We sat for juices and tea in Colombo. An ex-army man ran the stall. He served during the Tamil-Sinhalese civil war that subsumed North Sri Lanka.

“The Indian Prime Minister Indira Ghandy, thought of Sri Lanka as the 25th state of India”, he remarked. “Why?”, I asked. “The politics of Tamil Nadu required that Indian politicians do something about supporting Tamilians in Sri Lanka”, he responded, “infact, even LTTE was trained by the Indian army”. “That’s a tall claim!”, I countered.

[Some further background here, after the murder of Indira Ghandy, Rajiv Ghandy won with a thumping majority. So, he probably didn’t have to care about Tamil Nadu politics anymore. That’s probably why, he made a U-turn and decided to send Indian Peace Keeping Force. This action, probably seen as a betrayal by Tamilians, led to his assassination via a suicide bombing attack].

Looking at disbelief in my eyes, he shared a story of a peace meeting called by the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF). “So, we were heading to meet the Tamil National Alliance for peacekeeping with TELA. The IPKF and we were sitting there. The TELA guys enter. And one of them salutes the Indian Army officer! The officer felt dismayed. I asked how do you know this officer? And he said that the IPKF officer trained him!”