India under pressure from Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu politicians are getting bolder and louder. They are asking Delhi leadership three embarassing questions:

1. You are talking about a political solution to the Sri Lankan Tamil problem and encouraging the Sri Lankan military leadership to fight, by giving it military assistance. Is it not duplicitous?

2. Punjabi murdered Indira Gandhi, but you are not holding that against the entire community. A Punjabi is now the Prime Minister. But you are holding the entire Sri Lankan Tamils responsible, for the murder of Rajiv Gandhi. Why this double standard?

3. If North Indians are killed or attacked in foreign countries, you take up their case, with the countries concerned. When Tamils are attacked in Sri Lanka and Malaysia you are silent. Why is the treatment different, for the Tamils?

And the pro-LTTE politicians are vociferous and violent.
Pattali Makkal Katchi president Dr. S. Ramdoss warned Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Saturday that, they would not watch mutely any further, the killing of Tamil ‘brothers and sisters’ in Sri Lanka.

Indian Communist Party secretary general J. Raju told Lok Sabha, the lower house of Parliament, on Friday, that people would not ‘wait with folded arms.”

Film actor and director D. Rajendar resigned from his post of head of the Small Savings Board, to campaign in support of the Tamils, of Sri Lanka. He is organising an agitation, throughout Tamil Nadu, on April 5.

In a wide-ranging interview to the Tamil Weekly Virakesari, he charged India of ‘giving the knife to stab the Tamils of Eelam’. He said his campaign would be on the line, “I am not asking India to give Blood to the Tigers but I am asking to give Bread to the Tamil people.”

As a powerful orator and the composer of the popular song, “Tamils should rule Tamil Nadu,” his campaign is expected to arouse rural people.

The attack on ‘Prabaharan’ director Thushara Peiris, on Thursday, at the Gemini Studios Chennai, and the threat by Viduthalai Rajendran, General Secretary Periyar Dravida Kazhagam, to prevent the construction of Buddhist temples at Perur, near Trichy and Alankulam in Tirunelveli, are disturbing symptoms. The foundation stones for them were laid last month, by a group of Sinhala Buddhist priests, and laymen headed by Dr. Jayalath Jayawardene.

The LTTE has exploited the inability of the army to move forward, and the sinking of the navy boat near Nayaru, to rebuild the image, that it cannot be defeated. In an interview to the Australian Tamil Broadcasting Corporation on Friday, its military spokesman Irasaiah Ilanthirayan said, the military has engulfed Mannar- Vavuniya, Weli Oya and Muhamalai- Nagar Kovil fronts.

“They are unable to achieve their objectives of capturing Madhu and opening of the Mannar- Punkari land route to Jaffna,” he said.

Asked about the situation in the East, and the sinking of the naval boat on which Tamil interest is currently focused, he said:

“We have forced the army to spread out its forces throughout the East and beyond. They cannot reduce their strength. We cannot say definitely, that the existing military balance in the East, will not tilt in our favour,” he said.

Ilanthirayan confirmed that, the LTTE sank the navy craft, but declined to reveal what happened. He talked about its implications: the army in Jaffna cannot be sure of its supply line, through which it gets 80 percent of its requirements; Sri Lanka’s claim of sovereignty over the sea, off Tamil Eelam had come under challenge.

Tamil papers and magazines in Tamil Nadu have stepped up, their coverage of the war, in Sri Lanka. Kunkumam, a family magazine with over 5.5 million circulation, sensing the growing interest, its readers are evincing about the Sri Lankan affairs, published an interview with LTTE’s political chief P. Nadesan. He exploited the opportunity to corner Delhi’s policy planners.

Question: Don’t you think that the state reception accorded to Sri Lankan Army Commander Sarath Fonseka, the military assistance provided to Sri Lanka, the military training given to Sri Lankan soldiers, should be treated as help, a country gives to a neighbouring country?

Nadesan: When a country helps its neighbour, it should not look and see whether that country, is a fascist state or not? Should not the country giving assistance look and see, how that country is treating its minorities? Specifically I want to mention one thing. Should India accord state reception to a person who had vowed to kill every Tamil in his country? That makes us suspect India.

That interview had had its impact. The shout, ‘Don’t give military assistance to Sri Lanka’ had grown louder.

Nadesan had also told the Indian Tamils that the Indian military establishment is trying to bolster the sagging morale of the Sri Lankan forces. He quoted a remark made by an Indian general, “India does not like to see the Sri Lankan army weakened” and commented that, such a comment gives the Tamils, the impression that, India is lending its hand, to the Sri Lankan army, to destroy the Tamils.

Pirapaharan, an astute political forecaster, seems to be working, according to a long term political agenda. DMK boss M. Karunanithi and ADMK supremo Jayalalitha are politically weak. At the next election, they have to lean on the minor leaders- Vaikoo, Ramadoss, Thirumavalavan and others, to win. It is they, who had become vociferous.