Commentary / Mani Shankar Aiyar

Karunanidhi signaled his disapproval of the IPKF by refusing to greet the jawans when they disembarked at Madras

In July 1987, Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi journeyed to Colombo to conclude the India-Sri Lanka accord which put the seal on India's reaffirmation of its commitment to the unity and integrity of Sri Lanka but set in motion a constitutional process designed to devolve autonomy to the regions of Sri Lanka, notably the north and east region where the Sri Lankan Tamils were concentrated.

The nexus between India and the Sri Lankan Tamil organisations dates back to this 1983-87 period. The DMK quite correctly points to the many and varied links between Prime Ministers Indira and Rajiv Gandhi, on the one hand, and the Sri Lankan Tamil freedom fighters, including the LTTE, on the other; as also the many and varied links between AIADMK chief minister M G Ramachandran and the Sri Lankan Tamil freedom fighters, including the LTTE.

Highlighting these links is integral to the DMK's argument that its relationship with the LTTE in 1990-91 is to be seen as no more than a continuation of the kind of links which had been forged with the Sri Lankan Tamil organisations, including the LTTE, by the Congress and the AIADMK, the ruling parties respectively at the Centre and is the state capital, prior to the DMK winning the state assembly elections of January 1989.

Between July 1987 and January 1991, however, there had been a material change in the situation in many crucial respects. the July 1987 accord had bound down all the parties concerned-- Sri Lanka, the Sri Lanka Tamil organisations and India --to the non-violent political process of constitutional devolution heralded by the Rajiv-Jayawardene agreement.

The induction of the Indian Peace-Keeping Force -- which, it must be emphasised, was not part of the India-Sri Lanka accord but a separate arrangement-- was designed to keep the peace in Sri Lanka between the Sri Lankan army andthe militant Tamil guerrillas and protect the civilian population, while the peaceful constitutional process of devolution got underway.

The IPKF did, indeed, succeed in large measure in insulating the Tamils from the Sri Lankan army -- but, within a few months of its deployment, found itself at war with one of the Tamil militant groups, the LTTE, which repudiated the accord and set up on establishing its total dominance over the movement by the ruthless elimination of all other Sri Lankan Tamil organisations.

Its particular target of attack was the EPRLF which had whole-heartedly co-operated with all concerned in implementing the accord and had won the elections (boycotted by the LTTE) to the North and East Provincial Council. Its leader, Varadharaja Perumal, was the elected chief minister of the North and East Province.

After Jayaa`wardene was replaced as president of Sri Lanka by R Premadasa and Rajiv Gandhi by V P Singh as prime minister of India, India acceded to the Sri Lankan demand for the withdrawal of the IPKF even though this meant the dissolution of the elected autonomous council and a freezing of the constitutional process of devolution. Karunanidhi signaled his disapproval of the IPKF by refusing to greet the Indian jawans when they disembarked at Madras.

The return of the IPKF also signalled the intensification on Indian soil of the rivalry between the different Sri Lankan Tamil organisations and the struggle for the confirmation of the overlordship of the movement by the LTTE through the elimination by violence of all other Sri Lankan Tamil freedom fighting groups.