Colombo’s strategy of regaining territory and denying the LTTE the population bases forced Prabhakaran to use his artillery and his pitiful “air force” of a couple of small aircraft in symbolic acts of defiance. The much vaunted Tiger Navy comprising speed boats had been confined to shallow water

lagoons and coastal water. The LTTE could never have matched the Sri Lankan military backed by the state’s entire capacity to continue the war to the end. The Sri Lankan military’s extensive use of modern electronic and surveillance resources could not be matched by the hopelessly out-of- date technology of the LTTE. Prabhakaran sought to negotiate and re-start peace talks. He had burnt those bridges a long time ago by walking out of the internationally assisted peace process. The Tamil diaspora abroad, dispirited by Prabhakaran’s intransigence and inability to turn the peace process to gain a significant political dividend, could do no more than demonstrate in Western capitals before an uncaring global opinion.

As the military pincers closed in on him, Prabhakaran could have accepted the offer to lay down arms, then negotiate an outcome, stretch out the talks, work the global Tamil opinion and exploit the Indian Tamil sympathy to his advantage. He was, simply put, incapable of such thinking. This led to holding the Tamil population as hostage for his safety, with untold suffering to hundreds of thousands of people for whose well-being he had waged the three-decade-long campaign.

India and Sri Lanka both need to look beyond the immediate respective sense of their relief and jubilation. Flawed policies had led to a situation where a guerrilla leader had forced the Sri Lankan state on the back foot and forced it to negotiate under international guidance, which did no credit to its chauvinist leadership of the times. The Indian role in Sri Lanka — a combination of constructiveness, ambiguity and responsiveness to local political considerations — was far from perfect. It is time for the leadership of the two nations to reaffirm their commitment to secular ideals and begin the process of repairing the damage to the two countries’ political and social cohesion.

... contd.