Sethusamudram Project: Can Sri Lanka Speak?

September 29th, 2007

By Dr. T T Sreekumar

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.

[Meeting with Srilankan Delegation on Aug 1, 2005]

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.

[Sethusamudram Project Inauguration]

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: sreekumar@nus.edu.sg , sreekumartt@gmail.com

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