Lankans welcome India's new Security Advisor

Lankans no longer look at Dixit of 1980s as a pusher of 'Indian hegemony', but as a favourable light, writes PK Balachanddran.

In the late 1980s, when JN Dixit was the Indian High Commissioner in Colombo, Sri Lankans across the political and ethnic spectrum saw him as an abrasive pusher of 'Indian hegemony' over them.

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The accusation then was that he was more a "Viceroy of imperial India" than an ambassador of that country.

Both, the majority Sinhalas and the minority Tamils, felt he was forcing the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord of 1987 down their throats.

But seventeen years down the line, a sea change seems to have occurred. Dixit is now being seen in a favourable light.

By and large, Sri Lankans, whether Tamil or Sinhala, welcome his appointment as the National Security Advisor (NSA) to the new Indian Prime Minister, as a positive development. Even the cynics want to wait and watch before committing themselves one way or the other.

R Sampanthan, who had interacted with Dixit closely in the 1980s, as a top leader of the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF), said he had a "deep understanding" of the problems of the Sri Lankan Tamils and their legitimate aspirations.

"He has immense experience, which will stand him in good stead as the National Security Advisor to the Indian Prime Minister," Sampanthan told Hindustan Times over phone from Trincomalee.

Sampanthan, who is now a Member of Parliament belonging to the pro-LTTE Ilankai Tamil Arasu Katchi (ITAK), said that the new Congress-led Government in New Delhi, unlike the earlier BJP-led one, had many in the top rung with a very good understanding of the Sri Lankan situation.

He recalled the intense involvement of the present External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh and the present Finance Minister P Chidambaram in India's bid to find a negotiated settlement of the Tamil question under the prime ministership of Rajiv Gandhi.

In an editorial on Friday, Sudar Oli, the unofficial LTTE mouthpiece, said that Dixit would surely have learnt lessons from the events of the past. He would no doubt remember the high material and human cost of the Indian intervention of the 1980s and the ignominy suffered by India in the eyes of the international community as a result of that misadventure, the paper said.

Sudar Oli noted that Dixit had changed his views since his retirement from the Indian foreign service. In his writings and speeches after retirement, Dixit had been taking a middle and unbiased line, in contrast to his reactions while in service which tended to be " hurried, thoughtless and abrasive," the paper said.

"If he continues to show such maturity in the present high post, he will do India and the regional environment a lot of good," the paper said. But it also warned that Dixit could well use his Chanakyan skills to obtain his foreign policy objectives cleverly exploiting the inherent weakness of the coalition Government in New Delhi, which is headed by a softliner like Manmohan Singh.

The majority Sinhalese view Dixit somewhat differently from the Tamils.

"I do not know if the Dixit of today is the same as the Dixit of the 1980s or how influential he will be as National Security Advisor, compared to his predecessor Brijesh Mishra. But I suppose he will continue to be anti-LTTE. I think it is a positive development from Sri Lanka's point of view," said Sinha Ratnatunga, the editor of Sunday Times.

Leading political commentator and former Sri Lankan Ambassador, Kalyananda Godage said, Dixit would bring to his new job a " very deep understanding" of the Sri Lankan situation.

"Dixit knows the complexities of the problem and he is also familiar with all the major players here. This will help him formulate an objective assessment of the situation in the island," Godage said.

Though Dixit had certain misconceptions while he was the High Commissioner in Colombo, he had corrected his notions later, the Sri Lankan commentator observed.

"While he was here he thought that the Sri Lankan Muslims were Tamils (because they spoke Tamil). He also did not realise the importance of obtaining a Sinhala or southern consensus for a political settlement of the Tamil question. But his later writings showed that he had realised his mistakes," Godage said.

Dixit's appointment as NSA to the Indian Prime Minister is being welcomed from the security angle too.

"He has a profound understanding of the security dimension of India-Sri Lanka relations. He has also accepted the change in the relations between India and the United States. The development of a strategic and economic partnership between India and the US is good for us. All in all, Dixit's appointment is a positive development for Sri Lanka," Godage said.