Raaaaaace Waaaaar! Race War!
The reaction in Ceylon to news of the Indian invasion was furious and widely blamed on "Tamil conspirators." While the coup plotters who had appealed to allies in India once their coup stalled were largely Tamil, they were a relatively non-representative class of Tamils, mostly Christian Tamils who had been privileged during the period of British colonization and highly overrepresented in the Ceylonese Army and Police force. This nuance was totally lost in most of Ceylon, as mobs of pro-government militias burned down Tamil neighborhoods and engaged in mass murder and rape against Tamil Ceylonese. Stories of lurid atrocities quickly spread like wildfire among Tamil Ceylonese and many were essentially pushed into supporting the Indian invasion by the mass violence. As a result, many young Tamils flocked to anti-government militias, which only furthered the cycle of violence.
Although much of the Ceylonese officer corps subsequently defected, most of the rank and file soldiers did not. As a result, an attempt by the Ceylonese rebels to sabotage much of Ceylon's military capabilities was largely ignored by local troops. As a result, although the Ceylonese Army was left largely leaderless, it still retained most of its equipment and manpower - and amphibious assaults are typically very difficult to make. However, the United Kingdom in 1962 had offered significant logistical support, which allowed the Indian Navy to largely focus on combat operations. In March of 1962, the city of Jaffna came under massive Indian naval and aerial bombardment. Although the Indian Air Force took severe losses from anti-aircraft guns that they did not expect to be active, rebel groups distracted Ceylonese troops long enough for Indian paratroopers to seize significant strategic areas overlooking the harbor, making the Ceylonese position increasingly untenable. Moreover, local Tamils (even though most were ambivalent about the Indian invasion) were seen as a possible fifth column by radicalized Ceylonese soldiers, which made them waste significant manpower in "patrolling" the locals.
Interestingly, the actual battle itself was not particularly bloody for either army - both the Indian and Ceylonese Army suffered fewer than a thousand deaths, especially because the Ceylonese Army pulled out once their position was untenable. However, the battle was devastating for the civilian population of Jaffna, as the Ceylonese Army adopted a scorched earth policy before retreating into what they saw as more "ethnically friendly" policy. In the aftermath of "liberation", mobs of young Tamil militiamen engaged in equally brutal reprisals against both Sinhalese and moderate Tamils for several days before the Indian Army and rebel leaders cracked down.
What began as an arcane struggle between two sets of postcolonial elites quickly expanded into mass ethnic violence across the island, especially as the Sinhalese Army's scorched earth policy left most of Northern and Eastern Ceylon in flames. Although Jaffna's position on the tip of a peninsula made it almost uniquely indefensible, the Ceylonese Army dug in and fought elsewhere. The Indian Army, eager to deter Pakistan, was ordered to disregard typical concerns over collateral damage and bring out all of the heavy weaponry they could. Indian strategy boiled largely down to shooting as many shells as possible at the enemy army - and only attacking in force with aerial and artillery assets. In contrast, the Ceylonese focused primarily on static defense with hit and run attacks with aerial assets. Losing ground steadily, the Ceylonese government officially cut its ties with the United Kingdom (which was obviously trying to overthrow it), declaring itself an independent Republic of Sri Lanka, calling for help from the rest of the world.
Help arrived. The Indian Air Force's ability to dominate the skies of Sri Lanka quickly fell apart as the Sri Lankan air force seemed to triple almost overnight. As properly suspected by most people, aerial assets from the People's Republic of Pakistan had arrived in Sri Lanka, disguised themselves as Sri Lankan planes, and began fighting for the Sri Lankans. Whereas Pakistan viewed itself unable of truly matching the Indian Army in a straight on fight (as proven in their crushing defeat in the Kashmir War), they focused on aerial assets. For example, the Indians primarily relied on the Canadair Sabre, a Canadian version of the American F-86 Sabre jet plane, while the Pakistanis primarily relied on the MiG-21, a small interceptor well suited for launching hit-and-run attacks from ground bases on Indian bombers. The North Japanese significantly stepped up humanitarian aid to Sri Lanka, while the North Chinese sent special operation volunteers. Burma, also enjoying very poor relations with India, would also send volunteers. Indian diplomats grew frustrated that almost every Soviet-aligned state was aiding Sri Lanka - while Western aid that was promised simply failed to most. Even British aid had totally disappeared, as British naval assets were pulled out due to the Mediterranean Crisis.
The final Indian push against Sri Lanka faltered when the ultimate nightmare scenario took place. In 1962, a small division of Soviet forces arrived, armed to the teeth with the latest Soviet weaponry and equipment. The reaction in India was harsh. Anti-Soviet sentiment exploded in India, as the Lokha Sabha passed perhaps the most controversial law in Indian history, a law temporarily dissolving the Communist Party of India who refused to denounce Soviet intervention, which was highly popular in Bengal and Kerala, the state next to Tamil Nadu. Kerala was placed directly under "President's Rule" with the democratically elected Communist-led state government dissolved and much of their advances in universal healthcare, land reform, and education being quickly rolled back. Although a flood of private investment quickly brought high GDP growth, the growth was poorly distributed and wages for the poorest Keralans actually dropped. Furious Keralan workers began sabotaging Indian war efforts against Sri Lanka - with some amusingly even espousing support of Pakistan (despite the millions of Pakistanis fleeing), making it almost impossible for India to rout supplies to the front-lines through Kerala.
In terms of strategic results, the war in Sri Lanka was a horrific quagmire for the Indian Army. Civilian causalities were rising rapidly as the Indian advance crumpled against elite Soviet troops, who simply out-ranged, out-fired, and out-organized the Indian Army (and every other army participating in the war). Man-for-man, the Indian Army was somewhat better than the Sri Lankan Army (and they enjoyed a huge advantage in the number of men they had), but the international volunteers narrowed the numerical gap and Soviet involvement narrowed the quality gap. Soviet anti-air, combined with Pakistani interceptors, brought Indian's aerial dominance to an end. Sri Lankan lines stabilized as Indian forces advanced significantly into majority-Sinhalese territories - and then they further ground to a total halt once they approached the mountains of central Sri Lanka. However, in terms of political dominance, it was great for the leaders of India. Giving them a pretext to outlaw the Communists and tethering the Tamil localists to their side, the right-wing Indian government would survive the unpopularity of its actual policies as a result of the war. Leftist groups were cautious to criticize the group too harshly, lest they also be banned. However, Indian Communists did not stop existing. Indian civil liberties remained largely sacrosanct, and Communists continued to organize, often radicalizing due to their exclusion from the political process.
Realizing the grievous damage that had been done to Sri Lankan race relations, the Indians grew worried about any postwar settlement. In many ways, Tamil nationalists also turned against India, as they staunchly tried to prevent anti-Sinhalese revenge attacks in the occupied territories and officially put their supporters in charge of their Ceylon - an aristocratic Christian Tamil elite. Tamils in India were largely satisfied with India's intervention in Sri Lanka - but some extremists began to doubt their "dedication" to the cause. The fear of Indian annexation was raised, though they were largely dismissed because of India's acquieisnece to Kashmiri independence. However, the politics were different with Sri Lanka - because some Indians did want to annex at least the majority Tamil-regions of Sri Lanka (largely Indian Tamil localist politicians who wanted more Tamil voters).
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