NEW YORK– When the government of Rajiv Gandhi ordered the Indian Air Force to carry out an airdrop of humanitarian supplies in June 1987 inside embattled northern Sri Lanka — infamously dubbed “the parippu drop”– the Sri Lanka government reacted furiously describing India’s action as a “naked violation of Sri Lanka’s independence and an unwarranted assault on Sri Lanka’s territory and sovereignty.”
The relief supplies — parachuted from five Russian-supplied Antonov An-32 tactical transport planes, under the protective cover of a fleet of French-made Mirage 2000 fighter jets — were aimed at breaking an economic blockade imposed by the government on the rebellious northern province.
A new book titled “Perilous Interventions,” released last week by the publisher Harper Collins, says India’s “alleged humanitarian mission” received varying responses from the international community.
“While several denounced the violation of Sri Lankan airspace, the “mercy mission” was not condemned, as it should have been by the West, and ‘as only mildly deplored, as it were, by the European Parliament’”.
Authored by Ambassador Hardeep Singh Puri, a former Permanent Representative of India to the United Nations, the book’s primary focus is the Western-led UN Security Council interventions — both direct and indirect — in several countries, including Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen which have triggered “chaos, destruction and destabilisation” largely in the volatile Middle East and helped create ISIS, “arguably the most formidable extremist organisation in history.”
The 264-page book recounts the fluctuating relationship, marked by twists and turns, between India and Sri Lanka in the 1980s, characterised by two historic events: the 1987 Indo-Sri Lanka Accord (ISLA) followed by the JR Jayewardene government’s invitation to an Indian Peace Keeping Force (1987-1990) to curb the Tamil insurgency in the north.
By the time the IPKF withdrew, it had fielded nearly 100,000 soldiers, with more than 1,200 killed, but there were no estimates of the number of Tigers killed in action.
In an interview with the Sunday Times, Mr. Puri disputed the description, by some analysts, of IPKF’s involvement in Sri Lanka as “military intervention”.
“It was not a military intervention. It was a peace keeping force with a specific mandate in pursuance of provisions of a peace agreement and sent at the specific request of the receiving state.” He pointed out that it was the Sri Lanka government (GOSL) which demanded transformation from a pure peace keeping role to a robust piece enforcement role under the ISLA.
“Even that role could have been fulfilled if the parties to the dispute had displayed the requisite sincerity and commitment to the Agreement,” said Mr. Puri, who served at the Indian High Commission in Colombo (1984-1988), initially as First Secretary and later as Counsellor.
“The jury is still out on whether it was a mistake. History’s verdicts cannot be predicted. The arming of militants was a mistake,” he said.
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) was widely believed to have received military training in India — long before the government of Rajiv Gandhi — transforming itself into a well-equipped guerrilla force, which was eventually responsible for the assassination of Gandhi.
In his book, Mr. Puri says “the military training (including but not limited to elementary use of firearms) and ideological grounding were given to new recruits in dozens of camps by seasoned guerrillas or retired Indian military officers (some of whom were paid more than what they had earned in the Indian army)”.
He also points out that the fact Sri Lankan Tamil rebels enjoyed support in Tamil Nadu was clear. “Militant rebels set up tactical headquarters in Madras (now Chennai) and operated freely from the city. “There were reports that the government was even happy to exempt them from visa and immigration regulations, allowing some of them to travel abroad on Indian passports.”
Ironically, says Mr. Puri, it was Rajiv Gandhi’s mother Indira, who as Prime Minister, had begun the support to Sri Lankan Tamil militants, including the LTTE, ostensibly fighting for Eelam, or a separate homeland, in the 1980s.
As Prime Minister, Rajiv had sought to reverse that policy seeking a solution to the Tamil issue within the unity and territorial identity of Sri Lanka and ended up paying with his life.
Asked if India’s “mercy mission” and violation of Sri Lankan sovereignty could have been brought up before the UN Security Council, Mr. Puri told the Sunday Times that humanitarian supplies seldom attract Council attention.
“You can’t subject an entire population of an area to an economic blockade and then hope to get understanding from the international community,” said Puri, who twice presided over Security Council meetings when India was a non-permanent member in the Council during 2011-2012.
“The IPKF was invited under the provisions of the Agreement, with the request made in writing. It was clearly understood that this would enable JRJ to move his army back to deal with the growing opposition to the Agreement in the South”.
Was getting the IPKF to deal with the LTTE “a smart thing?”
The Sri Lanka government did itself disservice by simultaneously arming the LTTE to create discomfort for the IPKF. The jury is still out on this, he added.
In a report filed from Colombo in June 1987, the New York Times said the humanitarian mission was part of “India’s growing aspirations to regional power status.”
Asked if the eventual withdrawal of the IPKF in 1990 was considered a setback to India’s aspirations, Mr. Puri said: “The withdrawal was more a reflection of the lack of consensus within India rather than a comment on India’s regional power aspirations, whatever that means.”
Mr. Puri also recounts the one-time cordial relationship between Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike and Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.
“When asked how she would deal with the Tamil issue, she would often say in conversation with us in India’s High Commission in Colombo, ‘I will call my sister in New Delhi and ask her to look the other way whilst I sort out this Tamil problem.”
The rest, as they say, is history.