A little under 30 years ago, after Vishwanath Pratap Singh became prime minister, he met with Sri Lanka’s president Ranasinghe Premadasa. Singh, a polite man, says he was surprised when the first thing Premadasa said to him was: “When are you taking your army back?”
The reference was to the Indian Peace Keeping Force, a group of soldiers from the Indian army sent to Lanka to fight the Tamil Tigers.