The dramatic escalation of cross-border tensions between Sri Lanka’s neighbour India and Pakistan following the terror attack in Pahalgam, Kashmir that killed 26 tourists last week has renewed concerns of a full-blown conflict between the two nuclear-armed South Asian nations. India’s response to the attack – the first in a long time in the disputed region – was swift and decisive. Not only did the Indian authorities identify the attackers as being a Pakistani outfit just hours after the event, but later confirmed it as the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), a Pakistan-based jihadist organisation whose professed aim is to merge the Indian part of the disputed Kashmir region with Pakistan.
However, the claim was equally quickly dismissed by Pakistan’s Defence Minister, who alleged that the attack had been orchestrated by Indian proxies. Notwithstanding the political accusations flying either way across the volatile Line of Control, Indian forces proceeded to launch a military operation that reportedly killed a ‘senior LeT leader.’
The military action was accompanied by a raft of political decisions that included the immediate closure of the sole land trade route, ordering all Pakistani nationals to leave India within 48 hours, and suspending the issuing of visas to Pakistani nationals, as well suspending a major treaty – the 1960 Indus Water Treaty – that governs water sharing of six major rivers in the Indus Basin between the two nations.
In response, Pakistan declared that suspension of the Indus Treaty was an “act of war,” and ordered all Indian nationals to leave Pakistan within 48 hours, shut down its airspace to Indian air traffic, suspended all bilateral agreements with India, including trade, and the Simla Agreement of 1972 that established the Line of Control in the disputed Kashmir region. Ever since, daily skirmishes have been reported, with security personnel on either side shooting at each other although no casualties have been reported. Meanwhile, the Pakistani Senate passed a unanimous resolution rejecting India’s attempt to hold it responsible for the Kashmir attack and the subsequent measures taken by India.
While the issue simmers, with the Prime Minister of India making an ominous pronouncement that he is “willing to go to the ends of the Earth in order to punish those responsible,” casting a cloud of uncertainty over the South Asian region and with it the prospect of a prolonged conflict, the Government of Sri Lanka should not be acting as if it is not its problem. For it was only a couple of weeks ago that it dragged the nation into India’s defence orbit by entering into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with India – the contents of which are yet unknown not only to the citizens of this country, who are supposed to be sovereign, but even to their representatives in Parliament. The only reason that there is no commotion in the country, as has been the case whenever the nation has come close to even sealing a trade deal with India, leave alone one on defence, is because those who led such protests are now in Government.
If, as the Government claims, the contents of the MOU are beneficial to the nation, then why go to extraordinary lengths to keep it under wraps? As far as the National People’s Power (NPP) is concerned, this MOU and the six other agreements it signed during the Indian Prime Minister’s recent visit to the country signals it coming full circle from its riotous past, where anything Indian was anathema.
Depending on who one asks about the contents of the mysterious defence MOU, or why it has been withheld from the public thus far, the responses have differed widely, fuelling greater concern. Interestingly, a woman MP of the Government during a recent television political talk show claimed that she had ‘seen’ the agreement and there was nothing in it to be concerned about. Even the Minister of Foreign Affairs aired similar sentiments without going into specifics.
However, the Cabinet Spokesman during a recent weekly news briefing claimed that the contents could not be divulged without the consent of the other party, meaning the Indian Government. As absurd as that explanation was, a prima facie case of Sri Lanka’s sovereignty being compromised, curiously enough the regime, blissfully unaware of the consequences of its own statement, appears to be awkwardly moving forward, unaware of where it is heading.
When the Opposition questioned in Parliament as to why a defence agreement with another nation could not be revealed, the Leader of the House had the audacity to ask the Opposition to file a Right to Information claim and obtain what it needed. For a party that once raged against such conduct and even waged a bloody insurrection that claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, this was indeed rich. Then, adding further confusion, the NPP’s General Secretary went on record claiming during a recent political rally that the agreement had already been tabled in Parliament. These contradictory statements emanating from the highest levels of the Government only goes to show one thing: acute governmental dysfunction.
The decision to abruptly break away from the country’s half-century-old foreign policy of non-alignment, which has served Sri Lanka well thus far, is pregnant with both pros and cons, but that is a decision that should have been made after extensively weighing both, and not on anyone’s whim, especially in a rapidly evolving global environment, where today’s friend is tomorrow’s foe – a classic example being the US and its so-called traditional allies, who overnight have been left to sink or swim on their own.
Whether the regime is allowing its inexperience in Government to get the better of it – be it on the international or domestic front – is to be seen, but that is one contention that appears to be gaining credence among the public. If the amateurish handling of foreign policy is not bad enough, the mess it has created for itself with the lack of planning for the exposition of the Sacred Tooth Relic at the Dalada Maligawa in Kandy has been nothing short of a spectacular debacle.
Whatever the regime might offer by way of excuse for turning one of the country’s most beautiful and historic cities into a living hell for its residents as well as the hundreds of thousands of people who have been lining its streets for days on end in sunshine and rain without even the most basic sanitary facilities is inexcusable, given that the same exercise has been conducted previously devoid of the issues currently being experienced.
What is apparent is that the authorities have grossly underestimated the scale of the event and consequently were left scrambling to provide even the most basic services like sanitation, garbage disposal, shelter from the elements, and meals for the hundreds of thousands that descended on Kandy from day one of the exposition. Even at that point, no efforts were made to recover the situation and it was only when the situation went from bad to worse after seven long days of the exposition that the regime thought it necessary to intervene.
The sanitary situation had been so dire by then that people had had no choice but to use street corners to answer calls of nature. And when the heavens opened up, spreading human waste along with rotting food and other garbage all over the city, the sacred city was desecrated beyond measure, prompting the President himself to make a beeline to Kandy and take stock of the situation.
At the end of the day, what was to be a subtle election ploy turned out to be a disaster of massive proportions and whether the President’s attempt at damage control will do the trick is to be seen next month, but there is no such easy way out for its failings on the international front. The caution it has shown in sticking to the economic path of the previous administration must necessarily extend to its foreign policy as well, at least until such time that it is in a position to chart its own course.