Framers of the country’s neighbourhood policy will face a litmus test in future in bringing about harmony and trust between the Centre and contiguous border States, according to a book on India’s Sri Lanka policy to be launched on Friday.
Emphasising that the policy must be formulated in consultation with the contiguous border States, the book, Haksar on India’s Sri Lanka Policy, says India’s relations with several of its neighbours will have an immediate impact on these States.
Contending that “on several occasions, interests and sensibilities” of the States were not taken into consideration, the book gives two illustrations — bilateral treaties of 1964 and 1974 signed with Sri Lanka to settle the issue of 9.75 lakh stateless persons of Indian origin living in that country and an accord in 1974 on the ceding of Katchatheevu to Sri Lanka.
Authored by V. Suryanarayan, an expert in south and southeast Asian studies, and Ashik J. Bonofer, an academician, the book has used former Union Minister Jairam Ramesh’s book, Intertwined Lives: P.N. Haksar and Indira Gandhi, as the peg. It refers to letters by Haksar, who was Secretary and later Principal Secretary to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi during 1967-73, to Thomas Abraham, India’s High Commissioner to Sri Lanka (1978-1982) on the country’s policy on Sri Lanka, as shaped by Indira Gandhi and her special envoy G. Parthasarathi in 1983-84. The policy was based on certain assumptions, the prominent of which was that India was determined not to permit a military solution to the ethnic problem in Sri Lanka.
Recalling how former Prime Minister I.K. Gujral, as External Affairs Minister during the United Front government in 1996-97, got involved in West Bengal through Bangladesh in the successful finalisation of the Ganga Water Treaty of 1996, the new book contrasts this episode with Tamil Nadu where competitive politics, according to it, vitiated the political atmosphere surrounding India-Sri Lanka ties.
The virtual launch is likely to be attended by Mr. Ramesh, former Indian High Commissioner to Sri Lanka Gopalkrishna Gandhi, and former chief (intelligence) with the Indian Peace Keeping Force in Sri Lanka, R. Hariharan. The book has been brought out by the Centre for Asia Studies and Bookventure, Chennai.
