National question internal issue for Lanka: BJP spokesman

The government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi regards Sri Lanka’s national question and its economic cooperation with China as essentially internal matters of Sri Lanka although India has humanitarian and security concerns, the ruling Bharatiya Janatha Party’s National Spokesman, M. J. Akbar, said yesterday.

In an interview with the Sunday Times, Mr. Akbar, a wellknown author, editor and columnist, said India and Sri Lanka should not interfere in each oth- er’s issues. Instead, they should sort out issues affecting bilateral relations in the spirit of good neigbourliness.

Asked whether India should extricate itself from Sri Lanka’s crisis and let Sri Lanka deal with its problem the way it wants, Mr. Akbar said: “I don’t think India needs to intricate or extricate itself from this. India has purely humanitarian concerns. We have been very clear that we have no support for secessionism. For God’s sake, this is not the colonial age where secessionism was used as a policy to divide people.

We have absolutely no interest to support secessionism. But our humanitarian concern is that we expect all Sri Lanka citizens to be treated as equal citizens.”

Asked whether India had any security concerns over close Sri Lanka-China relations, especially in view of China’s involvement in Sri Lanka’s infrastructure development projects such as ports, airports and aircraft repair facilities, the BJP spokesman said:

“Bilateral relations are not zero-sum games. Sri Lanka is an independent country and it has a perfect right to take decisions that it deems best for itself with regard to its development and economic programmes. No country has economic relations with only one other country. Every country pursues multilateral relations. For instance, India welcomes investments from Japan as much as from China and the US.

“When such investment involvement comes with a little bit of problems, India and Sri Lanka can solve them in the spirit of good neighbourly relations. India and Sri Lanka are very good neighbours. There is no doubt about it. Yes India has occasional legitimate security concerns but we will address them and we will talk to friends the way we talk to friends.”

On the question of Indian fishermen poaching in Sri Lanka’s waters, Mr. Akbar, author of several non-fictions such as Nehru: The Making of India, The Shade of Sword: A Cohesive History of Jihad, and Kashmir: Behind the Vale, said problems were inevitable when relations between two countries involve an overlapping sea. He said these Indian fishermen were poor people and the issue involved their livelihood. He said he believed the problem could be

solved, given goodwill on both sides.

(The full interview will appear next week in 2.)