The Indo-Lanka Accord: Peace on Paper, War in Reality

By Jihan Hameed
The Nationalist 

From Black July to the Indo-Lanka Trap

How Sri Lanka Was Betrayed from Within and Invaded from Outside 1983 to 1987

Act I – The Internal Collapse JR’s Calculated Gamble

In July 1983 President J R Jayewardene was under pressure Economic frustration youth unrest and declining Sinhala middle-class support were rising fast His open market policies had deepened inequality and anger was bubbling

Then came the LTTE ambush that killed 13 soldiers Instead of calming tensions JR let it explode He delayed curfews allowed the police and army to stand back and let the mobs burn Colombo What followed was Black July A pogrom against Tamil civilians over 3000 people killed homes and businesses torched and the whole country shaken

But this was no accident JR used it as a political tool To distract from economic collapse To silence Tamil separatism To rally Sinhala-Buddhist sentiment around him It was a gamble And it backfired

Act II – India’s Strategic Invasion Under the Guise of Protection

India saw the chaos as an opportunity Rajiv Gandhi under pressure from Tamil Nadu politicians presented India as the saviour of Tamils But it was all for leverage

Between 1983 and 1987 India didn’t just sympathise India trained and armed Tamil militants on its own soil India hosted LTTE camps in Tamil Nadu and poured weapons into the north While Sri Lanka bled India smiled as the so-called neutral peacebroker

They came claiming love for Sri Lankan Tamils Talking of Tamil aspirations and coexistence But this was crocodile love A mask to hide the real aim Power over Sri Lanka

By 1987 the LTTE was no longer a scattered rebel group It had grown into a full-blown insurgency backed by Indian money arms and protection JR had lost the north and with it his grip on the country

Act III – The Indo-Lanka Accord Blackmail Signed in Blood

By mid 1987 JR was trapped Losing battles losing legitimacy and under threat of Indian military action He gave in and signed the Indo-Lanka Accord on 29 July 1987

The deal was not a peace agreement It was constitutional blackmail It imposed the 13th Amendment It merged the North and East It introduced Provincial Councils It brought Indian troops onto our soil through the IPKF

JR signed it out of fear and guilt Guilt for Black July Fear of Indian invasion And desperation to restore order to a country he had pushed into flames India in return used humanitarian language to rewrite our internal system from the outside

Act IV – The Double Betrayal

Even the Tamil people were betrayed The LTTE rejected the Accord seeing it as Indian interference They turned on India and fought the IPKF in a brutal war Civilians were once again the victims caught between militants and foreign soldiers

Moderate Tamil politics had already died after Black July With the LTTE in full control the Tamil population had no voice of their own They were used by India and used by the LTTE

So while JR lost sovereignty and India gained strategic control the Tamil people were left stateless voiceless and pulled into a war they never voted for

Act V – The Long Shadow

From 1983 to 1987 JR engineered communal violence to save his rule and ended up losing the state

India armed the conflict then presented itself as the solution

The LTTE grew under Indian support then turned into a force that prolonged the war for decades

And the Tamil people were used by both sides as pawns in a foreign game

The Indo-Lanka Accord was never peace It was a foreign trap signed in desperation It brought constitutional damage created structural division and triggered thirty years of war

The Verdict

What began as a riot became a foreign takeover What began as state failure became national surrender

This was not just a mistake It was betrayal layered on betrayal

Sri Lanka still suffers from the 13th Amendment the broken Provincial Council system the division seeded in 1987 and the memory of a government that chose power over protection

It is time to say it clearly The 13th Amendment was imposed under threat and must be repealed It was rejected by the Tamil people and never accepted by the Sinhala majority

It is time to take our sovereignty back

– Jihan Hameed

The Nationalist 🇱🇰