Wisdom behind India’s advice to TNA

The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) leaders who came in delegation with broad smiles to meet the visiting Indian Foreign Secretary this week must surely have left the premises with long faces. That is because they were told not to come to India all the time to pull their chestnuts out of the fire in their dealings with the Sri Lankan Government. They were asked to -- something we have been saying all along: settle their differences within the shores of this island-nation.

One might have pity on them for they are caught in a headlock by the Diaspora, but then, are victims of their own making. They are being accused of running with the hare ( Government in Colombo) and hunting with the hounds (Diaspora). Either way, they are fifth columnists when they run to India for succour as if it is their 'Mother Country' and to Geneva and other Western capitals where the Diaspora are their handlers.

Indian political dynamics have taken a sharp turn since its intervention -- read interference -- in Sri Lanka in the post-1977 era. India paid a price by losing so much goodwill with its southern neighbour for its adventurism. The TNA needs to read the signals from Delhi that broken bridges have to be rebuilt through its 'Neighbourhood First' policy. India's only interest in having a foothold in North Sri Lanka is to counter China's presence under its southern underbelly.

Having Colombo on its side would, therefore, be of paramount importance to India today because of this issue that was not there in the 1970s and 1980s -- China's emergence and expanding footprint in the geopolitical equation of South Asia.