While Rahul Gandhi continues to blabber on how India under Modi has alienated it's neighbors, he as always ignores the role his family did in this.

Take Sri Lanka, do you know Rajiv authorised airdropping of supplies to LTTE (op Poomalai). That he sent the IAF over Lanka? 1/n

1/n first, why did Indira & Rajiv support the LTTE?

A - Show the Tamils in India that they were sympathetic to their cause

B - create pressures on Colombo and extract concessions for the treatment of Tamils / exclude Pakistan from SL orbit this also helps A.

2/n The whole war was terribly complex, Jayawardene for instance armed the LTTE during IPKF ops.... That is how shitty it was.

You then have the interviews of KP (very senior LTTE leader) where he is clear that the arming and training came from RAW and TN politicians generated

3/n so you have the IPKF officially there to maintain the peace while Tamil politicians were assisting the LTTE and the people whose side we were allegedly on (SL) were also assisting their mortal enemy, the LTTE!

4/n Indira and later Rajiv believed that what Mukti Bahini did, destabilise Paki rule allowing India to use that as a Cassus Belli could be repeated here. Rajiv even planned Operation Buster, a full blown invasion of SL. But this thankfully was canned but Rajiv stepped up

5/n the active destabilisation of SL by using the RAW to train LTTE cadre.
We even know where the camps where, places like Chakrata in NCR and camps near Rameshwaram.

SL approached India for arms and equipment but Rajiv refused. SL thoroughly alienated went to Pak / China.

6/n not content with covert support though, Rajiv truly upped the ante with his overt aid for the LTTE. During Op Poomalai (flower Garland) the IAF used to airdrop supplies to the LTTE.

7/n After SL launched Op Vadamarachchi / Liberation in May 1987, the tigers were faced with a relentless onslaught (fortified by Chinese and Pakistani + Israeli training) by the SL army. Jaffna itself was besieged and the tiger supply depots overrun. It captured

8/n Valvettithurai (the Stalingrad for LTTE as Prabhakaran was born there) , it got so bad that Prabhakaran and Soosai (a key operations officer) escaped on boats (ostensibly to India).

The tigers had the men but no food or arms or ammo and their leadership had fled.

9/n The war could have been ended but Rajiv Gandhi felt that any settlement without India involved, and seen as protecting the Tamils was unacceptable. Pakistan, Israel and South Africa also had "advisors" on the ground. Rahul then threatened SL that it would take action. It

10/n then sent a flottila to Jaffna to deliver "humanitarian aid" but as the ships were merchant vessels the SL navy seized them. Rajiv faced with immense pressure from within (the media then called this a genocide, refugees started flooding in) he authorised the use of the IAF.

11/n We then sent 5 AN-32's escorted by 2 sqns of Mirage 2000's, into SL airspace and basically told SL to fuck right off. The stick also included some 50 journos, this meant that indiscriminate bombing by the SLA was out of the question. If they killed a US / Brit / Chinese /

12/n Indian journo even by accident...all hell would break lose.

Jayawardene admitted defeat the the SL offensive was called off, right when it was winning. He feared that if he continued, India would intervene using her army and split SL into two.

13/13 this was pure brinkmanship by Rajiv Gandhi, something his son accuses Modi of (falsely). This
1) prolonged a war another 15 years, killing 10's of thousands more,

2) alienated a friendly state and drove them into the arms of China and Pakistan!

Learn history Pappuji

14 - adding sources,

1) Politics of Conflict by Vassily Foukas

2) Indian intervention in Lanka by Rohan Gunaratne

3) Urban Battlefields by Christine Fair

4) India's ocean by David Brewster

End.