Sunday, May 5, 2002		Books

The colossal cost of keeping peace
Rashmi Sharma

Indian Peace Keeping Force in Sri Lanka 1987-89 by Lt Gen Depinder Singh Natraj Publishers, Dehru Dun. Pages 206. Price Rs 395

EVEN after more than one decade, one often ponders over the question whether the Indian military intervention in Sri Lanka was worth the loss of life and limb the Indian Armed Forces suffered, the enormous financial expenditure the country had to incur and the widespread criticism it evoked even among our countrymen?

We lost some 1500 soldiers who were killed. Three or four times this number were wounded, of which quite a few lost at least one limb. The financial crunch, always felt most by the soldier, sailor and airman, was such that some cantonments had finances to pay for only an intermittent electric supply not to mention the retardation that must assuredly have taken place in the modernisation programme of the Defence Services.

What is worse, for the first time, perhaps, the Armed Forces came in for widespread criticism for their action and, the ultimate ignominy, the two contestants whom we had gone to separate, so that they would not fight any more, ganged up to seek our ouster.

This is a complicated question as changing circumstances created different situations. For instance, in July 1987, the conditions were such that our intervention was vital. By October 1987, the situation had altered completely. Whether this happened through our political mismanagement, LTTE intractability and the inherent difficulty of transforming a liberation movement into a government, or some deep game the Sri Lankan Government played, is impossible to specify just yet: whoever was to blame the situation at the time was such that we could not pack our bags and get out, therefore, yet again, the answer must be that we had to stay. This is precisely what has been emphasised by Gen Depinder Singh in this book under review.

Some scholars argue that if we had not aided the Sri Lankan Tamil militants in the first place, there may not have been an insurgency and, therefore, no need for us to intervene. This argument misses the point that our aid to the militants was a consequence of the repression they were undergoing, it was not the cause. In any case, given the manner in which the Sinhala majority had succeeded in alienating the Tamils, aid to the latter would have come from some other source if India had been diffident about providing assistance. Apart from this justification for intervening militarily in this case, there was an even more valid reason and this was the invitation extended by Sri Lanka to India to dispatch a military force. ‘Operation Pawan’ demonstrated the country’s capabilities of projecting force outside its borders in the interest of regional security and its willingness to provide assistance whenever sought.

The book is an account of the bizarre and tragic twists and turns that the simple-sounding direction took. It is a left-handed salute to the LTTE, whose deviousness cannot overshadow their incredible motivation and magnificent fighting prowess for which the Indian Armed Forces will always have a healthy respect. More than anything else, this story is a tribute to the outstanding contribution of the Indian Armed Forces in ensuring that the Indo-Sri Lankan Accord, headed at one time for total political and diplomatic disaster, could be retrieved from the brink and put back on the rails.

In the present volume, the general has described the land and its people, the genesis of the ethnic strife. The planning and induction of the Indian soldiery and the battle for Jaffna have been properly chronicled, and the mistakes and shortcomings in our planning and execution have been honestly stated.

The insurgency stage after the capture of Jaffna has been adequately described, but why the IPKF could not have brought it to a successful conclusion has not been fully explained. Our troops have suffered heavy casualties in the operations in Sri Lanka. Why? The operations of the IPKF had not been the success they ought to have been. Why? The Indian Army is a professional Army. It has served with great success in various theatres and in different kinds of operations in the past, including the insurgency operations in the Mizo Hills Why then did it not have the same success in Sri Lanka?

All these questions have remained unanswered.

Notwithstanding all this, the other facts are put in their proper perspective and mistakes freely admitted, this readable account clears many misconceptions about the situation prevalent in Sri Lanka leading up to and during those two years. Junior leaders are given their chance, in this fascinating book, to explain how they coped with insurgency there.

The way all the different branches of the Armed Forces worked together to ameliorate Sri Lankan conditions is clearly brought out in the final chapter of the book. Altogether a rewarding reading experience for anybody with an enquiring mind, whether in Armed Forces or not.