Calcutta Diary

AM What is now happening in Sri Lanka is known in the language of commerce as subcontracting. The Sri Lanka president has subcontracted the job of restoring law and order in his country to our prime minister. The Indian fire-power, once it has succeeded in killing off a few thousand Tamil activists, would perhaps be able to enforce a kind of silence in the island. The discontent will smoulder inside though, and peace and amity will remain distant entities. Hatred toward Indians and the Indian regime will be the only common point binding the Sri Lanka Sinhalese and the Sri Lanka Tamils.