That irritation is gone. But anger against Colombo persists in Tamil Nadu, both over the deaths of Tamil civilians, in the dying stages of the war, and Sinhalese-majority Sri Lanka's seeming uneasiness over much needed political reforms to give the minorities a say in governance.

Diplomatically, militarily and economically, India and Sri Lanka appear poised to improve relations despite hiccups. It is on the political side that there could be roadblocks. India wants Sri Lanka to get serious on a political package to end ethnic tensions that led to the conflict in the first place.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa's government realises the need for a devolution formula acceptable to Tamils and Muslims but does not look keen to go for major political reforms. One view is that the government awaits a bigger mandate to do what it wants; critics say this is an excuse not to act. Either way, the more a political package is delayed, the more difficult it will be for Colombo to unveil one. New Delhi remains committed to addressing the legitimate aspirations of the minorities in the island nation even if 2009 is not 1987 — when India and Sri Lanka signed a pact to end Tamil separatism.
New Delhi is against putting public pressure on Colombo because this is deemed counter-productive. However, in June, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh voiced, without being ambiguous, his government's concerns. He hoped that Sri Lanka would show 'imagination and courage to meet the legitimate concerns and aspirations of Tamils to lead their lives as equal citizens and  with dignity and respect'. This was less than a month after the military wiped  out the LTTE leadership, Velupillai Prabhakaran included.

The Indian establishment has concluded that Sri Lanka is determined not to re-merge the bifurcated northern and eastern provinces to make it a single Tamil-majority unit, one of the cardinal principles of the 1987 agreement. Tamils of all hues have always favoured a united northeastern province, a region also called the 'traditional homeland' of the Tamil community.

The end of war has led to calls for greater Indian economic involvement in Sri Lanka, particularly in the battered north and east. Indian business is bound to take up the offer. Sections of Sri Lanka's chambers of commerce, however, fear being swamped by Indian goods in the event of greater trade. The LTTE's demise will dramatically boost tourism. India's tourist traffic to Sri Lanka too is set to zoom.

With combat over, India will be willing to host a larger number of    armed personnel from Sri Lanka  seeking training with the Indian military. Even as the conflict raged against the Tamil Tigers, India quietly helped train Tamil speaking policemen from the island nation. New Delhi also deployed a small number of air force personnel in Sri Lanka to ward off air attacks by LTTE.
Diplomatically, India helped soften intense diplomatic — read Western — pressure on Sri Lanka at the height of the war, mainly on rights issues, while being privately critical of civilian casualties and deprivation. And New Delhi rallied to Colombo's side when European countries sought to censure it at the 47-member UN Human Rights Council in Geneva over 'war crimes'. Equally crucially, the Indian government  adroitly prevented political unrest in Tamil Nadu over the war from a dangerous spillover.

India and Sri Lanka see eye to eye on dismantling the surviving LTTE network. Neither takes seriously the Tamil Diaspora-backed LTTE's sudden love for peaceful means to achieve Tamil Eelam. But besides a political package to end legitimate grievances of the Tamils and Muslims, India is keen to see the quick rehabilitation of the many thousands of civilians in refugee camps displaced by fighting. It is more than willing to go the extra mile to assist the process, whatever the financial cost.

The area that causes maximum concern in New Delhi is how Sri Lanka will repay its gratitude to Pakistan and China for the generous military assistance they provided in the war against the LTTE. Sri Lankan leaders are aware of this. As long as Colombo's strategic relations with Islamabad and Beijing do not undercut the concerns New Delhi has, India will look the other way. This is one area where India will have an uncompromising bottom line.
India's relations with Sri Lanka can be better understood only when it is placed in the context of its frosty attitude towards the LTTE.

Popular belief is that New Delhi turned viciously against the LTTE following the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, masterminded by Prabhakaran and executed by a woman suicide bomber. This is only partly true.

India's grouse vis-à-vis the LTTE began much earlier when it became clear that the group was not amenable to reason and would use every trick to derail every peace process. The LTTE's decision to go to war with India, a country that once provided sanctuary to Tamil militants, was the first turning point. Gandhi's grotesque killing was another.

While publicly stating that it had nothing against India, the LTTE quietly trained a group of young men from Tamil Nadu in the use weapons even as it planned Gandhi's killing. The group was given a name: Tamil National Retrieval Troops (TNRT). The first batch of less than 10 men went for training to Jaffna in May 1990. In August 1991, three months after the assassination of Gandhi, LTTE intelligence chief Pottu Amman handed over weapons, explosives, gold biscuits and communication equipment to members of this group. But Indian authorities nipped the outfit in its infancy.
The LTTE then trained yet another group, Tamizhar Pasarai. This too met the same fate, with its members falling into Indian hands. One of its leading operatives, still on the run, was sighted some time back in Bangalore.

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