Asada M Erpini

A group of Sri Lankan schoolchildren who were to play a friendly soccer match in Tamil Nadu were asked to leave the country on the directives of the never-off-the-spotlight Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, Jayalalitha Jayaram. The members of the soccer team were in India – and Tamil Nadu is one of the states comprising the giant Union of States ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢¢”š¬…” after obtaining legally valid visas issued by the Ministry of External Affairs of the Central Government of India. A visa permits the holder to visit the places of interest in any part of the country bar military installations and other such sensitive locations from which visitors are usually kept away. A soccer stadium in Tamil Nadu cannot be grouped under these categories under any stretch of imagination ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢¢”š¬…” except, may be, in the celluloid fantasy world of cinema that catapulted the actress into the lucrative political stardom ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢¢”š¬…” and sacking the local official who granted permission for the use of the stadium and ordering out the group of Sri Lankan schoolboys are both extremely highhanded.

The political bigwigs in Tamil Nadu are vying with one another to steal the limelight, and Sri Lanka and its Sinhala Buddhists have been dragged in by the bankrupt politicians as a convenient and low-cost punching bag.

The DMK leader, M. Karunanidhi, has endless sleepless nights crying himself hoarse for his Eelam dream within the shores of Sri Lanka. He naturally has to be one of the most disappointed old men as the mono-ethnic Eelam was alive and kicking in the Northern and Eastern provinces of Sri Lanka, and moving pretty fast towards becoming a sovereign state, until the armed forces of the island nation shattered the hair brained project, driving the last nail in its coffin in the Nadhikadal lagoons in May 2009.

The MDMK Leader Vaiko, another general leading the war against Sri Lanka, is now demanding that the President of Sri Lanka should not be allowed to visit India to lay the foundation stone for the Institute of Buddhist Studies at Sanchi in Madhya Pradesh in Central India. He has stated that he is going to organise a protest against the planned visit. His slogan at the proposed ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-fight for the rights of Sri Lankan TamilsƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ is to be, ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-Sri Lanka President is responsible for killing innocent TamilsƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚. In a vain attempt to add some gloss to his stance, Vaiko has even gone on to drag Lord Buddha into his midst: he is reported to have said, ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”¹…”Lord Buddha “not only preached peace and tolerance but also practiced it”ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢, implying that the President of Sri Lanka is a warmonger who is hell bent on killing. Yet the whole world, except those that are blind and refuse to see, knows that Sri Lanka ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢¢”š¬…” especially the Tamils in the North and East of Sri Lanka – has enjoyed an enviable period of peace after three decades of mayhem unleashed by a Tamil megalomaniac only as a result of the farsightedness and the determination of none other than the very man that Vaiko wants to burn at the stake.

Ignoring and distorting facts are an age old practice adopted by the crooked and unsavoury. It is well known that the number of Tamils who got killed by joining, or after being forced to join, the LTTE fighting machine at the behest of their so-called saviour Pirabaharan was far higher than the number of Tamils who succumbed during the war of liberation of the North and the East at the hands of the Sri Lanka armed forces. During the final stages of the 2009 May war, the Sri Lankan armed forces established no-fire zones for the Tamil civilians who had been corralled by the LTTE as a human shield to seek refuge. But the LTTE placed their heavy weaponry in the midst of the civilians who had sought shelter in them, thus delaying the advance of the Sri Lanka armed forces, and ultimately leading to the loss of over 6000 men and women in uniform.

The UN office in Colombo estimated that 7720 people got killed in the final months of the war, but did not release the figure as it could not be verified. Gordon Weiss, the UN spokesperson in Colombo at the time, who incidentally had an axe to grind with the Sri Lanka government, gave the figure dead as 20,000. After termination of his services with the UN and on arrival in his native Australia ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢¢”š¬…” with the prospects of his book The Cage looming in the horizon ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢¢”š¬…” the figure had suddenly ballooned to 40,000. Ardent LTTE activists and propagandists based in the affluent counties quote figures of 100,000 or at times even 200,000, and for the likes of Vaiko these figures are Gospel truth to buttress his campaign against Sri Lanka and its President.

Over 300,000 Tamil civilians managed to escape during the last stages of the war. Lo and behold! All these unfortunates ran towards the Sri Lankan armed forces, and on many occasions, literally to the arms of the very individuals who stand accused by Vaiko and his coterie of killing innocent Tamils. The whole episode of Tamils running towards the armed forces while the LTTE cadres were shooting at them from behind was beamed live to the diplomatic community in Sri Lanka and to the rest of the world. Obviously, the reception of electronic transmissions had been non-functional in Tamil Nadu and people of the calibre of Karunanidhi would have been nidhi – asleep – at the time.

All the protests and actions of the Tamil Nadu politicians are often presented by them as being aimed at protecting the rights of the Sri Lankan Tamils and at ensuring justice, equity and due rights. Their concocted case gets easily buttressed when it happens that the Head of State and the Secretary of Defence in Sri Lanka come from the Sinhalese ethnic group, the majority of whom are Buddhists. Yet the venom of the Tamil Nadu rabble rousers does not spare even the Tamils or other non-Buddhist Sri Lankans. A group of 186 Catholics from Chilaw who were on a pilgrimage to Poondi Matha and Velankanni churches in Tamil Nadu were chased away and the vehicle that was escorting the group to the Tiruchy Airport was stoned by unruly Tamil Nadu mobs, obviously getting egged on by the myopic utterances of the Chief Minister and other of her ilk.

While all these detestable happenings are goings on within Tamil Nadu, how do Indians fare in Sri Lanka? Hundreds of thousands of Indians find it safe to visit the Emerald Isle, and policemen in civilian clothes are patrolling the streets of Kandy to ensure the safety of Indian visitors to the hill capital. A youth delegation of 24 members comprising the families and children of the armed forces of India has just concluded a successful and friendly goodwill visit to the island nation. The latter had been in Colombo Kandy, Sigiriya, Dambulla, Anuradhapura and Trincomalee. The smiling and contented faces of the visitors in the photos that are published in the local media show no evidence whatsoever that that they experienced any untoward incident during their stay. Here lies the difference between the Sri Lankans who boast a 2500 year old heritage and the illiterate and misguided rabble rousers of Tamil Nadu.

In the midst of all this cacophony of hyena calls, saner words have emanated from Dr. Subraminam Swamy, the Leader of the Janata Party, as was reported in Island on 07 September: he has said that the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu should be sacked for not protecting Sri Lankans visiting Tamil Nadu and for interfering in the foreign policy of the central government of India towards Sri Lanka. The Janata Party Leader has quite rightly quoted Article 256 of the Constitution and has suggested that the President of India should impose presidential rule over the state because the Chief Minister is endeavouring to influence the foreign policy of India.

Peace-loving Sri Lankans are eagerly awaiting the response of the Indian Central Government to JayalalithaƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s antics. A mere statement in the hope of placating the physically abused pilgrims and the humiliated schoolchildren is insufficient: it will only be a piece of sticking plaster on a deeply embedded festering ulcer.