By P.K. Balachandran, IANS
Colombo : Somawansa Amarasinghe, leader of the ultra nationalist Sri Lankan party Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), loves “Mother India” but hates her bureaucrats.
Amarasinghe, who has threatened to call for a boycott of Indian goods if New Delhi continues to “interfere” in Sri Lankan affairs, told the Daily Mirror Wednesday that he loved Indian culture and Mahboob Khan’s “Mother India” was among his all-time favourite movies.
But he added that he hated Indian officials who had made India look like a “monster”.
“We must not condemn Hindi cinema or Hindi songs or Indian people. A section of Indian bureaucrats is responsible for creating problems in Sri Lanka and in other countries in the South Asian region,” he said in reply to questions from readers.
“The people of Sri Lanka remember the anti-Sri Lankan activities (of) former Indian high commissioner J.N. Dixit. This kind of arrogant, conservative bureaucrats misled the politicians in India. Dixit’s arrogance misled (prime minister) Rajiv Gandhi. Ultimately, Rajiv gave his life, assassinated by his mother’s creation, the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam).
“He would have been living today if Indian bureaucrats respected Sri Lanka as India’s friendly neighbour, supported Sri Lanka to defeat separatist terrorism and safeguarded its sovereignty.
“These arrogant bureaucrats seem to have misunderstood Indian patriotism as subjugation of India’s neighbours,” Amarasinghe said.
Indian officials continue to mislead Indian politicians of the present day, alleged the chief of the JVP, which provides crucial support to the government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa.
“They are under the impression that India could assume the role of Big Brother in the region. It is our responsibility to convince Indian bureaucrats by using every possible means that the South Asian region is not going to tolerate any further their arrogance and that they will not be successful in their attempts to make India the Big Brother in the region,” Amarasinghe emphasised.
However, he warned Sri Lankans against denouncing Indian culture or opposing the Indian people.
“We must also be careful not to make mistakes by condemning Indian culture or their dress or Indian people. We should not treat the people of India as our enemies,” Amarasinghe stressed.
The Morning Leader, which carried excerpts from the JVP leader’s responses to questions from the public, pointed out that he had failed to state that it was India that helped him escape from Sri Lanka in 1989 when Colombo was set to arrest him for “murder, robbery, extortion, arson and offences against public property”.
That was when Sri Lanka violently crushed a JVP uprising that left thousands dead.
The weekly paper went on to recall that on his return to Sri Lanka from exile in Britain a few years ago, Amarasinghe told a public meeting that he was thankful to India for helping him escape.
In 1988-89, the government of president Ranasinghe Premadasa waged a relentless war against the JVP, exterminating the group’s top leadership.
Amarasinghe was the only JVP central committee member to escape the government’s official and unofficial killer squads.