Feature Article

Call for independent political judgement is ‘radicalism’ to Indian media

[TamilNet, Thursday, 20 August 2015, 06:27 GMT]
The NPC Chief Minister Justice C.V. Wigneswaran’s written statements during the elections for people to have their own independent judgement in voting for polity and personalities might have implied transcending TNA’s political discourse, but by reporting it as “urging the Tamils to vote for radicalism” the New Indian Express reporter P K Balachandran, based in Colombo, has only proved his journalistic incapacity in correctly conveying statements issued in Tamil to English readers in India. The New Indian Express should immediately recall him if it cares for journalistic justice in reporting sensitive statements coming in Tamil language, unless such reporting is the current official policy of the media corporate on the affairs of the island, commented Tamil activists for alternative politics in the island.

“There were two pro-LTTE Tamil parties in the fray, both urging the voters to adopt a radical stance. And then, there was an unexpected challenge from the Northern Province Chief Minister, C.V.Wigneswaran, who issued a statement urging the Tamils to vote for radicalism thereby indirectly appealing to them to ditch the TNA which happened to be his own party!,” reported P K Balachandran in The New Indian Express on Tuesday.

The Chief Minister’s full statements in Tamil and English are reproduced herewith in PDF for the Indian media corporate to evaluate either the Colombo reporter’s proficiency in comprehension or his brazenness in blatant spin.

The New Indian Express reporting is a serious journalistic crime at a crucial juncture in projecting Eezham Tamil polity to non-Tamil masses in India.

Apart from reporting the Chief Minister’s call for independent assessment in voting as urging to vote for radicalism, Balachandran projected the 28-year-old disillusionment of Eezham Tamils with the 13-Amendment also as radicalism.

Balachandran’s use of the phrase “pro-LTTE” for any shade of Eezham Tamil nationalism other than the “Tamil National Alliance” is funny and is obviously aimed at fooling the Indian masses, long conditioned by the Indian media rhetoric. Balachandran should get clarification from the TNA whether it agrees with his implied baptism that it is not ‘pro-LTTE’.

While ground observers perceive direct active hands of both Washington and New Delhi in the current hoodwink that takes place in the island, the Indian media circles, for reasons yet to be understood, are in a scurry to cast an image that it was New Delhi that has achieved the electoral outcome and the hold over the TNA.

This is not going to augur well for the TNA, the UNP or for any solution, as the problems of the Sinhala nation with India are more deep-rooted than those of Tamils, however hard New Delhi may try to tread on Tamils to woo the Sinhala nation.

Meanwhile, in tandem with reports such as the one coming from Balachandran that ‘pro-LTTE’ diaspora was behind the political stand of Wigneswaran, there are voices that the diaspora should not try remote-control politics.

The paranoia about diaspora first came up when New Delhi’s Romila Thapar delivered a sermon at Colombo shortly after the war. The views in the lines of her earlier obsession with the Sikh diaspora and New Delhi’s concerns of the Tamil diaspora away from its grip are understandable. But outfits in the West such as the International Crises Group (ICG), Public International Law & Policy Group (PILPG) etc were also talking of the diaspora.

The nature of the gang-genocide enacted on Eezham Tamils was such that diaspora was the only place to come out with polity of relative freedom. The realities of the contemporary world are also such that diaspora can’t be separated from home whether in polity or development. Any adversary to a struggle would first try to wedge the diaspora from the people at home.

Yet the remote-control debate can’t be ignored, because the diaspora could also be misused. What is more important is to identify and expose the ultimate remote controls. Without addressing them, generally talking of diaspora remote control will weaken even the little independent resources the nation of Eezham Tamils manages to retain.


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External Links:
New Indian Express: Tamil National Alliance Sweeps Tamil Votes in North, East Lanka


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