By Seema Sengupta

KOLKATA ― Sri Lankan politics has suddenly taken a curious turn with the highly rated President Mahinda Rajapaksa calling for a premature presidential election to be held in January 2010.

The triumphant President, basking in the glory of having vanquished the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) recently, was expected to exploit the nationalist sentiment prevailing in the island nation for garnering an electoral majority.

This move, however, may be an attempt to minimize the political damage arising out of an emerging friction in the popular triumvirate consisting of the Rajapaksa brothers and General Sarath Fonseka.

It is to be seen whether Sri Lankan politics, which is characterized by the absence of a concrete political, social or economic agenda, continues to remain engrossed in cult worship.

The brewing discontent between the Rajapaksa brothers and Fonseka has culminated in the successful militarization of Sri Lankan society and the politicization of its Armed Forces. The island nation is, in any case, the most militarized society in the whole of South Asia.

Perhaps, the citizens residing in this Land of Buddha did not even realize that extreme paranoia and a sense of vengeance have transformed their picturesque country into hell.

While they indulged in fratricide for the last 30 years, external elements took advantage of this hatred to sub-serve their own interest.

Constant instigation not only dilated the bitter ethnic divide that already existed in Sri Lankan society but also ensured that the region remained a seething cauldron for quite a long time.

In the meantime, generations of Sri Lankans from all community and religious belief lost the opportunity to grow and prosper in company with the rest of the world.

Unfortunately, none of the political personalities made a serious attempt to display the requisite magnanimity for stemming this rot.

However, in all fairness, they enjoyed very little leverage given the fact that Sri Lanka had already become a flashpoint of the Cold War.

As the U.S. Seventh Fleet started anchoring at Trincomalee Harbor, New Delhi was prodded by the Russians to initiate a dirty game for keeping Colombo in check.

Moscow's sensitivity to American influence in the Indian Ocean region was the determining factor behind this move. Accordingly, the Indian security apparatus started exploiting the anti-Sinhalese sentiment prevailing among the Sri Lankan Tamil community.

Surreptitious training, covering the entire gamut of guerilla warfare techniques, was imparted at different locations including the highly secretive military training facility at the headquarters of Establishment 22.

A special group was dedicated to collecting information on movement of outbound and inbound ships from Trincomalee Harbor.

They were specifically assigned to keep tabs on military assistance from the U.S. and Israel that Colombo might have been receiving at that point of time, apart from assessing the Pakistani and Chinese involvement in the region.

New Delhi was determined to continue with this covert involvement to expand its sphere of strategic influence. That is precisely the reason why India's external intelligence agency continues to nurture healthy assets in Sri Lanka's ruined northeast even today.

In fact, the very intelligence tipoff that revealed General Fonseka's supposed plan to unsettle President Rajapaksa by enacting a coup was believed to have been provided by New Delhi.

India's apprehension of increasing Pakistani and Chinese involvement in Sri Lanka actually provoked this tailored move that led to Fonseka's ouster as the Army chief.

Now that the sacked general is out to confront his one-time commander-in-chief politically, the entire world is bracing up to witness a personality clash lacking decisive political and developmental agendas.

However, the only silver lining amid this chaos is a serious attempt on the part of both parties to reach out to the ethnic minorities.

The outgoing president has ordered for immediate resettlement of the internally-displaced Tamil population and removal of restrictions on movement of transitional camp dwellers.

Fonseka, on his part, has been bold enough to call for and accept international scrutiny on the alleged war crimes.

Given his radical view on the exclusive Sinhalese rights over all Sri Lankan assets, the general's climb-down on issues related to crimes committed by the Army led by him can assuage the Tamil pain to a large extent.

He also needs to build up a more inclusive political agenda by way of consensus. Since war frenzy cannot be hyped beyond a certain limit, the abject failure of the Rajapaksa regime to deliver economic prosperity might assist Fonseka's political ambition.

President Rajapaksa will require nothing less than divine intervention to tide over the growing economic crisis resulting in a steep drop in purchasing power.

Whoever tastes victory at the hustings will confront a crumbling economy and vast majority of people willing to gloss over the war hysteria to focus on their day-to-day living condition.

A visionary approach is urgently needed to restore a war-ravaged society's confidence and rebuild its socio-economic structure brick by brick.

The international community should pump in the requisite funds for restoring basic infrastructure that will pave the way for future industrialization.

One hopes the next president will harness Sri Lanka's cultural diversity to sew a prosperous, peaceful and harmonious nation.

Seema Sengupta is a journalist based in Kolkata, India. Her articles have been published by The Tribune, The Telegraph, The Pioneer, The Asian Age and other newspapers. She can be reached at seemasengupta@vsnl.net.