When Velupillai Prabhakaran perished in May 2009, the long Eelam War ended with him – as did a phase in Indo-Lankan relations. For the best part of three decades, the Tamil Tigers had constituted a key deciding factor in the island's fraught relationship with the giant neighbour. Even after the India Peace-Keeping Force (IPKF) fiasco and the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi ended any possibility of open Indian support for the LTTE, the Tigers continued to influence bilateral relations – an elephant in the room that both sides were acutely aware of, but which neither publicly acknowledged.
The possibility of another Indian intervention to save the LTTE (despite the lessons of the IPKF) might have ended with Rajiv's death. Yet the fear that New Delhi, particularly under a non-Congress administration or due to politico-electoral pressure from Tamil Nadu, would renew its patronage of the LTTE (indirectly or surreptitiously) never left Colombo. Once President Mahinda Rajapakse shifted to a strategy of winning the war at any cost, anticipating India's reactions and preventing any Indian response that could shift the politico-military balance in the LTTE's favour became matters of critical importance for Colombo officials.
President Rajapakse needed to neutralise India, and he wanted to do so without making any political concession to the Tamils or compromising his cosy relations with China or Pakistan. He achieved this purpose by giving New Delhi a long economic rope (for instance, welcoming Indian investment), augmented with ample hope about a new devolution package. The president laboured to give Indian officials the impression of extreme flexibility – and so he was, albeit only in non-strategic matters. In short, Rajapakse, ever mindful of the fate that befell former President J R Jayewardene when he crossed India, endeavoured to portray himself as a simple, practical man open to the idea of a good deal, particularly with India.
This image hid a less salubrious reality: President Rajapakse's complete unwillingness to make political concessions to the Tamils. Whenever New Delhi tried to ratchet up the pressure for a political solution, Rajapakse pretended to succumb; he would make extravagant promises and give specific deadlines, all to be forgotten the moment that Indian pressure abated. His creation of an All Parties Conference in June 2006, ostensibly to come up with a blueprint for a new devolution package, was a masterstroke that allayed Indian (and Western) anxieties. But simultaneously he endeavoured to roll back the political reforms and ideological transformations generated by the Indo-Lankan Peace Accord of 1987. For instance, using the ruse of a judicial ruling, the northeast was de-merged unilaterally; and the acceptance of the north and the east as the traditional homelands of Tamil-speaking people – a key postulate of the Accord – was dropped.