Tigers by the tail

It is perhaps a geographical ordainment by fate that Sri Lanka is shaped like a drop — of tear or blood or both. This idyllic pearl of an island in the Indian Ocean has seen more strife and death dances in a generation than probably have some other parts of the world since the dawn of history. Its fabulous endowment of nature’s wealth — breathtaking beaches, lush green forests, cascading tea estates and silvery bands of rivers, are all in reality a tragic camouflage for the blood, bones and gore that fill its soil. Indeed, it is the most beautiful graveyard on earth! And if current trends are any indication, our southern neighbour is all set to get a few more pockmarks of violence in its bloody history.

Sri Lanka’s ethnic crises are legion. While according to many Tamil historians, Sri Lankan Tamils’ heritage ran parallel to that of the mainland since third century BC – the Sangam period, some even claim it predates the Buddhist-Sinhalese traditions. In any case, Tamil-Sinhalese conflict, according to most is over 2300 years vintage with Tamil and Sinhalese kings always at each other’s throat. Even the current turmoils could be traced to the last three centuries when Tamils from the Indian mainland migrated in huge numbers to work in the plantations of Lanka. But these immigrants and their progeny were relegated to second class citizenry by the Sinhalese majority, even in those colonial days.

With the advent of Independence and self-governance in 1948, the fissures started aggravating. From making Sinhalese the sole official language of the country to denial of even basic citizenship rights to lakhs of Tamils, there were umpteen flashpoints waiting to be ignited. Post 1948, the first twenty five years of the Tamil’s fight for rights and representation in the affairs of the nation were predominantly peaceful, but they were brutally put down by the Sinhalese regimes. The savagery of the Sinhalese military was certainly not fiction. Slowly the likes of Selva, who was dubbed the Island’s Gandhi, gave way to armed Tamil groups in the seventies. Prabakharan’s bloody career too commenced then. The blood soaked eighties and nineties are recent memories, not just because of a neighbour’s torment, but owing to our own land getting drenched in the process.

Lankan Tamils’ umbilical cord with their ethnic forefathers across the Palk Straits was never severed. Not just shared culture, religion and literature from time immemorial, but even to the recent heyday of Radio Ceylon and Rupavahini, besides business linkages, the bond between the Tamils on either side were very strong. The prevailing political milieu in TN, wherein the Dravidian movement was on the ascent, played a great part in strengthening that affinity. With their stated animosity towards Aryan north India and dreams of Dravidanadu topping the charts, the Dravidian politicians deemed Sri Lankan Tamils natural allies, even a part of the Greater Tamilnadu-to-be. Naturally, with such a history, when violence against Lankan Tamils erupted and escalated in the July of 1983, TN was drawn into the vortex of the crisis in no time. Of course, it was not just emotions that prompted the concern here, but a good amount of politics too.

After all, given the above background, the spontaneity of the emotional upsurge here was understandable, particularly with multitudes of refugees landing on our shores, stripped of their homes and livelihoods, maimed and orphaned and replete with horror stories of Sinhala atrocities. But the emotional threshold was soon breached by competitive politics and from then on Sri Lanka turned a quicksand, not just for Rajiv Gandhi, but for the peace of India itself. Even before the July violence of 1983, TN was a silent playground for Tamil militant groups of all hues. And it was not just anti-Lanka activities like training and fund-raising that occupied them, but also a good amount of mutual acrimony. The famous shoot out between Prabakharan and Uma Maheswaran in broad daylight in Pondy Bazaar and the blast in Chennai airport, were indeed a sign of things to come. But after 1983, political support to the militants became more open. Tamil militants were all over the place, stalking street corner tea shops to the Secretariat. Schools and colleges were closed to express solidarity with them, while almost everyone from the CM down the line, donned black shirts as a mark of protest. Indeed, one’s political credentials depended on how vociferous one was on the Sri Lankan Tamils’ issue!

With almost a similar situation obtaining in Lanka now, has all the sympathy in TN ebbed, as it seems? Yes and no! Cut to 1987, a truly watershed year. Rajiv Gandhi, as it turned out, was not just signing an accord with the Sri Lankan government, but his own death warrant too. With the Indian troops ending up fighting the Lankan government’s battle against the LTTE, the tigers found TN a safer haven than their homeland in Jaffna, even though they had become persona non grata here by that time. And they, for their part, deemed the other Tamil militant groups as much their enemies as the Sinhalese.

Padmanabha and several others of EPRLF were murdered in cold blood in the heart of Chennai, with the killers having a safe passage out of TN, while several others like Amrithalingam of TULF, were systematically eliminated. And with Rajiv’s killing, the LTTE’s morbid world of suicide bombers, cyanide capsules, women and kid militants and fratricidal killings turned out to be as revolting as the Sinhalese atrocities in the eyes of ordinary Tamils here. The overwhelming mood is that any sympathy for the plight of Tamils should no longer be converted into support for militancy there. Once bitten seems enough, though such an attitude on the part of India is bound to blunt the legitimate cause of the Tamils.

Clearly, the cause has suffered because it was espoused by such an outfit. That the LTTE has manoeuvred itself to be the sole surviving sponsor for Tamils, is the most discouraging aspect for all well meaning sympathisers, governments and negotiators, the world over. Terrorism today is a universal concern and there is no way, a rank terror outfit can hope to be legitimised at the negotiating table.

The LTTE’s tactical regret, without exactly owning up for Rajiv’s killing amounts to nothing. A real apology is owed to their own bretheren, first and foremost!

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