India and Sri Lanka-
Jayalalitha's gambit
Banyan-Asia-Sep 6th 2012
ARE relations between India and Sri Lanka falling to bits, as various news outlets have suggested in the past few days? On the face of it, tensions are growing across the Palk Strait. Perennial problems over the harassment of Indian fishermen by Sri Lanka’s navy cause intense anger in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Now Sri Lankan pilgrims have been attacked, their buses stoned, by Indian Tamils suspected to be sympathisers of the now-defunct rebel army in Sri Lanka, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
Sri Lanka’s government this week issued a travel advisory warning against visits to Tamil Nadu, where, in turn, the vociferous chief minister, Jayaram Jayalalitha, has been inveighing against anyone who dares show a friendly face to Sri Lankans. That a junior Sri Lankan football team was recently allowed to play in Tamil Nadu, she believes, was utterly unacceptable. She also is furious that a couple of Sri Lankan military types have been allowed to get some training and advice in India.
