Ties with Tamil Nadu turn sour
Qadijah Irshad (Colombo Courier) / 7 September 2012
Relations between the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka are souring fast. Despite the recent announcement by the Indian government that 200,000 Sri Lankans visited India last year mostly to Tamil Nadu Sri Lankans have never felt less welcome in the state than now.
Following an attack on a group of peaceful catholic pilgrims by a pro-Tamil Tiger mob in Thanjaur on Monday, Colombo issued a travel advisory urging Sri Lankans to refrain from visiting Tamil Nadu. True to the warning, the very next day, the bus of the same group of pilgrims which was carrying 75 women and 36 terrified children were attacked by the Naam Thamilar Iyakkam (We are Tamils), a party known for its support and funding by the LTTE diaspora.
The travel warning by the Lankan government is not based on a solitary incident. Over the past few months, the antagonistic approach of Tamil Nadu towards its closest neighbour in terms of proximity has been escalating. A week ago, in the pettiest act to date, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa packed off a schoolboy team from Sri Lanka and suspended an Indian official because he had permitted a match to be played between schoolboys and an Indian team in a government stadium in the state capital Chennai. She said the presence of the Sri Lankan team had offended Tamil sentiments.
The editorial of The Hindu, a leading national newspaper based in Chennai, following the incident called the chief ministers outburst myopic. In a similar fashion, most news agencies condemned the attack on pilgrims.
However, it was the central government of India that pacified its neighbour and promised security to its travellers. Tamil Nadu did nothing. It did not offer an apology for the unpleasant incident, and it does not feel any remorse. In fact, Tamil Nadu keeps sending strong messages to the central government to cut off all ties including economic, cultural and political with its neighbour.
Less than two weeks ago the chief minister wrote a strongly-worded letter to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh demanding him to stop an ongoing training programme for two Sri Lankan defence personnel in Ooty, Tamil Nadu. Jayalaitha accused the premier of covering up the training of Sri Lankan military from the Tamil Nadu government, as she has previously requested all military training for Sri Lankans to be halted in India.
In July, following pressure from Jayalalithaa, the Indian government moved nine Sri Lankan Air Force personnel from a training centre in Chennai to neighbouring Bangaluru. Another military training programme was cancelled last year after pressure from several Tamil Nadu political parties. Jayalalithaa has also been demanding for President Rajapaksas pound of flesh begging the international community to charge him for war crimes allegedly committed against Tamils during the last phase of the three decade war against the Tamil Tiger terrorist faction.
The Indian government actively trained former Tamil Tigers before it listed them as a terrorist organisation only after a Black Tiger suicide bomber assassinated former premier Rajiv Gandhi in 1991. Tamil Nadu was considered a safe haven for Tamil Tiger leaders during Sri Lankas three-decade war against the terrorist group that ended in 2009.
The 88 year old former chief minister M. Karunanidhi has announced that his objective before death is it to carve a separate Ealam (Tamil state) in Sri Lanka. It is a rather silly notion really because not all the Tamils in Sri Lanka want a separate state for themselves especially the Tamils of Indian origin. It sounds like an aspiration he is not allowed to pursue in India, as the Indian constitution precludes him from asking for a separate state in his own homeland.
It is time Sri Lanka devolves power to its ethnic minority groups and it is time Tamil Nadu cuts some slack towards Sri Lanka and realised that the two countries have historical ties that go far beyond petty politics.
Ties with Tamil Nadu turn sour