Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday became the first Indian Head of Government to pay homage at the IPKF memorial in Colombo this evening.
In a ceremony marked by solemnity, poignancy and reflecting the best in terms of military tradition, Prime Minister Modi walked up to the memorial accompanied by senior defence officers and placed a floral wreath at the base of the memorial.
He then stood in silence as the Last Post was sounded as a mark of respect for the martyred soldiers.
The event took place under cloudy skies and rain, but Prime Minister Modi opted not to take the shelter of an umbrella.
The inscription on the granite plaque at the memorial reads as follows: "This monument is dedicated to the members of Indian Peace Keeping Force who made the supreme sacrifice during the peace keeping mission from 1987 to 1990 in Sri Lanka."
But, there is poignancy behind the mission that led to the death of about 1,200 lives and the involvement of thousands of soldiers.
Invited by Sri Lanka to implement the India-Sri Lanka Accord (ISLA), the IPKF faced massive hurdles. It had to fight Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) guerrillas to prevent the break-up of Sri Lanka along ethnic lines, as also to ensure the territorial integrity of Sri Lanka.
That the IPKF fought with its hands tied is no secret. The IPKF, though, has been accused of committing human rights violations, as have other armies that have fought any war anywhere in the world.
Wars are not pretty and are not for pretty people who expect clean and complete victories.
The civil war in Sri Lanka was a botched up operation at several levels. There was a lack of coordination, weak political will and military tactics that were not well planned. Nobody quite knew what went wrong and it is unlikely that it will ever be known.
The wounds of the civil war still are open. Sri Lanka still bleeds. The war may be over, but hundreds of thousands of Sri Lankans and Tamils of Indian and Tamil origin have been hurt by it.
The IPKF and the role that it played was never acknowledged by India for several years. The Congress Party never really knew what to do with the IPKF, the Sri Lanka accord, relations with Sri Lanka and the Tamil political parties, which had it in a pincer grip during the era of coalition governments.
Moreover, the party lost its brightest leader, Rajiv Gandhi, in the wake of India's intervention in Sri Lanka. It was a bloody legacy if nothing else.
It took over 25 years for a memorial to be constructed for the 1200 Indian Army soldiers who died while trying to prevent the disintegration of Sri Lanka. When Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was here for the SAARC Summit in 2008, he did not visit the memorial.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the first Indian Prime Minister to pay his respects at this memorial.
A war memorial is not just for soldiers, it should be a place where citizens, both common and special, visit as a mark of thanksgiving for the soldiers who sacrificed their lives to establish peace.
