| Indian intervention in the Sri Lankan civil war | |||||||
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| Part of theSri Lankan civil war | |||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||
 India Sri Lanka |  Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
PresidentR. VenkataramanPrime MinisterRajiv GandhiDefence MinisterV P Singh Maj.Gen.Harkirat SinghMaj.Gen.AM MalikMaj.Gen.Ashok K. Mehta | Velupillai Prabhakaran | ||||||
| Units involved | |||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| 100,000 (peak) | Unknown | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| 1,165 killed, 3009 Wounded[1] | LTTE: 5000+ killed and wounded (Indian claim) | ||||||
TheIndian intervention in the Sri Lankan civil war was the deployment of theIndian Peace Keeping Force in Sri Lanka intended to perform apeacekeeping role. The deployment followed theIndo-Sri Lankan Accord between India and Sri Lanka of 1987 which was intended to end theSri Lankan civil war betweenseparatistSri Lankan Tamil nationalists, principally theLiberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), and theSri Lankan Military.
The original intention was the Indian Peace Keeping Force would not be involved in large scale military operations. However, after a few months, the Indian Peace Keeping Force engaged the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in a series of battles. During the two years in which it was deployed, the IPKF fought numerous battles against the LTTE. During 1989, the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE reached to an agreement and ceased the combat. From May 1989, the Sri Lankan government started to provide weapons to the LTTE for securing the departure of the IPKF. On June 2, the Sri Lankan government asked IPKF to leave and an official ceasefire agreement between the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE was signed on June 28.[2] In 1990, the IPKF withdrew under the government ofV. P. Singh afterRanasinghe Premadasa asked IPKF to leave at the time when the LTTE was almost defeated.[3]
The LTTE and other Tamil militant groups developed strong relationships with political parties in South India, such asDravidar Kazhagam (led byK. Veeramani),Kamaraj Congress (led byNedumaran) andPure Tamil Movement (led by Perinchintanarayanan) during late 1970s.[4] These Tamil parties firmly backed the militants' cause of creating a separate TamilEelam within Sri Lanka.
According toRejaul Karim Laskar, a scholar ofIndian foreign policy,Indian intervention in Sri Lankan civil war became inevitable as that civil war threatened India’s "unity, national interest and territorial integrity."[5] According to Laskar, this threat came in two ways: On the one hand external powers could take advantage of the situation to establish theiroverseas bases inSri Lanka thus posing a threat toIndia, and on the other, theLTTE’s dream of a sovereignTamil Eelam comprising all theTamil inhabited areas (of Sri Lanka) posed a threat toIndia’s territorial integrity.[5]
The LTTE and other Tamil militant groups developed strong relationships with political parties in South India, such asPure Tamil Movement (led byPerunchithiranar),Dravidar Kazhagam (led byK. Veeramani),Kamaraj Congress (led byNedumaran) during the late 1970s.[4] These Tamil parties firmly backed the militants' cause of creating a separate TamilEelam within Sri Lanka. Thereafter, LTTE developed relations withM. G. Ramachandran andM. Karunanidhi, who served asChief Minister of Tamil Nadu, succeeding one another.
Although Sri Lanka was a key member ofNon-Aligned Movement in its initial stages, theGovernment of Sri Lanka's policies became pro-western asJ. R. Jayewardene was electedprime minister with his landslide victory in1977 parliamentary election. Subsequently, he introduced a new constitution andopen economy to Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka is the first South-Asian country to adopt liberal open economy.[6] Together with these developments, India was also concerned about
Moreover,President J. R. Jayawardene did not enjoy the same warm relationship withIndian Prime MinisterIndira Gandhi that he had enjoyed with her father, Prime MinisterJawaharlal Nehru.[4] Thus, with the outbreak ofBlack July racial riots, the Indian government decided to support the insurgent groups operating in Northern Sri Lanka.[8]
Beginning in August 1983, till May 1987, India, through its intelligence agencyResearch and Analysis Wing (R&AW), provided arms, training and monetary support to 6 Sri Lankan Tamil militant groups, namelyLiberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE),Tamil Eelam Liberation Organization (TELO),People's Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE),Eelam Revolutionary Organisation of Students (EROS)Eelam People's Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF) andTamil Eelam Liberation Army (TELA).[citation needed] Even the state governments or Sri Lankan opposition leaderAppapillai Amirthalingam were not aware of such a mission until April 1984.[citation needed] The LTTE's rise is widely attributed to the initial backing it received from RAW.[citation needed] It is believed that by supporting different militant groups, the Indian government hoped to keep the Tamil independence movement divided and be able to exert overt control over it.[9]
During that period, 32 camps were set up all over India to train these militants.[4] However Prime Minister Indira Gandhi maintained the position that "We have never interfered with the internal developments of any country in the past and we will not do so now." Contrary to her statement, 3363 Tamil insurgents, including 10 batches of LTTE (405 men and 90 women) were given military training to fight against Sri Lankan armed forces during the succeeding years.[10] Initially 350 TELO cardres were trained atDehradun, in the hills ofUttar Pradesh. It was followed with training for 200 cadres from EROS, 100 from EPRLF, and 70 from PLOTE.[7] LTTE was the last insurgent group to enter the training.[citation needed] First batch of Tigers were trained inEstablishment 22 based inChakrata,Uttarakhand. Second batch was trained inHimachal Pradesh. 8 other batches of LTTE were trained in Tamil Nadu.[citation needed] Ironically,Thenmozhi Rajaratnamalias Dhanu, who carried out theassassination of Rajiv Gandhi and Sivarasan - the key conspirator were among the militants trained by RAW, inNainital, North India.[11]
India became more actively involved in the late 1980s, and on 5 June 1987, theIndian Air Forceairdropped food parcels toJaffna while it wasunder siege by Sri Lankan forces. At a time when the Sri Lankan government stated they were close to defeating the LTTE, India dropped 25 tons of food and medicine by parachute into areas held by the LTTE in a direct move of support toward the separatists.[12] Further Sri Lanka government accused, that not only food and medicine but weapons were also supplied to the LTTE.[13] Negotiations were held, and theIndo-Sri Lanka Peace Accord was signed on 29 July 1987, by Indian Prime MinisterRajiv Gandhi and Sri Lankan PresidentJayewardene. Under this accord, the Sri Lankan Government made a number of concessions to Tamil demands, including adevolution of power to theprovinces, a merger—subject to later referendum—of the Northern and the Eastern provinces into thesingle province, and official status for theTamil language (this was enacted as the13th Amendment to the Constitution of Sri Lanka). India agreed to establish order in the North and East through a force dubbed theIndian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF), and to cease assisting Tamil insurgents. Militant groups including the LTTE, although initially reluctant, agreed to surrender their arms to the IPKF, which initially oversaw a cease-fire and a modestdisarmament of the militant groups.
The signing of the Indo-Lanka Accord, so soon after JR Jayawardene's declaration that he would fight the Indians to the last bullet, led to unrest in south. The arrival of the IPKF to take over control of most areas in the North of the country enabled the Sri Lanka government to shift its forces to the south (in Indian aircraft) to quell the protests. This led to anuprising by theJanatha Vimukthi Peramuna in the south, which was put down bloodily over the next two years.
While most Tamil militant groups laid down their weapons and agreed to seek a peaceful solution to the conflict, the LTTE refused to disarm its fighters.[14] Keen to ensure the success of the accord, the IPKF then tried to demobilize the LTTE by force and ended up in full-scale conflict with them. The three-year-long conflict was also marked by the IPKF being accused of committing various abuses of human rights by many human rights groups as well as some within the Indian media. The IPKF also soon met stiff opposition from the Tamils.[15][16]
Operation Pawan was the codename assigned to the operations by theIndian Peace Keeping Force to take control ofJaffna from theLTTE in late 1987 to enforce the disarmament of the LTTE as a part of theIndo-Sri Lankan Accord. In brutal fighting that took about three weeks, the IPKF wrested control of theJaffna Peninsula from LTTE rule. Supported byIndian Army tanks, helicopter gunships and heavy artillery, the LTTE were routed; however, the IPKF lost 214 soldiers in the hostilities.[17]
The Jaffna University Helidrop was the first of the operations launched by theIndian Peace Keeping Forces (IPKF) aimed at disarming the Tamil Tigers (LTTE) by force and securing the town ofJaffna,Sri Lanka, in the opening stages ofOperation Pawan during theactive Indian mediation in the Sri Lankan Civil War. Mounted on the midnight of 12 October 1987, the operation was planned as a fast heliborne assault involvingMi-8s of theNo. 109 Helicopter Unit, the10th Para Commandos and a contingent of the13th Sikh Light Infantry. The aim of the operation was to capture theLTTE leadership atJaffna University building which served as thetacticalheadquarters of the LTTE, which was expected to shorten Operation Pawan, the battle for Jaffna. However, the operation ended disastrously, failing to capture its objectives -owing to intelligence and planning failures. The heli dropped force suffered significant casualties, with nearly the entire Sikh LI detachment of twenty nine troops falling to the heavy fortifications of the university and fighting until death, along with six Para commandos falling in battle.
Nationalist sentiment led many Sinhalese to oppose the continued Indian presence in Sri Lanka. These led to the Sri Lankan government's call for India to quit the island, and they entered into a secret deal with the LTTE that culminated in a ceasefire. But the LTTE and IPKF continued to have frequent hostilities. In April 1989, theRanasinghe Premadasa government ordered theSri Lanka Army to clandestinely hand over arms consignments to the LTTE to fight the IPKF and its proxy Tamil National Army (TNA).[18][19] Although casualties among the IPKF mounted, and calls for the withdrawal of the IPKF from both sides of the Sri Lankan conflict grew, Rajiv Gandhi refused to remove the IPKF from Sri Lanka. However, following his defeat in Indian parliamentary elections in December 1989, the new Prime MinisterV. P. Singh ordered the withdrawal of the IPKF, and their last ship left Sri Lanka on 24 March 1990. The 32-month presence of the IPKF in Sri Lanka resulted in the deaths of 1,165 Indian soldiers and over 5,000 Sri Lankans. The cost for theGovernment of India was estimated at over₹10.3billion (equivalent to₹130 billion or US$1.5 billion in 2023).[20]
Support for the LTTE in India dropped considerably in 1991, after the assassination of ex-Prime MinisterRajiv Gandhi by a female suicide bomber namedThenmozhi Rajaratnam. The Indian press has subsequently reported that Prabhakaran decided to eliminate Gandhi as he considered the ex-prime minister to be against the Tamil liberation struggle and feared that he might re-induct the IPKF, which Prabhakaran termed the "satanic force", if he won the1991 Indian general election.[21] In 1998 a court in India presided over by Special Judge V. Navaneetham found the LTTE and its leader Velupillai Prabhakaran responsible for the assassination.[22] In a 2006 interview, LTTE ideologue Anton Balasingham stated regret over the assassination, although he stopped short of outright acceptance of responsibility for it.[23][24]
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