Book by ex-U.S diplomat says country should have then sent troops to Sri Lanka to kill or nab Prabakaran
India should have sent its troops back to Sri Lanka to kill or capture Velupillai Prabakaran and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) leadership after the assassination of the former Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi, says a new book by a former U.S. diplomat.
Rajiv Gandhi's killing was an attack on India's status as a regional power. Forcibly bringing Prabakaran to India to face trial would have sent a clear message to the region, and the world, that India would defend its political leaders from attack, defend its political system from intimidation and defend its primacy in South Asia against any challengers, the author says.
A frightened India became content with being a passive regional power rather than active global power, says the book China's Nightmare, America's Dream: India as the next global power by William H. Avery, former American diplomat.
Mr. Avery was on posting in India and served in the U.S. Department of State during the Presidential tenures of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.
“India's window of opportunity to influence Sri Lanka will never be as wide open as it was in 1991 after Rajiv's killing,” the author says, adding that India's craven inaction in Sri Lanka after the assassination cost it valuable years in its quest to become a global power.
The events of 1991 that included the shame of having been required to sell its gold and killing by a terrorist organisation of its former Prime Minister were a low point in the history of modern India.
Seven years after its annus horribilis, India, however, was able to make its first crucial step towards true power — the move that stunned the world — and earned India virtually universal approbation. “But history has proven India's 1998 nuclear test to have been a wise choice,” says Mr. Avery. The Pokhran test changed India overnight into a ‘frontline' post in the U.S. Foreign Service. It also made India a much more interesting assignment for an American diplomat, the author says.
Keywords: William H. Avery, India's foreign policy, Eelam War, Rajiv killing, Prabakaran, LTTE, India-Sri Lanka ties
Rajiv Gandhi's assassination is an inside job and that explains the inaction by the then Indian government.
India will never be a global power, India need leaders with global leadership to be a global power and they lack global leaders. The Indian leaders are internal looking state leaders and not global leaders, just being an economic power house does not mean a country is a global leader. U
Recognition to a nation comes either from superior economic capability demonstrated by strong trade relations especially with the U.S or from military superiority that will keep the stronger military powers thinking (like the Phokran demonstartion) and the neighbors cautious of making military threats. Indian political leaders did not have the willingness or the ability to do demonstrate nuclear prowess post Rajiv killing and it took quite a while to bring India in the limelight once it established nuclear capability. It is unfortunate that India did not rise to the occasion as well/as soon as it should have – but there is a lesson that India has learnt and will benefit from it. Meanwhile the worldwide spectators will continue to chew on the fodder and continue to despise India of her inglorious days until such time when India truly becomes a super power with demonstrable success in economic, political and social front and an unmatched unity amongst citizens driven by a zeal for glory.
It is extremely curious that a US diplomat makes such a preposterous statement. Trying to go after Osama Bin Laden, hasn't the US learnt how costly it is/was in Afghanistan? And he is talking about Prabhakaran who was not caught for 30 some years by the Sri Lankan army which knows that country's terrain. LTTE was probably several times more organized and equipped than Taliban. What chances would the Indian Army have had - much as the Sri Lankans would have been happy to hand Prabhakaran on a platter to India, it would have been like looking for a needle in a haystack.
Rajiv Gandhi's assasination is due to our poor security arrangements. India has done right by not sending it's troops to Sri Lanka. Our troops are to defend our borders and not for getting into other country's border.
Had it learnt a lesson from that incident, Mumbai type attacks would not have happened.
India needs another 3-4 decades to establish itself in the world order. I hope congress leadership's mentality will change by then and they too take firm decisions.
Sri lankans want to live peacefully with its neighbours now that their terrorist problem has been solved after 30 years of cruel war which resulted not only is the death of hundred thousand Sri lankans but over thousand jawans, Rajiv Ghandhi and a president Premadasa among others.
Sri Lanka is not a rich country. it spend Billions of dollars fighting an unnecessary war. It cannot do everything with its limited resources to satisfy the so called "do gooders"in the world. the most India could have done was to try and give sri lanka little more time to implement recommendations in LLRC report.
we saw how India handled the Mumbai probelm. It took hours to mobilise the Indian troops to kill just 7 terrorists. At that rate Indians would have got massacared in Sri Lanka trying to look for Prabakaran.
India has its own problems like controlling lightly armed Maoists to deal with where they seem have to got bogged down.
so all I can say to India is to heal thyself first.
@veera arunagiri
Sri Lanka is not a threat. Sri Lankan people are peace loving and take care of them selves. They don't want to influence other people or betray their neighbors. Can you just think back few weeks and say how India helped Sri Lanka in the last UN session? To make it worse, that decision was taken by influence of some terror loving people.
Mr. David Proon, there is nothing to scoff or belittle or mock at
Tamil Nationalism. After all, Tamils have been ruled by Tamil kings
for millennia. Then the Moguls ruined the region with invasions and
destruction. Only in the last couple of centuries, the Brits came in
and unionized the region for ease of administration. We still call
people of Germany, France and England respectively as Germans, French
& English and not as Europeans. Language is an important part of
national identity, at least in Europe, even though the European
languages have common Roman script. Brain washing is done only in
Tamil Nadu schools about the so called Indian History and certainly
not about Tamil Nationalism. People that espouse true Tamil
Nationalism, are very scholarly with great thinking power. Having said
that, if the whole world is one country, it would be much better. We
are all destined to live in this planet and God did not draw the
boundaries.
Rajiv killing was unfortunate , because of that so many innocent Tamil's has been killed and the dream of Tamil homeland is still nightmare, The Srilankan government always using India as a puppet and taking advantage , getting aids from India's enemies. As Indira Gandhi policy on balancing power in two communities in Srilanka always protect interest of India , Rajiv fails to follow his mother policy and wrongly guided by his advisers yielded bloodshed ethnic war in Srilanka. Now Indian counterparts China and Pakistan established their good relationship with Srilanka , now Srilanka becomes threat to India.
Tamil nationalism in India is a powder keg waiting to go off. Prabakharan may be long gone but the ideas associated with him and the LTTE remain strong and continue to be festered by groups like the DMK and others in the international Tamil diaspora. A new generation of Tamil youth are being brain washed and militarized in the very hearth of Tamil Nadu. It is only a matter of time before India is going to be faced with the cessation of Tamil Nadu from its union of states and becomes a sovereign nation. A country born for the progression of the Tamil identity, culture, language, arts and education. If the Indian government thinks that this issues is benign and is happy to throw its weight behind UNHR resolution against Sri Lanka then it needs to be aware that Rajiv Gandhi might not be the last Indian leader to suffer the same fate at the hands of Tamil nationalists.
The intolerance of Americans ego is the main reason for the disruption of peace and death of innocent civilians among the many third world countries. I think the leaders in 1991 had wisely refrained from such uphandedness.
This is shoot from the hip diplomacy. What else can one expect from a US diplomat. Also a catch phrase to promote the book. At one time US did every thing possible to destabilise India.
Did he (William H. Avery) ever thought of Government sponsored
terrorism?? Mr. William H. Avery should realize first that a word
terrorism is not meant only to a group fighting against a established
government, but it's also refer to act by any Government which provokes
it's military against innocent people. So where does he going to keep
Srilankan forces? So Mr. Avery should understand first the basic concept
before he writes a article and his article here shows immaturity.
Yes maybe in the current chaotic & war hungry environment; India looks soft, however when peace is restored and the world is freed from the clutches of Greedy Americans, the whole world would look upto India and what this great nation stands for.
Nice article,india's weakness exposed not only through this article but by army Chief as well,it seems that is why India is bowing to Amereica's dictertorship,India is going behind America for this very simple reason idia can not defend it from LTTE terrorism and Chine .Pakistan etc, that is why india is satisfying LTTE terrorist .LTTE and India know well that LTTE, once most ruthlees terrorist can target wherever,whoever want it, in India,already india has been disintegratrted by states ,cast,religion,water language etc -in fact Rajive Ganthi was a world respected leader after Mahathma ghandhi, he was torn apart by LTTE terrorist, the very terrorist leader, was once saved by Rajive ghanthi by giving his bullet proof jacket.so if India can not save it's leader from terrorist needles to say Pakistan ,china and other terrorist can target india at will ,how can india can compete with China,pakistan etc if they can not defeat thier creation LTTE who killed thousands of its forces
India's passive attitude towards eliminating Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka made it a
bystander when China seized the opportunity to actively support Lankan govt. India
will pay for this lapse geo-politically in the region for long years to come. India's
dream of reigning regional supremacy in the context of Lanka is likely to cause
several setbacks. Mark my words for review in 5 years hence.
India's second bloomer after Operation Blue Star was Operation Pawan, an utterly futile action in Sri Lanka dictated by a weird combination of an empty headed PM and a highly ambitious Army Chief. What precisely was the IPKF's aim? No one was clear. We lost some 1500 of our jawans in the process while trying to dictate terms to one of the world's most powerful guerrilla organisations, the LTTE. In the absence of a foreign policy doctrine, we forgot that as per UN mandate, a peacekeeping force must invariably be a multinational one and must not have any troops from a nation directly or indirectly involved politically with the country in question. Further, we doublecrossed the LTTE - while holding talks with it on the one hand, we ordered the IPKF to fight the LTTE on the other. Did we expect that Vellupillai Prabhakaran's cadres would tamely surrender? William Avery is talking through his hat!
It would be sad if we give any credence to an opinion just because it was from an American diplomat. If you look at their track record, and read books like 'Confessions of an Economic Hitman', you will find out that their end goal is a form of empire building. It is even sadder that India is now USA's regional deputy, and many Indians are proud of that.
India did a grave mistake of involving in the SL conflict directly. Like Indira Gandhi it should have continued to help Tamil groups like LTTE and they would have definitely got Independence by now. This way it could have satisfied Indian Tamils and had at least one friendly neighbouring country. Do not forget Prabhakaran always said "India is our father country".
All the officials who got involved from Indian side (former NSA, Foreign secretary) were even against Indian Tamils hence they wanted to see Tamils lose everywhere. There was no deep strategic thinking. The goals of our country were driven by few personal interest and wishes.
It is astonishing to read people justifying Indian strategy of "do nothing" in face of the assassination of its former and likely to be PM.
There are many things India could have done. It could have mounted precision air-strikes or commando raids to take out Prabhakaran. It could have adopted much stronger "No to LTTE" policy.
But then again, there is a reason nobody takes us seriously. We have not eliminated Dawood, the amir's of LET or JEM. Heck we are not able to execute judgements of our own courts when the culprits are in our own jails: Rajoana & Afzal Guru.
And to top it all, we want a veto wielding seat on the UN security council!
Is it not always for Indians,could have,should have or would have.
The Indians should take the Buddhist doctrine of here and now and no dill dallying has the nation can not take or make any decisions
hoping that the problem will disappear or let some on else make the decision so we can blame him.
This is the Indian way is it not?
Exactly! I have been saying this for years. I mean, they killed our Prime Minister, the peron we chose to represent our country. An attack on the PM is an attack on India. Forget about the the success in the operation to nab Prabhakaran. We could have at least given a warning to other nations to think twice before they mess with India.
The author's blurb for the book provides the following information: "William H. Avery – global business strategist and former American diplomat – is uniquely qualified to chart India's rise to global power. He served in the United States Department of State during the Administrations of Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, including a posting to India at the time of the 1998 nuclear tests. He has published extensively on both the global economy and American foreign policy. He graduated from Princeton University, summa cum laude, with a degree in History, and held a Fulbright Scholarship to Austria." Mr.Avery seems to belong to Kissingerian School of gung-ho American activism, which had had its tragic moments in Vietnam in the past, and currently in Afghanistan.
The former Indian PM's assasination is a very best example of the famous proverb, Man Proposes, God disposes....
True in every respects.Time and again India is proving to the a Soft state not capable of defending its citizens.
Thank you for reminding how close Indian state came to almost
disintegration from an International terrorist organization assassination of a former PM who was virtually on a come back trail to
grab the power. Ever since, unfortunately Indian Government
strategists seems to be like a rudder-less boat, been long adrfit of
strategy. The assasination of a none less than a former PM has been
forgotten by everyone including the ruling Congress Party. This was a
period where India has lost every available opportunity to demonstrate
it's global, not even regional power ambitions.
A country formulates its foreign and domestic policy based on its "national
conscience" and cultural influence. To expect India to retort in the same way US did
in Afghanistan and then a made a huge mess of it, is naivety.
This only confirms that the party in power has always been soft on foreign policy decisions
lacking Agressiveness and unwilling to make firm decisitions unlike BJP and it's decision in
1998 as mentioned by the US diplomats.
India has a long way to go before it develops the will to defend its interests outside its borders. Therefore, it will never be taken seriously by other nations in the region. Forget Prabhakaran, the government has yet to develop the backbone to carry out the court verdicts on terrorists like Kasab and Rajoana.
The former U.S. diplomat is absolutely right.
But the ramifications arising out of such adventure could have posed
the Indian government a rebellion from inside it's own territory. As
one could see there are as many Tamils from TN serving sentence in
jails as from Lanka for complicity in Rajiv's killing.
Secondly, the sending of IPKF into the island in 1987 to bring about a
lasting peace was met with stiff resistance not only by the LTTE but
also by the far-rights group JVP (Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna) from the
south of the country. The latter with the able support of the Lankan
govt joined forces with their own nemesis LTTE to rid the island of
IPKF in 1989.
So the choice was between capturing or killing Prabhakaran by invading
thus creating as a result of which an upheaval among Tamils inside TN
and offering strategic and surveillance support to the Lanka govt from
outside. The latter sounded more pragmatic.
TO be very fair IPKF took a very severe beating in the Jaffana University siege. I don't think after that we were in a position to send in troops to Kill or Capture Prabhakaran.
It was a turning point in IPKF missions and the use of radios in Indian army.
Please look up the Jaffna University siege.
The art of governance is not only what you should do but also what you must not do. Launching a full fledged manhunt in Sri Lanka for Prabhakaran would have turned very expensive both in money and life. Several thousands of innocent Tamil lives, in addition to Indian soldiers, would have been lost and the Indian government would have been blamed for it. Sri Lankan government would have initially invited the Indian army to the manhunt and later laid a trap for its death as evidenced in the IPKF debacle. More importantly, the regional Tamil divisive groups, working against the Indian Union, were not given a chance to influence the Tamil populace. Instead, the Tamil populace reinforced their abhorrence for such divisive forces. I think the Indian think tank was wise in not pursuing such meaningless bravado, and instead focused on Rajiv's vision of steering India into the 21st century. Today India is one alphabet within BRICS could possibly be ascribed to such historical abstinence.
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