My Days in Sri Lanka

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During his tenure as India's High Commissioner in Sri Lanka, Ambassador Mehrotra found the country bitterly torn by the conflict between its Sinhala majority and sizeable Tamil minority. My Days in Sri Lanka, touches on the ancient beginnings of that conflict, briefly follows on its evolution during the last century until it reached its peak in the 1980s, and then takes us in detail through the author's own experiences there nearly two year after the 1987 Indo-Sri Lanka Peace Agreement was signed and the Indian Peace Keeping Force had been inducted. LTTE was fighting the IPKF tooth and nail instead of surrendering arms while President Premadasa considered the presence of an Indian Military Contingent on his nation's soil as an affront to its sovereignty, issued ultimatums for it to quit, threatened military action against it if it did not by 29th July 1989 and brought the two nations to the brink of a military disaster. High Commissioner's intensive consultations with the political wizards of Sri Lanka, the warring factions in the country's Northeast, and the governments in New Delhi and Colombo from their highest level down helped bring the two sides to the negotiating table with the signing of the 28th July Joint Communique. After protracted negotiations between the two governments, IPKF's phased deinduction was completed in March 1990 with due recognition on Sri Lanka's part of its sacrifices to preserve the unity and integrity of Sri Lanka. It is history that the never been told before. About The Author Ambassador Lakhan Mehrotra was India's High Commissioner in Sri Lanka from April 1989 to June 1990. Having joined the Indian Foreign Service in 1958, he carried with him three decades of diplomatic experience. He had served, inter alia, as Government of India's Liaison Officer with His Holiness the Dalai Lama at Dharmsala, Charged Affairs in Mexico, Cuba and China, Consul General in San Francisco, Deputy Chief of Mission/Head of Mission in the Indian Embassy Moscow and as Ambassador in Argentina and Yugoslavia. His assignment in Sri Lanka came at a time of great trauma and tragedy in that “Pearl of the Indian Ocean” due its ethnic divide. Mehrotra left Colombo for New Delhi to serve as Secretary (East) in the Ministry of External Affairs and then as Prime Minister's Special Envoy for Africa before his retirement in 1992. After a spell at the JNU as Honorary Professor in the School of International Studies and the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation after retirement, Mehrotra served as UN Secretary General's Personal Representative in Cambodia from 1997 to the year 2000, receiving from King Sihanouk the Sahamattreyi Award, Cambodia's highest honour, for a foreigner. He concluded his active diplomatic career with his appointment as Head of the UN Diplomatic Mission in Jakarta for peace talks between Indonesia and East Timor and was honoured by President Xanana Gusmao with the President's Gold Medal for his peace efforts in the archipelago.