Why are relations between politically mobilised ethnic identities and the nation-state sometimes peaceful and at other times fraught and violent? Madurika Rasaratnam's book sets out a novel answer to this key puzzle in world politics through a detailed comparative study of the starkly divergent trajectories of the 'Tamil question' in India and Sri Lanka from the colonial era to the present day. Whilst Tamil and national identities have peaceably harmonised in India, in Sri Lanka these have come into escalating and violent contradiction, leading to three decades of armed conflict and simmering antagonism since the war's brutal end in 2009. Tracing these differing outcomes to distinct and contingent patterns of political contestation and mobilisation in the two states, Rasaratnam shows how, whilst emerging from comparable conditions and similar historical experiences, these have produced very different interactions between evolving Tamil and national identities, constituting in India a nation-state inclusive of the Tamils, and in Sri Lanka a hierarchical Sinhala-Buddhist national and state order hostile to Tamils' political claims. Locating these dynamics within changing international contexts, she also shows how these once largely separate patterns of national-Tamil politics, and Tamil diaspora mobilisation, are increasingly interwoven in the post-war internationalisation of Sri Lanka's ethnic crisis.

In this volume the author then GOC, Indian Peacekeeping Force (IPKF) gives a first hand account of the initial induction and operations of the IPKF in Sri Lanka. He describes the trials and tribulations of the IPKF as it grappled with an operational situation inexorably tangled with politics. The book gives an insight into how inadequately prepared the IPKF was for the task set out for it and explains how difficult it was to fight the LTTE guerrilla, especially when the Indian government itself was not clear about its political and military aims. It highlights the operations of the IPKF in Sri Lanka and attempts to set the record straight on a number of key issues, including the surrender of arms by the LTTE, and the famous 'boat tragedy'. The IPKF went in as peacekeepers, with the responsibility to disarm the LTTE, if necessary by force, and maintain law and order. But clear-cut orders regarding possible IPKF action against the LTTE was never issued. Therefore, when the time came to fight the LTTE the IPKF found itself at a disadvantage. This compelling narrative is an important addition to the extensive literature on the IPKF in Sri Lanka.

This book analyzes the performance and impact of the India–Sri Lanka free trade agreement over the past decade and suggests the way forward. India became an important source of imports for Sri Lanka immediately after the implementation of the free trade agreement. Bilateral trade between the countries increased steadily thereafter, with Sri Lankan commodities finding a large market in India. The composition of trade also changed with an increased number of new goods being traded. The book computes indices and suggests scope for deepening economic cooperation between the two countries by pruning the negative lists for trade in goods, identifying potential investment, and suggesting policies for expanding cooperation in services.

How did the British come to conquer South Asia in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries? Answers to this question usually start in northern India, neglecting the dramatic events that marked Britain’s contemporaneous subjugation of the island of Sri Lanka. In Islanded, Sujit Sivasundaram reconsiders the arrival of British rule in South Asia as a dynamic and unfinished process of territorialization and state building, revealing that the British colonial project was framed by the island’s traditions and maritime placement and built in part on the model they provided. Using palm-leaf manuscripts from Sri Lanka to read the official colonial archive, Sivasundaram tells the story of two sets of islanders in combat and collaboration. He explores how the British organized the process of “islanding”: they aimed to create a separable unit of colonial governance and trade in keeping with conceptions of ethnology, culture, and geography. But rather than serving as a radical rupture, he reveals, islanding recycled traditions the British learned from Kandy, a kingdom in the Sri Lankan highlands whose customs—from strategies of war to views of nature—fascinated the British. Picking up a range of unusual themes, from migration, orientalism, and ethnography to botany, medicine, and education, Islanded is an engaging retelling of the advent of British rule.

Sri Lanka has been in turmoil for most part of her existence as an independent nation. Tamils, whether of Indian origin or ethnic, had been at the centre of this turmoil. While the question of citizenship for the Tamils of Indian origin was resolved, the problem of ethnic Tamils continues to be intractable. India has between the contradictory pulls of sovereignty of Sri Lanka and demand for Eelam of the Tamils. India's involvement in brokering an honourable solution had an adverse impact on the ethnic problem in that it raised Tamil expectations and proportionately their intransigence. In a momentous development of events India's induction of her armed forces led to her entering into an armed conflict with the very people, whom she sought to protect. In the end, Indian intervention proved self-defeating and she came out of the Island battered and frustrated. It also brought home to India succinctly the limitations of interventionist policies in today's world.

This edited book is an outcome of the proceedings of the International Conference 'India-Sri Lanka Relations: Strengthening SAARC', organized by Centre for Indian Ocean Studies, Osmania University, Hydrabad, India in November 2012. It deals with different aspects of India-Sri Lanka Economic, Social, Political, Ethnic and Cultural relations, dating back to pre-colonial times, to the 1990s with liberalization of Indian economy. In the post 1990 period, consistent efforts have been made by India and Sri Lanka on a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement which would built on the success of the Free Trade Agreement (FTA).