THE EMERALD ISLAND IN RED: A SECURITY CHALLENGE FOR INDIA (First published in Financial Express) https://www.financialexpress.com/defence/the-emerald-island-in-red-security-challenge-for-india/2591323/ “ Sri Lanka, the Emerald Isle, is excruciatingly balanced on a razor’s edge of democracy and mobocracy, with seemingly only its security infrastructure preventing its plunge from fiscal red to blood soaked red of civil strife .” – Veteran Col RS Sidhu Relevant Demographic Profile of Sri Lanka The first interesting facet of Sri Lanka demography is that the dominant Sinhala ethnic group comprising just fewer than 75% of the population, and the largest ethnic minority the Tamils comprising 18% of the population, have both migrated from India over the centuries. Around 5% of the current Tamil population was initially brought in by the British colonialists in the 19 th century to work a