BY DR DAYAN JAYATILLEKA
“…Contiguous polities, in Kautilya’s analysis, existed in a state of latent hostility. Whatever professions of amity he might make, any ruler whose power grew significantly would find that it was in his interest to subvert his neighbor’s realm…The wise ruler would seek his allies from among his neighbor’s neighbors.” – Dr. Henry Kissinger, World Order (2014)
“Common to all countries of Southeast Asia is the existence within each state of an ethnic majority that forms the core, alongside numerous ethnic minorities. These latter are made up of groups that are more or less indigenous, as well as groups of people that arrived later as a result of history or migration”. – Huu Ngoc, Wandering through Vietnamese Culture (2006)
PM Narendra Modi at House warming ceremony in Ilavalai-Mar 14, 2015-pic courtesy of: The Hindu
Up close and personal, India’s Prime Minister Modi has a presence, even a bit of an inner radiance born of confidence. This is the shared observation of my wife and me after the gracious introduction and handshakes at the India House reception two evenings back. Asia is lucky to have produced such a leader. We were lucky to meet him. That said, Sri Lankans were taught a firm lesson in Realism, in geopolitical realities and the balance of power, over the last few days.
No sagacious foreign leader on his visit to a neighboring country with a contentious, polarized domestic situation would make public remarks which implied or could be perceived as a tilt to one side. This is more so, if the side that is being tilted towards, is a numerical minority and the side that may perceive itself as being tilted against, is a large majority. There is only one set of circumstances in which a neighboring leader on a visit would actually say something that came across as a tilt. That is if there is no competition or counterweight.
China is regarded as having lost the game in Sri Lanka. India and the US are seen as having won. Mahinda Rajapaksa leveraged China for economic, strategic/security and diplomatic advantage for Sri Lanka. He used China as a counterweight to the West and India. He lost and China lost, and taken together that meant Sri Lanka lost something. Several weeks after, with Sri Lanka wide open and the playing field no longer level, the leader of our giant neighbor visited and shifted the goalposts by calling for a political solution beyond the status quo. He even mentioned the f word- federalism.
Continue reading ‘Chief Minister Wigneswaran and Northern Council Trying to Behave Like an Autonomous Third Player.’ »
