Nothing to cheer over Sri Lankan election results

The return of the Rajapakse brothers to power in Sri Lanka is nothing to cheer about in India.

The victory of the younger brother, Gotabaya Rajapakse, in the Presidential elections, polling more than 13 lakh votes over his nearest rival, could be attributed to the Easter Day attacks in Sri Lanka that left close to 270 persons dead.

But what is sinister is that the elder brother, Mahinda Rajapakse, is also set to become the Prime Minister in another few months, which would lead to a re-run of the pre-2009 governance in the island nation.

Two significant things marked the previous regime of Mahinda Rajapakse as President with younger brother, known as ‘terminator’, functioning as Defence Secretary. One was the brutal elimination of the LTTE, followed by massive human right violations and alleged genocide. And the second one was Sri Lanka hobnobbing with China, mainly getting military support to fight the LTTE.

In the elections held on Novemeber 16, it was an open secret that many ethnic Tamils supported Sajith Premadasa, who came second in the election. Premadasa happens to be the son of President Ranasinghe Premadasa, who was killed by a suicide bomber during a May Day rally in 1993. Some Tamils were pitching for Shivajilingam, who was any way not close to winning the race.

The Tamils in Sri Lanka did not favour Rajapakse. Even India was accused of supporting Premadasa by none other than Mahinda Rajapakse. So, would the Rajapakse brothers be amenable to the idea of a cordial relationship with India? It is a different matter that the elder brother is an ardent devotee of Lord Venkateswara of Tirupati and regularly visits the hill shrine.

The pro-China slant of the Rajapakses is going to come in the way of establishing good diplomatic relationship with India, though the smaller nation may need the support of its bigger neighbor across the Palk Straits on various counts, particularly trade and economy. Yet, how much of leeway would the stranglehold of China allow Sri Lanka to foster good relationship with India is to be seen.

Also, when the popular mood in Tamil Nadu is against the Rajapakse brothers, who are seen as the main cause for the decimation of the LTTE in 2009, how much effort would the BJP government make to get close to Sri Lanka is not clear, particularly when the ruling party is trying to woo the voters of the southern state some way or the other.

So, the questions are, will the Indian government cosy along with the Rajapakse brothers just with the view to improving diplomatic ties with the southern neighbor and will Sri Lanka try to get closer to India at the cost of possibly antagonising its present powerful ally China, to which it is also indebted to.

Even if the two governments try and forge better relations, not taking into considerations other factors, how genuine can the friendship be, particularly when the Lanka-China ties are so strong and can be choking? Will the geo-political interests of China allow Sri Lanka to get closer to India?

Taking into account all these factors, the electoral victory of the former soldier in the elections does not augur well for India, which needs to extend its hand rather carefully. For, the track record of the two brothers, particularly the way their treated the Tamil people of Sri Lanka throwing human rights into the wind, is nothing to write home about.

The camps for the internally dispersed people and the restrictions imposed on the Tamils to prevent them from starting a new life even after the end of the war only go to suggest that the brothers might even crackdown on the Muslim population, particularly since they have cashed in on the collective fear invoked by the Easter bombings.

If the Sinhala people, who had rejected the Rajapakses in the previous election, possibly felt that Gotabaya in power could have prevented the Easter bombing incidents, it is only because he played his cards well, pinpointing an alleged security lapses that led to the large-scale bloodbath and death of innocent people.

But it is perhaps a tragedy that the Sinhala population had not reckoned with the possibility of Sri Lanka being pushed into a military state internally and into the vice grip of China, whose priority is to have a military presence in the Indian ocean with a view to keeping an eye on India, externally with the Rajapakse brothers at the helm of affairs.

Meanwhile, the brothers are also expected to, as they themselves have said, review the 19th amendment to the Sri Lankan Constitution, which diluted the powers of the President. So, there is also the possibility of Gotabaya Rajapakse striving to hold absolute power and deprive other communities of their rights as his elder brother has done in the past.

(The author is a Chennai-based senior journalist)