Sethusamudram:
Can Sri Lanka Speak?
By Dr. T T Sreekumar
25 September, 2007
Countercurrents.org
One
of the important issues in the Sethusamudram debates is the near total
obliteration of the Sri Lankan perspective(s) by the Indian Media. Understanding
the Sri Lankan perspective(s) is critical for two reasons. First, it
is more than evident that the canal will be in India but its impacts
would cross Indian territories with the suspended sediments and dredged
toxins affecting the bio-domains surrounding Sri Lanka. Second, given
the shared concerns of food security, arms race, unresolved national
struggles (Elam, Kashmir etc.) and continuing sectarian social conflicts
in the region, an India-centric view on bilateral and multilateral issues
such as defence, environment, foreign policy and economic growth is
politically inadequate.
To develop and uphold a larger
South Asian perspective on the Sethusamudram project appears to be as
critical as the need for such a position on the India-US nuclear deal.
Both issues have some striking similarities. The Indo-US 123 deal would
culminate in an increased mutual distrust between Pakistan and India,
inducing unprecedented escalation of defence expenditures in both countries
in particular and South Asia in general resulting in further State withdrawal
from public investments and infrastructure projects leading to increased
rural unemployment, marginalization and pushing food insecurity along
threatening boarders. Sethusamudram project has also been similar in
its impacts given the strategic, environmental and economic import of
its long term impacts for the region. It threatens the livelihood of
millions of people and make whole of South India and Sri Lanka vulnerable
to natural calamities in unimaginable proportions comparable to that
of the sublime terror unleashed by Tsunami waves.
The discourses on the Sethusamudram
project in India have tended largely to ignore the various views and
concerns raised by civil society and media in Sri Lanka. The Indian
debates are cantered on an astonishing ignorance and/or indifference
about the decade long deliberations on the topic by social, environmental
and human rights movements, scientists, writers, intellectuals, artists
and fisher communities in Sri Lanka. The movement against Sethusamudram
project in Sri Lanka has a history that offers lessons on understanding
the potentials and limitations of democratic struggles for right to
livelihood in South Asia while pointing to the deepening crevasses between
State and civil society in almost every nation and nationality in the
subcontinent. The concern about the regional implications of the Indo-US
deal is also peripheral to Indian media.
It is important to note that
the Sri Lankan State appears to have given its nod to the project against
the wishes of its people. The ‘official’ position has emerged
in the last few years following bilateral discussions, which in many
ways resembles Indo-US Nuclear negotiations. The Sri Lankan government,
even as late as 2005 has been demanding the establishment of a standing
joint mechanism for exchange of information. It wanted to set up a common
data base on the hydrodynamic modelling, environmental measures and
impact on fisheries resources, fisheries dependent communities and measures
to cope with navigational emergencies. The discussions, however, has
not led to the achievement of the level of transparency in the implementation
of the project as these concerns still remain unsettled. The degree
of coercion India might have employed to extract a forced consensus
from the Sri Lankan State as US has been trying with Indian State in
the 123 deal somehow does not figure prominently in Indian discussions.
Political parties including
those preach internationalism have been guided primarily by parochialism
and self serving patriotism typified in their differential positions
on the issues of Sethusamudram and 123 Deal. Reports on the Indian side
showing a resolute refusal to address the concerns raised by the various
Sri Lankan delegations that visited India during the negotiations have
been suppressed. The fact that every single evidence, challenging the
economic and environmental viability of the project, has been dismissed
by the Indian side and that it has not been subjected to the media criticism
it deserves can be seen as an indication of the media complacence (if
not compliance) in the hegemonic overdrive that characterizes India’s
foreign policy in the region. It is difficult to dismiss as a coincidence
that the issues of ‘sea tigers’ and Katchatheevu had always
figured prominently in the mainstream media’s imaginative narratives
as well as in affirmative technocratic discourses on Sethusamudram project
in India.
The two meta-narratives in
India, the one which wants everyone to view the issue primarily from
a national security and/or economic angle and the Hindutwa view which
wants to highlight the mythological importance of the Ramsethu as a
cause and occasion for consolidating its waning influence have received
the maximum attention in the Indian debate. Communalization and ‘nationalization’
of the issue by BJP led NDA and Congress led UPA–CPM alliance
respectively has resulted in a highly uneven debate on the issue.
The fact is by now clear
to observers that Hinduthwa nationalism would morph into an opportunistic
economic nationalism while in power and would divorce it while in opposition.
This is just one of the interesting crude empirics of fascism, an analysis
of which does not necessarily hinge on its inevitable iteration. Hence
invoking the genealogy of the project to NDA period to rebuff BJP’s
current opposition to the project is only self serving for the ruling
UPA-CPM alliance. Fortunately for the ruling alliance, no archives of
past CPM position on the NDA initiative appear to be available. Against
the grain, I want to believe that the old leadership of that party might
have wanted to oppose it on internationalist and environmental principles.
Civil society would not necessarily
want (or not want) BJP’s support in this struggle. But it certainly
would want to oppose the UPA-CPM alliance’s rather hegemonic opportunism
as reflected in their differential approach to US Nuclear deal and Sethusamudram
project and an aggressive divisive politics of communalization unleashed
by the NDA. Indian media taking a broader South Asian perspective in
this regard would provide a critical support for the Sri Lankan movement
against Sethusamudram canal and deeply challenge the collective hallucinations
of the consolidated ‘secular’ Indian response.
Dr. T T Sreekumar
is Assistant Professor of Communication & New Media Programme at
National University of Singapore E-mail: [email protected]
, [email protected]
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