New Delhi continues to interpret aspiration of Eezham Tamils as threatening its sovereignty

[TamilNet, Thursday, 16 May 2019, 23:13 GMT]
Eezham Tamils should get the clue from New Delhi's latest proscription of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) that the idea of Tamil Eelam remains strong even though the LTTE was institutionally destroyed a decade ago through a genocidal onslaught, commented Tamil activists in Jaffna. The Indian Ministry of Home Affairs proscribed the LTTE for five more years issuing a notification through the Gazette of India on Tuesday. The announcement observed that “[t]he LTTE’s objective for a separate homeland (Tamil Eelam) for all Tamils threatens the sovereignty and territorial integrity of India, and amounts to cession and secession of a part of the territory of India from the Union and thus falls within the ambit of unlawful activities”.

The armed struggle waged by the LTTE was based on the democratically mandated verdict of Eezham Tamils in 1977.

Piraparahan's LTTE was also the democratically mandated sole representatives in the talks between the Eezham Tamils and the SL State, which was facilitated by Norway with the Indian backing.

After the genocidal annihilation, Diaspora Tamils in ten countries voted overwhelmingly for independent and sovereign Tamil Eelam.

It is also an open knowledge that the LTTE never saw Tamil Nadu as part of Tamil Eelam, the activists in Jaffna who are engaged in marking the tenth remembrance of 2009 Tamil genocide at Mu'l'livaaykkaal, commented.

Mr Pirapaharan, inspired by the Indian patriot Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, was also not opposed to the concept of Indian sovereignty even when the LTTE had to confront the intervening Indian military in the island militarily, they further observed.

The proscription notification further states that “the Diaspora continue to spread through articles in the Internet portals, anti-India feeling amongst the Sri Lankan Tamils by holding the Government of India responsible for the defeat of the LTTE and such propaganda through Internet, which remains continued, is likely to impact Very Very Important Persons (VVIP) security adversely in India.”

Commenting the activists in Jaffna said that the former SL Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa himself had gone on record that it would not have been possible to annihilate the LTTE without the backing of India. Eezham Tamils are only interested in getting the truth from those involved.

The solidarity groups in India must come forward to create a people's tribunal to establish the truth as the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal (PPT) did it in Dublin in Ireland in 2010, and in Bremen, Germany in 2014, the activists in Jaffna said.

In the meantime, the Indian Home Ministry was using the “LTTE” as a scapegoat to crush the activists in Tamil Nadu who are also not opposed to the Indian sovereignty, was the opinion of Tamil activists from Tamil Nadu.

However, the worsening paranoia of New Delhi is only going to be used by the external forces which are opposed to India's sovereignty extending towards the Indian Ocean in the South, the activists in Tamil Nadu commented.

A few among the Tamil intelligentsia still keep harping on the possibility of New Delhi coming to the rescue of Eezham Tamils due to the prevailing China-India rivalry in the Indian Ocean. But, they fail to grasp the ‘civilisational’ interests of the Hindutva of Northern Indian and the Mahavansa mindset of the Theravada Buddhist Sinhala Establishment in the South, going hand in hand in the inward-looking approaches of the states and their geopolitics, the activists in the island said.

The outlook of USA-India major strategic partnership is also on upholding the unitary state of genocidal Sri Lanka no matter who is coming to power in Colombo, the political activists in Jaffna commented further.



Chronology: