Will India do a ‘Russian Ukraine’ in Lanka or China one in Taiwan?
Russia launched a military offensive against Ukraine at 3am GMT on Thursday morning after its leader Vladimir Putin had broadcast a speech announcing a ‘special military offensive’ to ‘demilitarize’ and ‘denazify’ Ukraine.
Beneath the euphemism, what it boiled down to was the Russian invasion in Ukraine had begun. By Friday night, Russian tanks had rolled into the capital, Kiev.
Not that it was not on the cards. For some time, Russia had been sabre rattling over Ukraine’s alleged plans to join NATO, and had claimed, the US backed European alliance planned to base missiles on the Ukraine border aimed at Moscow. Understandably, they held such a threat on their door step as unacceptable and began laying plans of invasion while ostensibly engaging in diplomatic talks.
In 2014, Russian funded and armed separatist rebels controlling 30 percent of two provinces bordering Russia, Donetsk and Luhansk, had made a unilateral declaration of independence (UDI). These two declarations were, on Monday night, recognised by Russia, alone among nations to do so.
A new theatre of war has opened in Eastern Europe, with diplomatic and military experts predicting the full blown invasion as one that could trigger a third world war. Though confined to East of Europe for the moment, it has all the ingredients necessary for its fall out to besmirch Asia’s landscape; and might be just what the doctor ordered for its regional powers to grab the chance and, citing the Russian example as a precedent, do a ‘Russian Ukraine’ to the neighbours it has long coveted.
It showed that, despite technological advances, the IT revolution made in the last two decades, which had transcended geographical borders and swept through national frontiers to turn the world into a global village with nations so interdependent on one another to minimize the risk of war, there still remained infinite space on the world stage for a naked aggressor to jump up and give a violent display of his histrionics.
The strategy is very simple really, especially for India if she has any plans to invade Lanka. The Russian model is a perfect fit for any designs India may have in that direction.
Consider the modus operandi: Arm and finance a small group of Tigers still lurking in the northern undergrowth. Get them to declare a unilateral declaration of independence in the North-East province already carved out in the Tiger map as the state of Eelam; even as Perumal, the head of EPRLF and then Chief Minister of North- East Provincial Council, did when he announced the establishment of a separate Eelamist state on Lankan soil on 1 March 1990. Recognize the State of Eelam, even if no country will. Just as Putin did with Donetsk and Luhansk, it will not matter.
Cite Lanka’s rapid continental drift toward China under the two Rajapaksa regimes, along with China’s overwhelming influence over Lanka. Beat the war drums and tell the world that India cannot afford to have Chinese missiles pointed at her on her doorstep. Then hours before the invasion, Modi to deliver a speech, announcing a military operation will soon begin in the north of Lanka to ‘defend the people who’ve been ‘subjected to years of genocide by the Sinhala regime; even as Putin declared his objective was to ‘defend the people in Donetsk and Luhansk who had been subjected for eight years to genocide by the Kyiv regime".
The script has already been written in
Russian. For India, it only needs to be translated and enacted.
For China, it’s even simpler to invade neighbouring Taiwan which it had held to be an extension of its mainland. Taiwan had been the refuge of Chiang Kai- shek, military ruler of China, who fled to the island in 1949 at the approach of Mao’s Red Army to Peking. Taiwan has survived so far due to heavy American backing though a Chinese take over in 2025 is imminent. Today, China can use the Russian doctrine of ‘enemy on the doorstep’ - first used by Americans in 1962 when the Russians secretly planned to base nuclear missiles in Cuba – to invade Taiwan without much fuss.
No wonder then that, while many countries have rushed to condemn the Russian invasion, China and India have kept an ominous silence. China’s refusal is, perhaps, understandable. But why has India, this world spiritual leader of ahimsa, this incarnate avatar of nonviolence, who has the Buddhist symbol of the Dhamma Chakra emblazoned on her national flag, not condemned this gross act of violence?
Neither has Lanka condemned the invasion but timidly has only echoed the IndoSino dictum and called on both the victim and the aggressor to exercise maximum restraint. The Foreign Secretary said on Friday night, the Government is waiting for the region or even SAARC to issue a condemnation.
That Russia is a major buyer of Ceylon Tea must, no doubt, be taken into account, but for a small island, living next door to a giant and vulnerable to be gobbled up in similar fashion as Ukraine was, not to lodge a formal protest against Russia’s invasion, seems to lose the broader picture of safeguarding her future survival as an independent nation; and, instead, to focus on fleeting economic gain which may be lost anyway due to fickleness in taste, strikes as short sightedness.
Especially, when the 1987 instance of Indian ‘parippu drops’ and the deployment of Indian troops in the North and East of Lanka till 1990, done under the deceit of an invite issued by the then Lankan President, is still indelibly etched in living Lankan memory and tends to act as a warning that history often repeats. Lanka has played into India’s hands by remaining mute while India has covered herself by not condemning the invasion.
But the power of diplomacy to protect Lanka’s independent status must never be underestimated.
The Government made the biggest budgetary allocation, a thumping Rs 373 billion, an increase of 14 percent from 2021, for the defence sector, more than the combined amount it made for health and education. It was justified on the basis that the nation must be ready and armed to defend itself against any foreign aggressor.
But as things stand today, Lanka’s defence forces will be unable to muster even a token defence against any foreign aggressor, with the soldiers confined to the barracks, with troop movement crippled by fuel shortages.
Thus it is clear that the only possible chance we have to defend Lanka’s territorial integrity is at global forums, not on the battlefield.