tamil civilians were killed in the last stage of the conflict alone with serious allegations of human rights abuses being leveled against the Sri Lankan military and the LTTE.
There are multiple lessons to be learned from the war. India’s limited ability to influence the course of the conflict reminds us that no actor has a monopoly on global influence. The powerful militaries of India, Russia, and the United States were brought to their knees by ill-equipped insurgents hiding in jungles and caves. The assassinations of prime ministers in India and Sri Lanka over the mistreatment of Tamils demonstrate the awesome power of linguistic identity. Ultimately, the conflict shows that one cannot brush aside minorities for political exigency.