{"id":110594,"date":"2021-01-10T18:37:44","date_gmt":"2021-01-11T01:37:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=110594"},"modified":"2021-01-10T18:38:23","modified_gmt":"2021-01-11T01:38:23","slug":"the-quad-halved-then-drawn-and-quartered","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2021\/01\/10\/the-quad-halved-then-drawn-and-quartered\/","title":{"rendered":"The Quad halved, then drawn and quartered."},"content":{"rendered":"

MALINDA SENEVIRATN\u200bE<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n
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This column focuses on local politics. As opposed to global affairs. However, \u2018local-global\u2019 is, as sociologists would point out, a false dichotomy. What happens or rather can happen here is by and large determined by overarching global political and economic structures. Local affairs don\u2019t always shape global processes unless the particular \u2018local\u2019 enjoys privileged position in the overall structure, but they can inform the manner in which particular countries or country-collectives  engage.

Let\u2019s start with a few examples.

The previous government was the darling of Western powers. The leaders believed that the West would help. Then came Brexit. The leaders got the jitters. Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe suddenly opened his eyes and saw \u2018The East\u2019. This, after seniors in that administration, before and after the January 2015 election had made many disparaging comments about China, as one would expect for their view of the world was largely a matter of echoing the voice of Washington.
So, in essence, Britain sneezed and these ladies and gentlemen caught a cold.

That\u2019s one side of the coin. The USA-led section of the \u2018international community\u2019 spared no pains to rubbish the Mahinda Rajapaksa regime. It is no secret that Maithripala Sirisena\u2019s campaign was actively backed by the USA. The language of engagement with \u2018Sri Lanka\u2019 changed. The US mission in Colombo, hell-bent on hauling Sri Lanka over the coals with respect to largely inflated horror stories about the war, suddenly wanted the local Tamil allies to go easy on human rights. Come 2019 November the tone changed. Now this is not strange. One does not deal with known friends in the same way that one engages with perceived enemies.

This week, the global touch was inescapable for different but not unrelated reasons. A US story and an Indian story dominated political headlines, the former on account of the assault on Capitol Hill, Washington by supporters of Donald Trump and the latter having to do with the visit by the Indian Foreign Minister Subramanyam Jaishankar. The former is distant but makes for interesting comment considering Washington\u2019s use and abuse of democracy. Sorry, the term \u2018democracy.\u2019 So let\u2019s start right there.

On Wednesday supporters of Donald Trump, convinced that their champion had been robbed, gathered outside the Capitol building. They forced entry into the chamber of the House of Representatives wanting Congress to discard the results of the November 3 election. Four died, one from gunshot injuries. Dozens were arrested. Congress prevailed and Trump, in a predictably roundabout way, grudgingly announced he would leave office.

Democracy is the word here. An election was held. Sorry, a selection, for that\u2019s essentially the political process which produces presidents in that country. Some claimed that there was jugglery. Some went to court. Court dismissed these petitions. Now, in the name of democracy, a bunch of irate Trump supporters (a minuscule minority of the voting population) decided that Congress should submit to their will. Trump, remember, lost the popular vote by a massive margin.  

The entire carnival showed up the farce that is US politics. First, the vast majority of these \u2018rebels\u2019 were white. The way that the authorities responded was in stark contrast to the way that the police reacted to peaceful protests against white police brutality and racism over the past seven months. Racism is what colors the \u2018fabric\u2019 and racism tore that cloth a long time ago or rather, racism ensured that the threads would never make a textile worth talking about.

Secondly, we have to measure this against the standard US narrative on democracy and democratization outside its shores. No country has prostituted these terms the way Washington has. The US has invaded countries, mis-described rag-tag agitators as \u2018pro-democracy masses\u2019 who were then funded and armed, orchestrated military coups, supported the butchering of pro-democracy protesters who had been duly called \u2018insurgents\u2019  and dropped bombs. All in the name of democracy.

As a wit put it, \u2018due to travel restrictions, Americans had to invade their own country this year.\u2019 Here\u2019s another that\u2019s making the rounds on social media: \u2018The US has invaded the US to spread democracy.\u2019 And here\u2019s the plum atop the pudding: \u2018The US is honestly just a comedy show to the rest of the world right now.\u2019

If only we could laugh! It\u2019s no laughing matter to the victims of systemic brutality and racism in the USA. It\u2019s no laughing matter to the recipients of \u2018Democracy \u2014 US style.\u2019

The Biden administration will no doubt say \u2018that\u2019s all Trump stuff\u2019 and maintain the Washington Doctrine on International Affairs. Washington is quiet now. That \u2018little affair\u2019 has been sorted out. Democracy, they\u2019ll say, has won the day. It will be business as usual. The US will resume lecturing the world about democracy, peace, human rights, co-existence and reconciliation. Representatives of the nations targeted will have to swallow down the giggles, IF they do see the hypocrisy that is \u2014 let\u2019s not bet on that!

India. That\u2019s the other big story. In your face and all. But first a preamble. India is part of the Quad, i.e. the shorthand for the Quadrilateral Security Dialog which includes the USA, Japan and Australia. The purpose is to contain China\u2019s rise, the \u2018Asian NATO\u2019 as some call it, never mind that the USA is not part of Asia. The big Sri Lankan story for the USA in recent times was the MCC Compact. The Gotabaya Rajapaksa government didn\u2019t play ball. The US Embassy in a statement informed one and all that the deal was off. Chagrin was written all over it. The local \u2018friends\u2019 warned of serious repercussions. The UNHRC sessions are just weeks away. And we have Jaishankar visiting Sri Lanka.

Jaishankar, a retired diplomat and former Foreign Secretary, is well-known for working out \u2018friendship\u2019 with the USA and is mentioned for his role in the Indo-US civilian nuclear agreement. Just the other day, he signed on behalf of India, the Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement on Geospatial Cooperation (BECA) with the USA. The two countries are the more vocal of the four that make \u2018The Quad.\u2019 India, moreover, has expressed concerns about the so-called Chinese footprint in Sri Lanka, never mind the bloodstained Indian footprint courtesy the Indo-Lanka Accord of 1987. The IPKF left, but the footprint remained. Jaishankar even mentioned it.

Sure, he spoke of the sweetener in all the deals he made or wanted to make with Sri Lanka in the pursuit of the eminently defensible \u2018India First\u2019 foreign policy of his government. He spoke of the Covid-19 vaccine. It is, as yet, untested. It is not expensive. India will give some vaccines FoC and some on a concessionary loan, most likely. Vaccine or not, only 0.5% of the infected will succumb to the virus. What\u2019s the price Sri Lanka has to pay, though? Why, the 13th Amendment or more!

Jaishankar, addressing the media, used Eelam-speak. \u2018A united Sri Lanka\u2019 he said. Now \u2018unity\u2019 cannot be legislated. A federal arrangement does not necessarily mean unity and neither does a unitary system. Jaishankar doesn\u2019t know, hasn\u2019t been told or knows and ignores the fact that the two main candidates at the last presidential election, Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Sajith Premadasa both pledged to uphold the unitary status of the country. Almost 95% of the country\u2019s voting population voted for these two candidates.

Jaishakar doesn\u2019t care. He has a script. He reads from it.

\u2018Our support for the reconciliation process in Sri Lanka is long standing,as indeed for an inclusive political outlook that encourages ethnic harmony. It is in Sri Lanka\u2019s own interest that the expectations of the Tamil people for equality, justice, peace and dignity within a united Sri Lanka are fulfilled.that applies equally to the commitments made by the Sri Lankan Government on meaningful devolution, including the 13th Amendment to the Constitution.\u2019<\/em>
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s a lecture. He or rather India wants Sri Lanka to inhabit his\/India\u2019s version of Sri Lanka\u2019s reality. What\u2019s the reality? The 13th is a white elephant. Romesh De Silva, who heads the experts\u2019 committee tasked to draft a new constitution said as much about ten years ago. We have not had Provincial Council elections in years. No one has complained. Things could be better but no will argue that things are worse on account of PCs remaining dissolved.
 
The Indian foreign minister met with the President, Prime Minister and his Sri Lankan counterpart. It might appear that his powwows with the leaders of Tamil parties and the Leader of the Opposition Sajith Premadasa were cursory affairs but one hesitates in concluding thus. After all, the proposals to the constitution-drafting committee submitted by both the Tamil National Alliance and the Thamizh Makkal Tesiya Kootani both want the unitary character of the state undone. \u2018Unity\u2019 is the word both these entities use. Just like Jaishankar.

India or rather Delhi has a political issue to resolve in Tamil Nadu. There\u2019s opposition to Delhi\u2019s drive to make Hindi a national language in that state. Tamil Nadu is ok with \u2018One India\u2019 but not a \u2018One India where Tamil could get diluted vis-a-vis Hindi.\u2019 Appeasing Tamils in Sri Lanka, perhaps Delhi believes, might help sort out the political problem in the southern part of the country. \u2018Help\u2019 is the key word. It won\u2019t be enough, but it\u2019s not a stone that they would want to leave unturned.

Any devolution that grants control of parts of the country to Tamil political formations, they might believe, would compromise the integrity of the Sri Lankan state. The US could obtain by way of price an MCC Compact without an MCC Compact, so to speak. We don\u2019t know if Jaishankar murmured \u2018Geneva\u2019 in his discussion with the president, prime minister and the foreign minister, but certain things can be said in silence.

There would have been talk of the contentious Eastern Terminal. India\u2019s port development operations in the Andaman Islands is not a secret. Compromise the Colombo Port and Delhi is in easy sea-street.

There\u2019s more local play to this story. Sajith Premadasa appointed Dayan Jayatilleke as his advisor on international affairs. Dayan\u2019s genuflection before India is legendary. Not surprisingly, in an article published immediately after his appointment, Dayan responded to an announcement by the Chinese Ambassador Qi Zhenhong, who said, \u2018China will promote the alignment of the \u2018Belt and Road Initiative\u2019 (BRI) with President Gotabaya Rajapaksa\u2019s Vistas of Prosperity and Splendour\u201d manifesto to promote economic and social engagement between the two countries.

Now, there are two ways to interpret this statement. One is to believe that whatever part of the BRI that\u2019s promoted will be framed by what\u2019s pledged in Rajapaksa\u2019s election manifesto. Nothing wrong with that. Dayan worries that it\u2019s the other way about. He asks the legitimate question: \u2018If President GR\u2019s Sri Lanka has joined hands with China to respond to challenging international and regional situations according to a consensus between the two leaders, how will it take a nonaligned, equidistant or balanced stand with regard to US-China internationally and India-China regionally?\u2019

He is the international affairs guru of the Opposition Leader and therefore the ball is in the court of Dinesh Gunawardena. He has to respond to this question.

Dayan, in the same article (\u2018The Xi factor, Delhi\u2019s deterrence, and the Pakistan model\u2019 in the Daily FT), berates the government for postponing the PC elections.  He worries about what the new constitution would and would not do, never mind that we are yet to see a draft and never mind that obtaining the two-thirds parliamentary majority to get it passed will not be easy.

\u2018The new Constitution will kill the 13th Amendment and the semi-autonomous PC system, de-linking the Sri Lankan state from the Indo-Lanka Accord, removing not only a counterweight to de facto military rule over the island but also a buffer against any potential foreign presence in Trincomalee contrary to the Accord\u2019s Annexures.\u2019<\/em>

All this, yes, all of it, is almost like a speech written in Delhi. Consider this part: \u2018a buffer against any potential foreign presence in Trincomalee contrary to the Accord\u2019s Annexures.\u2019 That\u2019s the Indo-Lanka Accord. The annexures do talk of foreign presence but entities OTHER THAN INDIA! For Dayan, India is not \u2018foreign\u2019. Her footprint is alright. Is India part of Sri Lanka? Would Jaishankar respond to this question, \u2018Yes, most certainly!\u2019? Of course not. The implication is that Sri Lanka is part of India or rather India\u2019s plaything. Pawn. There\u2019s Indian hegemony written all over Dayan\u2019s and therefore Sajith Premadasa\u2019s and the Samagi Jana Balavegaya\u2019s position on these matters.

And Jaishankar, kindly, invites Sajith Premadasa to visit Delhi. Maybe he will also facilitate a meeting between Prime Minister Modi and the likes of M.A. Sumanthiran and C.V. Wigneswaran, a meeting that such politicians must have requested repeatedly from Indian diplomats in Colombo who they meet with frequently.

Meanwhile, former Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe although in desperately depleted circumstances has chipped in with a request of his own. Yes, Jaishankar covered all the bases, even those that have become politically redundant. Wickremesinghe requested Jaishankar \u2018to expedite the supply of the COVID-19 vaccine to Sri Lanka.\u2019 Yes, that\u2019s the sweetener.

What\u2019s the price and who pays it? No one will ask Wickremesinghe. The likes of Premadasa need not answer. The likes of Dayan Jayatilleke are not required to answer and anyway, as has been the practice of this colorful commentator, he will use one convoluted argument after another, replete with selective examples from history and convenient quotes from theoretical texts to conclude \u2018it\u2019s worth the price!\u2019.

The Government on the other hand, cannot beat around the bush. What\u2019s the price you want us to pay for India\u2019s \u2018amazing\u2019 vaccine, Mister President? What was agreed on our behalf and why?

Well, folks, that\u2019s it for this week. A week where the local was more-than-usually overshadowed by \u2018the international\u2019 and where one half of \u2018The Quad\u2019 dominated. We\u2019ve drawn and quartered, but just in an analytical sense. We would not be presumptuous to claim anything more! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

malindasenevi@gmail.com<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MALINDA SENEVIRATN\u200bE This column focuses on local politics. As opposed to global affairs. However, \u2018local-global\u2019 is, as sociologists would point out, a false dichotomy. What happens or rather can happen here is by and large determined by overarching global political and economic structures. Local affairs don\u2019t always shape global processes unless the particular \u2018local\u2019 enjoys […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-110594","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-malinda-seneviratne"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=110594"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110594\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}