New Delhi’s boo to Karunanidhi and Jayalalitha
Whether the action is one of a tiger or mouse is left for the Tamil
Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalitha to decide. But New Delhi acted with
continued courage and determination in banning the LTTE for another two
years.
The decision came almost in sync with Jayalalitha’s call for the
Indian government to act like a tiger and not a mouse against little Sri
Lanka. It is evident whatever Jayalalitha thinks New Delhi is of the
view that the LTTE or Tamil Tigers, who continue their false championing
of the Tamils of Sri Lanka and campaign against it with abundant foreign
resources, remain a major threat to India too.
Former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated by an
LTTE suicide bomber on May 21, 1991. Here, his widow
UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi and son Raul Gandhi paying floral
tributes at the Rajiv Gandhi memorial. PTI photo |
In announcing the extension of the ban, first brought in the
aftermath of the assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in
1991, the Indian government states the LTTE continues to adopt a strong
anti-India posture and pose a grave threat to the security of its
citizens.
The Home Ministry notification of the extended ban said the
activities of LTTE are detrimental to the sovereignty and territorial
integrity of India and there is a continuing strong need to control all
such separatist activities by all possible means.
"LTTE continues to adopt a strong anti-India posture as also
continues to pose a grave threat to the security of Indian nationals, it
is necessary to declare LTTE as an 'unlawful association' with immediate
effect," the Home Ministry notification issued by joint secretary
Dharmendra Sharma said.
India’s action against the LTTE earlier this week was a clear move
against separatism, which has been the terrorism based policy of the
LTTE from the time of its inception, in the 1970s, and showed awareness
of how it was fostering separatism in India eve now, just as its support
base abroad, falsely claiming to be a 'Tamil Diaspora' continue to
further the cause of separatism in Sri Lanka, with the support of
Western organizations and politicians who see in them a convenient
voting bloc under conditions of uncertain democratic politics,
especially in Europe.
TESO
The Indian move against separatism went further when the Home
Minister P. Chidambaram informed the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK)
leader, supporter of the LTTE and a revived activist for separatism in
Sri Lanka, of the UPA government’s displeasure over the demand for a
separate state of Eelam being included in the planned conference of
Tamil Eelam Supporters Organisation (TESO) in Chennai on August 12.
Karunanidhi whose DMK is a member of the ruling UPA coalition in New
Delhi had to eat humble pie when he told reporters after the meeting
with Chidambaram that "It's different to have an opinion on a separate
Eelam, but we don't intend to put it up as a topic for discussion at the
conference and create any confusion," as reported in the Times of India.
The reality of the LTTE’s Eelam demand savagely carried forward by
Velupillai Prabhakaran, and still supported by pro-LTTE Tamils abroad,
mainly in the West, was aptly described by the well known Indian
journalist Venkataramanan Krishnamurthy in the Hindu last Thursday (19),
who said: “Velupillai Prabhakaran has left behind only a legacy of ruin
and devastation for his Tamil community, and it is left to the few
surviving Tamil moderate politicians to pick up the shards of a nearly
abandoned devolution discourse and work towards limited self-rule in the
Tamil majority area.”
M. Karunanidhi |
P. Chidambaram |
J Jayalalitha |
"For parties in Tamil Nadu, 'Tamil Eelam' has been a useful tool for
rabble-rousing while in the Opposition, and an instrument of competitive
identity politics that can goad the ruling party to take an even more
strident stand.
In office, the parties have administrative compulsions to crack down
on 'separatist' tendencies, book those indulging in 'anti-national'
rhetoric and frame or invoke draconian laws to keep fringe elements
under check," the veteran journalist said.
Referring to Karunanidhi’s revived support for the Eelam slogan, the
writer said: “Veteran Tamil Nadu politician M. Karunanidhi has announced
the revival of the Tamil Eelam Supporters’ Organisation, a forum he had
floated in the mid-1980s to drum up support for the creation of a
separate Tamil nation in Sri Lanka. In 1986, it was a broad-based
political platform that attracted leaders from different parts of India
and there was widespread support for the cause. A quarter century on,
the most striking feature of the attempt to revive it is its incongruity
in the current political context.
Non-project
“The Tamil Eelam project was never really on, as neither India nor
the world at large was ever interested in dividing Sri Lanka. Further,
neither the domestic situation in Sri Lanka nor the global or regional
context contains any objective condition for the establishment of a
separate state. Having eliminated rivals to emerge the sole proponent of
the cause, and having let the power of arms overshadow its political
content, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) effectively
destroyed the movement for separation through its ultimate defeat.
Velupillai Prabhakaran has left behind only a legacy of ruin and
devastation for his Tamil community, and it is left to the few surviving
Tamil moderate politicians to pick up the shards of a nearly abandoned
devolution discourse and work towards limited self-rule in the Tamil
majority areas.”
Referring to Karunanidhi’s quick change acts on the Eelam Project, V
Krishnamurthy states: “Mr. Karunanidhi has, over the years, oscillated
from advocating Sri Lanka’s division to advising Tamil groups and
parties to go in for a negotiated settlement.
A truthful summary of his stand over the last 30 years will be an
unbroken record of flip-flops.
His latest U-turn is the ease with which he dropped the core
principle of TESO - the concept of 'Tamil Eelam' - from the agenda for
the first conference of the revived forum to be held on August 12. All
it needed was a visit from the Union Home Minister for the DMK patriarch
to jump from strident advocacy to confounding ambivalence - a domain he
is quite comfortable in. “Tamil Eelam remains my dream, but this is not
the time to stress on it much or organise agitations,” he rationalised.
The target was Krishnamurthy’s criticism was not only Karunanidhi. He
had taken up Jayalalitha, too. As he said it: There is little wisdom in
accusing just one leader of contradictions. His (Karunanidhi’s)
arch-rival Jayalalitha, too, has pitched for 'Eelam,' a recent highlight
being her election promise ahead of the 2009 general election that the
government she supported would send troops to Sri Lanka to carve out
'Tamil Eelam.'
Indian foreign policy appeared to go in favour of the Tamil minority
initially, then gave a semblance of neutrality at the time of the
Indo-Sri Lankan accord of 1987 by striking a path-breaking blow for both
the country’s unity and the Tamil aspirations for provincial self-rule;
in more recent times, preserving Sri Lanka’s territorial integrity
became an obsessive objective, and India was drawn into - largely in a
moral sense, and to a lesser extent, materially, too - into the
government’s military project to destroy the LTTE. On the Eelam concept
itself, the writer states: “What makes TESO a mockery of the predicament
of the Tamils in Sri Lanka is the fact that they are more worried about
their security and survival than resurrecting the separatist demand. In
fact long before the LTTE was vanquished, there was all-round
realisation that Tamil Eelam was not a viable project. Any separatist
rhetoric abroad now is bound to have adverse repercussions on Tamils
living in Sri Lanka.”
That the Indian concerns about pro-LTTE activists is not different to
that of Sri Lanka was made clear in the India Home Ministry statement
extending the ban on the LTTE: "The Diaspora continue to spread through
articles in the Internet portals, anti-India feeling amongst the Sri
Lankan Tamils by holding the top Indian political leaders and
bureaucrats responsible for the defeat of the LTTE," it said.
"Such propaganda through Internet, which remains continued, is likely
to impact VVIP security adversely in India,” and the activities of the
LTTE remnant cadres, dropouts, sympathisers, supporters who have been
traced out recently in Tamil Nadu suggest that the cadres sent to Tamil
Nadu would ultimately be utilised by the LTTE for unlawful activities.
“The activities of pro-LTTE organisations and individuals have come
to notice of the government that despite of the ban in force, attempts
have been made by these forces to extend their support to the LTTE.
“The LTTE leaders, operatives and supporters have been inimically
opposed to India's policy on their organisation and action of the state
machinery in curbing their activities," it said.
The Home Ministry also said the LTTE's objective for a separate
homeland (Tamil Eelam) for all Tamils threatens the sovereignty and
territorial integrity of India and amounts to cession from the Union and
thus falls within the ambit of unlawful activities.” “The LTTE, even
after its military defeat in May 2009 in Sri Lanka, has not abandoned
the concept of ‘Eelam’ and has been clandestinely working towards the
‘Eelam’ cause by undertaking fund raising and propaganda activities in
Europe.
“The remnant LTTE leaders or cadres have also initiated efforts to
regroup the scattered activities and resurrect the outfit locally and
internationally,” it said. This assessment by New Delhi is worth careful
study by those who now call themselves moderate Tamil political leaders,
and try hard to make the world, and especially India, forget how they
were the unashamed lackeys and proxies of the LTTE.
Although they now talk of the democratic rights of the Tamil people,
they were at the forefront of those who helped Velupillai Prabhakaran
and the LTTE to deprive the Tamils of the democratic rights, especially
of the franchise; and were Tiger flag waving stooges of terror, who were
elected to Parliament only with the nod of the LTTE and its armed
threats to free elections.
The TNA and others around it must re-think the political realities in
the post-LTTE and 'Eelam Lost' era, and consider how democracy is to be
nurtured in the North of this country, after what they did to destroy
it. |