The 1987-1990 Indian intervention in Sri Lanka, code-named Operation Pawan, remains one of the most contested chapters in India’s foreign and military history. Recent remarks by former diplomat and Rajiv Gandhi aide Mani Shankar Aiyar blaming the “Army and Intelligence” have revived an old distortion. Evidence shows that the Indian Peace Keeping Force’s (IPKF) challenges stemmed not from military failure but from indecision and inconsistency at the political level.

The Crisis of Ambiguity: Policy Formulation and the IPKF’s Unstable Mandate

The Flawed Foundation: The 29 July 1987 India–Sri Lanka Agreement (ISLA) carried structural flaws that doomed the mission even before the first Indian soldier landed in Jaffna. It lacked legitimacy among the Sri Lankan factions it sought to reconcile—m

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