A Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led team, which is currently on a tour in Sri Lanka, has told the war-ravaged Lankan Tamils that India is ready to provide the “healing touch” but it cannot be expected to solve their political problems.
Interacting with a wide cross section of political parties and civil society in Jaffna on Wednesday, the leader of the six member team, Rajya Sabha member Ravi Shankar Prasad, said that India was aware that the Tamils of the Northern provinces needed a healing touch and assured them that India was with them.
However, he made it clear that Lankan Tamils should not expect India to solve their political problems. These would have to be solved by the people themselves through participation in the domestic political processes, he said.
India did not have a magic wand to solve their problems, he said.
Prasad also made it clear that India saw Sri Lanka as a friendly country and would never de-stabilize it.
The six member Indian team, which has a representative of the Shiv Sena (Suresh Prabhu), an RSS official (Ram Madhav), a political commentator (Swapan Dasgupta) and a human rights activist cum advocate (Monika Arora), was presented a kaleidoscopic view of opinions in Lanka’s Tamil-speaking Northern Province. The team met pro-government and anti-government groups separately, besides top civil and military officials.
Members of the team showed keen interest in the issues the Tamils were facing and asked probing questions. On Thursday, the team met MPs from the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) at Hilton Hotel in Colombo.