Open Letter to Sonia Gandhi

The following is a letter by V.R. Krishna Iyer, the distinguished retired judge of the Supreme Court, to Sonia Gandhi on the current developments in Sri Lanka. Krishna Iyer has sent the letter to us for publication in this journal. We are carrying it for the benefit of our readers.

Respected Madam Sonia Gandhi,

I address this letter to you both in your capacity as the President of the most powerful party in the country with the longest national tradition and also as having a decisive voice in matters of fundamental internal policy and vital foreign relations with direct impact on our country’s peace and development. This letter has one focus, namely, our relations with neighbouring Sri Lanka which has traditional and historic bonds with us; but closer ethnic and cultural ties and intimate people-to-people racial and theological communal intimacies.

My regard for you has many dimensions. You are an integral part of Indian political life. I knew Feroze Gandhi whom I have met and been impressed with his independent and justice-oriented perspectives on public issues. Equally associated was my nexus with Rajiv Gandhi who had certain developmentally embryonic facets, but in later days I had realised on meeting him on two or three occasions that had he been alive he would have shaped Bharat Mahan on a structural basis of panchayati raj in a unique developmental dimension far different from its present dependencia syndrome. Above all, I have been shaped in my political views by the great first Prime Minister of India who made that historic speech on the tryst with destiny We, the People of India made. An equally great appreciation of Indira Gandhi and close relations with her particularly because she had daring and original views on nationalisation of socialist secular democratic developmental creativity largely conditioned by her great father. All these have a place in my bosom when I write this first letter to you on the matter of great moment and deep sentiment to the Tamils of India.

The Tamils of India have cultural roots as old as Vedic and Upanishadic wonder which we regard as our proud heritage. Tamil culture has spread to neighbouring countries with a hegemonistic infiltration into the national cultures of many Asian countries. In short, Tamil is not just a language, it has ancient depths, oceanic expansion and legends upon legends which mould the thinking operations of generation after generation of the Southern States of India, their peoples, their languages and letters. All these are at stake when we talk of Indo-Sri Lanka relationships with the great Lord of Sri Buddha of India which is the majority religion of the Sinhaleese of Sri Lanka. That beautiful island is part of the chronicle of Ramayana and is therefore inseparable from the epic chapters of ancient India. I narrate in fragmentary fashion only to emphasise the need for a sense of history in appreciating the mental matrix of South India and the crisis in that island of escalating violence. Whoever wins the battle between the Tamils and the Sinhaleese the island’s solidarity and the Indo-Sri Lanka estrangement will suffer aggravation. India shall not miss a great creative opportunity at this moment to take a military statesmanship and Buddhist peace vision towards this Indian Ocean imbroglio so that peace in Colombo may be a positive contribution and Indo-Sri Lanka cordial relations a multi-racial-linguistic reality.

The Government of India must be deeply involved in this bizarre issue as it affects intangibly but importantly so that the racial fraternity and ethnic amity between the Tamil-Sinhala country and Delhi, is not merely an inter-state dispute, much deeper than that. The whole people of Sri Lanka with their cultural-linguistic militancy are likely to be ever in harmony with India, the land of Buddha and Asoka. Therefore, this alienation will be followed up by Assam and other disgruntled States, a divisive fissiparous disastrous tendency for a country already weakened by various fratricidal forces. At this critical hour, I appeal to you: Madam Sonia and your historic party have a nationalist role to play. Sri Lanka is not just another country for India but have very many mutual matters and epic associations from Ramayana downwards which require discussions and happy harmonious sentimental bonds, Buddha and Shiva included. This is a perspective of statesmanship altogether. This is the Nehuruvian global vision beyond politics. Kindly consider the importance of the solidarity and friendly relations between our two countries. Tamils versus Sinhala cannot be decided by a brute majority or barbarian bombing incompatible with Buddha and Asoka. We know the history of Pakistan, how it separated from India, and how Bangladesh broke away from Pakistan on cultural-linguistic suppression. Splinter groups of today, the Sri Lankan President must know, will become breakaway states tomorrow. India is a hegemony in the Indian Ocean and cannot be indifferent to turbulence. I need not elaborate longer but leave it to you to take a Nehruvian, Gandhian perspective of this intricate international issue. Sri Lankan deterioration is not their only concern. This has been established by world history. To protest and act in time is a necessity. If you fail, our generation has let down Bharat and its people.

So I plead with you to act now when violence is at its worst bitterness. The gun is not the answer. Whoever wins the battle in the long run humanity loses the war. Somehow, Colombo takes a terrible traumatic view of wiping out the Tamils by
Sinhalese supremacy tearing off the entire cultural edifice of the province of peace the world has seen.

I have a gut feeling that had India creatively intervened in Sri Lanka early enough both Prabha-karan and Colombo and the entire people both Tamils and Sinhalese would have listened and positively reacted to India’s voice of peace. Even today when the military offensive has reached a crescendo and the Tamils as a race are on the verge of the vanishing point, their close relatives in Tamil Nadu are shocked at India’s indifference because Delhi belongs to the North and not to the South. We cannot wait or delay longer now till disaster overtakes the millions of Tamils’ future. To protest in time is an invitation to Hindus hiding in history to manifest blood for blood and milieu. “They came for the Jews and I did not protest because I was not a Jew, then they came for the communist and I did not protest because I was not a communist, then they came for the trade unionist but I did not protect because I was not a trade unionist, then they came for me and there was none to protest.” Protest in time or you lose the glory of history.

Prabhakaran caught and shot or killed will never see the end of the internecine fratricide. Democracy and socialism have different semantics. Therefore a global outlook on this terrible crisis cannot be resolved merely by bombing and killing Tamils, horrendous casualty and innocent carnage; human history is made of sterner stuff, Madam Sonia.

My appeal to you is on behalf of the millions of peace-loving masses and thoughtful intelligentsia to one whose word today is a political force in
India.

Sinhala Colombo must learn the greatness of Lord Buddha. Read Vivekananda on this prince of peace:

Unity in variety is the plan of the universe. We are all men, and yet we are all distinct from one another. As a part of humanity, I am one with you, and as Mr So-and-so I am different from you. As a man you are separate from the woman; as a human being you are one with the woman. As a man you are separate from the animal, but as living beings, man, woman, animal, and plant, are all one; and as existence, you are one with the whole universe. That universal existence is God, the ultimate Unity in the universe. In Him we are all one. At the same time, in manifestation, these differences must always remain. In our work, in our energies, as they are being manifested outside, these differences must always remain. We find then that if by the idea of a universal religion it is meant that one set of doctrines should be believed in by all mankind, it is wholly impossible. It can never be, there can never be a time when all faces will be the same. Again if we expect that there will be one universal mythology, that is also impossible, it cannot be. Neither can there be one universal ritual. Such a state of things can never come into existence; if it ever did the world would be destroyed, because variety is the first principle of life. What makes us formed beings? Differentiation. Perfect balance would be our destruction. Suppose the amount of heat in this room, the tendency of which is towards equal and perfect diffusion, gets that kind of diffusion, then for all practical purposes that heat will cease to be. What makes motion possible in this universe? Lost balance. The unity of sameness can come only when this universe is destroyed, otherwise such a thing is impossible. Not only so, it would be dangerous to have it. We must not wish that all of us should think alike. There would then be no thought to think. We should be all alike, as the Egyptian mummies in a museum, looking at each other without a thought to think. It is this difference, this differentiation, this losing of a balance between us, which is the very soul of our progress, the soul of all our thought. This must always be.

And practice Buddhist principles of no war, no communal discord and effective fellowship of faiths.

Of Asoka, H.G. Wells wrote in the Outline of
History thus:

For eight-and-twenty years Asoka worked sanely for the real needs of men. Amidst the tens of thousands of names of monarchs that crowd the columns of history, their majestics and graciousnesses and serenities and royal highnesses and the like, the name of Asoka shines, and shines almost alone, a star. From the Volga to Japan his name is still honoured. China, Tibet, and even India, though it has left his doctrine, preserve the tradition of his greatness. More living men cherish the memory today than have ever heard the names of Constantine or Charlemagne.

With high regards,

Yours sincerely,

V.R. Krishna Iyer

April 30, 2009