India’s new envoy to Sri Lanka, Taranjit Sandhu

India’s new envoy to Sri Lanka, Taranjit Sandhu, presents credentials COLOMBO: Taranjit Singh Sandhu, the new High Commissioner of India in Sri Lanka, presented his credentials to Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena here on Tuesday.  Among those present on the occasion were Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera and the Deputy High Commissioner of India, Arindam Bagchi. High Commissioner Sandhu is a career diplomat with nearly thirty years of experience. Prior to his current assignment, he was Deputy Chief of Mission at the Embassy of India in Washington D.C. He had earlier served in Indian Missions in Moscow, Kiev, Washington D.C., Colombo, New York and Frankfurt, besides discharging various responsibilities at the Ministry of External Affairs in New Delhi.

An alumnus of St.Stephen’s College in Delhi, Sandhu headed the Political Wing in the High Commission in Colombo from December 2000 to September 2004.

2000-2004 was an exciting period in the recent political history of Sri Lanka marked by political instability, a looming threat from militant Tamil separatism, and a divisive, foreign-brokered peace process.

On return to Sri Lanka now, High Commissioner Sandhu will see a very different alignment of political forces. He will also see the machinations of a new external force- China- which is threatening to supplant India and the West as a force in the island.

 

Divisive Peace Process

 

After the December 2001 parliamentary elections, there was a  “cohabitation government” in Sri Lanka in which the principle partners were the directly elected Executive President, Chandrika Kumaratunga, belonging to the Sri Lanka Freedom Party led Peoples’ Alliance (PA), and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe who belonged to the rival United National  Party (UNP). While President Kumaratunga had over-riding constitutional powers, Prime Minister Wickremesinghe enjoyed majority support in parliament.

But as feared, they could not pull together. The President and the Prime Minister were sharply divided on economic management, the way in which the Tamil problem should be approached, and the way the war against the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) should be fought.

In this midst of this stand off, in 2002, Wickremesinghe went in for a Norway-brokered Ceasefire Agreement (CFA) with the LTTE without taking the President on board first.

Expectedly, the  CFA only widened the rift between Kumaratunga and Wickremesinghe. Kumaratunha opposed the CFA tooth and nail on the grounds that it was grossly weighted in favor of the Tamil rebels and that the Wickremesinghe regime was giving in to the Tigers’ outrageous demands meekly, thus seriously jeopardizing national security.