Former IFS diplomat advises New Delhi to embrace Rajapaksas trading off rights with interests

[TamilNet, Thursday, 21 November 2019, 23:41 GMT]
“There is no way Rajapaksa will accept federalism in Sri Lanka. The Tamil community will have to come to terms with the grim implications of it and learn to live with what is on offer,” commented M K Bhadrakumar, a former Indian Foreign Service diplomat responding to a question from the Turkish Anadolu news agency on Thursday. Eezham Tamils were “dispossessed by Colombo and disowned by New Delhi,” he said advising New Delhi to trade-off Tamil rights-oriented concerns with the strategic interests of India. “The bottom line is that Gotabaya will be no less a strongman than Prime Minister Modi. It will be exceedingly foolish to adopt a prescriptive attitude toward Colombo. Any such attempt will meet with rebuff. Success lies in carrying the new president along,” the former envoy Bhadrakumar said.

India’s recent act of revoking constitutional provision that had granted special autonomous status to the Muslim-majority region of Jammu and Kashmir is now haunting its position concerning Tamils in the island, the Anadolu Agency report has pointed out.

The report was also citing the author and commentator Shastri Ramachandran as telling that India would no longer be able to convince Colombo to devolve powers to Tamil region in the island.

In the run-up to the election campaign, elder Rajapaksa and leader of now ruling Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP), said that the devolution debate in the country would now consider the developments in Jammu and Kashmir, the report further said.

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Kashmir episode puts India on horns of dilemma in Sri Lanka

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