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Lakshman Kadirgamar

Presentation by Lakshman Kadirgamar, P.C., M.P. on "Securing South Asia", at a seminar titled "The Peace Dividend: Prosperity for India and South Asia", organized by the "Hindustan Times" in New Delhi on December 12-13, 2003

Today, when we speak of the security of a State we no longer mean its physical security alone. When we speak of strategy we no longer mean military or defence strategy alone. The concepts of security and strategy have acquired a much wider connotation.

They involve all matters relating to the maintenance of the stability and the enhancement of the prosperity of a country and of the region in which that country is situated. The ongoing process of globalization has inculcated an awareness of interdependence among countries, certainly in regional terms if not yet fully in global terms. Thus, political instability in a country threatens not only its own security but the security of its neighbours.

So with financial and economic instability; whereas bilateral or multilateral trading and fiscal arrangements, defence pacts and other forms of conventional military collaboration, would tend to promote national and regional security. Thus, when we address the subject of "securing South Asia" we must necessarily contemplate not the security of individual States in isolation, in a parochial sense, but the security of South Asia as a whole, in a collective sense.

Mr. Chairman, at the outset I wish to place before you a possible conceptual framework within which the question of securing South Asia could be considered.

My starting point of reference is first, that the political will to forge a cohesive and concerted association amongst ourselves is the very essence of regional security and cooperation, Secondly, the measure of regional security and of regional cooperation then becomes the degree to which we are able to agree about the intrinsic character of our region, where we each stand in relation to the others, what the impact is upon us, severally and collectively, of the prevailing external order, and how best we should respond thereto, Thirdly, in my view the only way to such agreement, if indeed it can ever be achieved, is to talk freely and frankly to each other, in order to minimize, hopefully eliminate, misunderstanding and achieve mutual trust and confidence.

Today, across the globe, regional groupings tend to overlap because shared economic and political interests among discontiguous neighbours tend to converge. Thus, today it any of us were to see our destiny as lying along the path of engagement with others outside the region, as well as with our neighbours within South Asia, it cannot reasonably be argued that thereby South Asian unity would be denied or diminished.

However, if our regional unity is to be preserved and promoted each regional member State must address this core issue of political will from the standpoint of its own situation. I mean by that, its geographical location, historical experience, and chosen national aspirations. If the process of addressing that core issue can, nonetheless, be undertaken collectively, then the prospects of reaching agreement, and thereby of forging regional cohesion would stand greatly enhanced.

That is why we in Sri Lanka (and this is conspicuously a shared approach among all our political parties and throughout our citizenry) lay such store by developing a process of free and frank exchanges amongst our neighbours, to facilitate that process. It is to that same end that I direct myself on this occasion, by attempting to provide you with a Sri Lankan perception of the region, and of where we stand within it.

Let me first try to identify what I perceive to be certain unchangeable and inescapable regional realities, and then say, something about our own regional position. Then, against the backdrop of the conceptual framework that I am laying before you I will draw attention to certain developments that are taking place in Sri Lanka which could threaten the legitimate interests of India and thus overall affect the security of South Asia collectively.

The first regional reality is India's preponderance over all others in South Asia. It is a preponderance based upon size, resources, development and power, allied to influence. A second reality is India's unique centrality. No two others amongst ourselves can interact directly with each other without touching or crossing Indian land, sea or air space.

Also, with each of her neighbours India has special ties - whether of ethnicity, language, culture and kinship, or of common historical experience, of shared access to and dependence upon vital natural resources - of a character and to a degree of intensity which is not shared by any two others.

There is a third reality too which bears directly upon the other two. It is the co-terminality of the national borders of regional member States with those great natural physical barriers which encompass South Asia - the Himalayas and the Indian Ocean.

I believe it is fair to say that no other region in the world presents such an integral security zone. The force of that point may perhaps be the better appreciated if one were to consider the analogy of a wheel. At its hub lies regionally preponderant India. Radiating as spokes are India's regional neighbours, with each of whom India shares land or maritime boundaries, but no two others of whom are thus joined without at the same time touching India also.

Binding those spokes to that hub are the physical barriers which I mentioned. Recognition of this characteristic, of the security of the region being an integer, a thing complete in itself, was of course central to the administration of the British Raj. Given her preponderance and centrality within the region it would not be surprising, indeed it would be wholly logical, if India viewed her security along similar lines.

That is to say, India may justifiably regard any alien presence or influence within those natural security borders, which was not there with her own acquiescence, as a potential threat to her national security.

I said earlier that each regional member State was likely to view both the region and its place in it from the particular standpoint of its own national situation. Having briefly indicated how the region appears to a Sri Lankan, let me say something of where Sri Lanka stands, within the region.

We are a small island exposed to a vast ocean on all sides, upon and beneath which man and his machines, benign or evil, may undertake ventures beyond our limited ken. At the northern tip of our island, we share a maritime boundary with our only visible neighbour, so to speak, across a waterway no wider than a mere short dash by fibreglass boat with outboard motors.

That neighbour also happens to be one of the world's largest, most populous and potentially powerful nations. The proximity of India, the 'India factor", if one may so describe it, is a cardinal factor in our lives, as a nation.

There is of course much more to that India factor than the proximity of neighbourliness. To begin with, there is no other neighbour equally powerful and proximal to countervail India. Then, there is India's huge advantage in disparity of resources, levels of development, power and influence globally. We have with her the widest interaction between peoples and governments, and it thus lies with her to help or hinder us to the greatest extent.

In this context there are three elements of the "India factor" which vitally affect governance in Sri Lanka. First, when our domestic political and military problems descend into crisis, we would be well advised, as indeed major world powers have advised us publicly on the record, that India being indisputably the pre-eminent regional power, with a special responsibility for regional stability, to avail ourselves of that factor: namely, of India's help in resolving any of our internal crises.

The second element is the Tamil connection between ourselves and Indian Tamils, principally in Tamil Nadu State but also elsewhere in that country. The third element is what I may call the "backyard concept", that is to say that Sri Lanka is India's expose southern flank. With regard to the second element, the large Tamil population in South India gives India a special concern with the Sri Lanka Tamil question.

Let me emphasize my view, however, that to concede such a special concern is by no means to acquiesce in unwarranted Indian interference in our affairs, as such. It must, nonetheless, be recognized that, if the situation of Sri Lankan Tamils becomes seriously disadvantaged, no Indian government of the day can shut its eyes to that situation and those consequences because the "spill over" effect of those consequences on Tamil Nadu would inevitably and compulsively engage the attention of the government of that State and the central government of the day. Hence, it is an obvious conclusion that ideally the Tamil question within our polity should be so managed as to preclude the need for Indian concern, far less involvement.

However, it would be wholly unrealistic for anyone to claim that under no circumstances could India have a legitimate concern with the management of certain aspects of our internal affairs.

The third element stems from our own geographical location vis-a-vis India. As I said Sri Lanka is India's exposed southern flank. It thereby becomes a matter of vital concern for India as to who comes and goes, and what happens, in Sri Lanka. I hark back to my earlier observation, that given the unique character of the region which makes it an integer, in terms of security, India is likely to worry, and to worry legitimately, about any alien presence in Sri Lanka, worse still involvement, which precludes her.

The point of interconnection is this: should, for instance, a Sri Lankan government of the day, facing an internal crisis concerning the Tamils there, be seen by India to engage the involvement, especially the military involvement, of any other regional member, far worse an outside power altogether, in its resolution, then it would be only fair to surmise that the Indian government of that day will be hard put, whatever moral underpinning is cited to the contrary, to keep its gaze firmly averted in an attitude of studied nonchalance. No Sri Lankan would presume to suggest that this subjective view should be regarded as an objective yardstick of measurement for use by any other regional partner. It is advanced here as no more than an aide to discussion amongst us, of and in the region.

The bottom line of regional security and of cooperation will always remain that measure of agreement which we are able to achieve in synthesizing our respective national perceptions about the region's relationship to the wider world beyond.

To construct a meaningful regionalism in South Asia, though, we have no other option but to test those national perceptions against each other's in free, frank and accommodating discussion, which is at all times informed by a discernible desire to find common ground. If we are able to forge an effective regionalism, built upon and around the strengths of our region, and present to the demanding world beyond a cohesive and concerted collectivity, I believe the rewards would be significant, for each and all of us. If we fail in that endeavour, undoubtedly some amongst us would be able to survive and even to prosper. Others, though, will stand deeply disadvantaged. For the small and weak amongst us, there can be no question but that regionalism is our future.

The question which the bigger and stronger amongst us must surely address is whether or not their own future would also stand enhanced or retarded by joining with the others in that regional exercise would be enhanced.

In 1996, the Minister of External Affairs of India, Shri I. K. Gujral, delivered a speech at the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London on the "Foreign Policy Objectives of India's United Front Government". It was a speech of majestic sweep, elegant and refined and, above all, of almost startling candour.

I spoke earlier of the significant asymmetries of the region in size, human and material resources, levels of economic and technological development and military power. I spoke of India's huge preponderance. I said that the order of the day has to be the give and take of generosity and matching appreciation; that sort of interaction more than ever requires empowerment by political will.

In that London speech, in a passage of enormous significance for the whole region, Shri Gujral made exactly that commitment of political will on the part of India to mitigate the impact of the asymmetries I referred to earlier.

(To be continued)

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