When uninvited India planes entered Sri Lanka

New Delhi: The attack by Indian Army against a Naga insurgent group’s terrorist camps located in the jungles of neighbouring Burma appears to have pumped up the BJP and its ministers, with junior I&B minister Rajyavardhan Rathore, a former colonel, making an enthusiastic tweeting reference presumably to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “56-inch chest” (Mr Modi’s own words in the Lok Sabha election campaign last year).

But last Tuesday’s cross-border excursion was not the first example of unilateral action by India’s military. It was the Indian Air Force that had moved in June, 1987 at the behest of Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, if we are not to count Operation Polo against the Nizam’s Hyderabad state in September 1948, and the vivisection of Pakistan in 1971. In order to choke off supplies to the LTTE, the Sri Lankan government had placed the country’s Tamil north under embargo, causing an enormous food shortage and humanitarian distress. India responded on June 3, 1987 by sending a Coast Guard flotilla laden with food that was stopped by the Sri Lankan Navy in the Palk Straits at the dead of night and urged not to enter Sri Lankan waters. The Indian boat did turn back, but the government’s mind was clearly made up, as became subsequently clear to accompanying journalists, including this writer.

In an atmosphere of the utmost secrecy, the food packets were loaded into a train at Rameswaram whose destination was Bangalore, though we did not know it then. When we disembarked hours later, we were driven to the Yelahanka air force station and then flown in transport planes (along with the foodstuff) into Sri Lankan air space, escorted by fighter jets. After dropping thousands upon thousands of food packets over the Jaffna region, we landed at the Palaly Air Force base and drove into town to a hero’s welcome.

This was wilful violation of a neighbouring country’s air space in pursuit of foreign policy objectives, and must have been particularly galling to President Jayawerdene’s Colombo as it came after the refusal of permission to the Indian Coast Guard to deliver food. The Jayawerdene government responded with strong protests about the violation of its sovereignty, something which the Myanmarese government has not done this time round but signed the India-Sri Lanka agreement on July 29, barely seven weeks later, with the Rajiv government, the first instance of Indian coercive diplomacy.

Unlike the Sri Lanka government then, the Myanmarese government appears to be on board, else there would have been a diplomatic fallout with the Chinese ready to fish in troubled waters.

Can similar action be easily contemplated against Pakistan? Unlike Myanmar, this particular neighbour is a known state sponsor of terrorism and runs terrorist camps along its border with India and Afghanistan. For that reason, it also keeps itself better fortified in the border regions, including possibly with tactical nuclear weapons to deter India. A wholly different set of calculations will have to go into a cross-border hit at terrorist camps in Pakistan-controlled areas, including preparing for a broader conflagration.