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Tamil
Nadu: From sympathy to support
When
I sat to write this column last morning, Anna Dravida Munnetra
Kazhagam leader and former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayaram
Jayalalitha was on her way to the MGR statue in Chennai to
commence the token fast, to show her support to the Sri Lankan
Tamils. Thousands of her party cadres had started their fast
by that time. Jayalalitha’s ally Vaikoo, leader of the
Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, and his party supporters
too joined the fast.
The fast will add to the emotional upsurge already evident
throughout Tamil Nadu since the October 2 fast by the Tamil
Nadu branch of the Communist Party of India. “We are
satisfied that our token fast on Gandhi Jayanthi day had brought
out a feeling of support for the suffering Sri Lankan Tamils,”
they said in a statement to the media on Monday.
The emotional upsurge will peak in the next four days, with
several sections of the people coming out in the open to express
support for the Sri Lankan Tamils. Students will enter
the protest today. The powerful All India Students’ Federation
has called for the boycott of classes today. Traders will
shut their shops throughout Tamil Nadu on Friday to express
their support. And on Sunday, the Tamil film industry will
hold a massive demonstration at Rameswaram.
Film director Bharathi Raja, the main force behind the demonstration,
said, “We hope to attract a massive crowd to Rameswaran.
Most of the popular actors and actresses would be there. We
will shout our slogans loud so that it could be heard across
the Palk Strait.”
The film personalities will travel the distance of 600km from
Chennai to Rameswaran by a special train and a convoy of buses,
thus stimulating emotional support for Sri Lankan Tamils.
They will have a demonstration and a public meeting on Sunday
and return to Chennai on Monday.
The combined effort of the ‘show of support’by the
students, traders and the film industry will transform the
hitherto demonstrations by individual political parties into
a mass support base for the Sri Lankan Tamils. Several pro-LTTE
groups had demonstrated in the past ten days and their leaders
had courted arrest.
The involvement of the students, traders and film artistes
would increase LTTE’s already strong support base.
A comparison of the results of a survey published by The New
Indian Express on Sunday with that of Ananda Vikatan survey
of August 8, shows a substantial increase of support for the
LTTE.
The Ananda Vikatan survey, being the first, probed the
mood of the people towards the LTTE. Its aim was to find whether
the war in the Wanni and the persistent propaganda by the
pro-LTTE pressure groups had affected the thinking of the
people of Tamil Nadu. To everyone’s surprise it found
that the mood of the Tamil Nadu Tamils had altered in favour
of the LTTE.
That survey found that 47.65 of the respondents wanted the
ban on the LTTE lifted. It also found that that 54.25
percent of the people supported the LTTE and 55.4 percent
supported the LTTE’s goal of establishment of Tamil Eelam.
The New Indian Express; showed that the people who wanted
the ban against the LTTE to be lifted, had slightly increased
to 51 percent. But the opposition to the LTTE had slackened.
Ananda Vikatan survey showed that 27.43 percent firmly opposed
the lifting of the ban. Last Sunday’s survey revealed
that only eight percent wanted the ban to be continued. The
rest- 24.91 percent- adopted the position of wait and see.
Ananda Vikatan survey also found that about 43 percent
of the people wanted LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran arrested
and tried for the Rajiv Gandhi assassination; while 40.07
wanted him pardoned. The balance 16.90 percent maintained
that Prabhakaran did not commit that crime. That mood has
undergone significant change.
The New Indian Express survey asked: If Sri Lanka overran
the LTTE and V. Prabhakaran is cornered, then… we would
ask that he be sent here to stand trial for killing Rajiv
Gandhi - 06 percent; he should be given asylum in Tamil Nadu
- 23 percent; he should be tried by the Sri Lanka Government
for various cases of assassinations - 12 percent; we should
appeal to the UN to intervene - 25 percent; hope he is killed
in battle to save everyone trouble - 03 percent; we should
send troops to prevent this happening - 31 percent.
The New Indian Express survey went deeper into Tamil Nadu
people’s support for the LTTE. It tried to find out the
type of support they were prepared to give the Sri Lankan
Tamil people. Eight percent said they would gladly take
part in a bandh (hartal) to express solidarity with the
Sri Lankan Tamils; 22 percent said they would support Tamil
Nadu giving shelter to Sri Lankan refugees; 16 percent said
they would do nothing because they don’t support the
cause; 14 percent said they were not interested, but, 40 percent
said they would gladly donate money and material to Tamil
Eelam.
The survey also tried to get the impression the people had
about the LTTE with the question: What is the LTTE?
Twelve percent said that it is a terrorist organisation; 30
said they are freedom fighters; 22 percent said they work
with others to promote the Tamil cause and 36 percent said
they are the sole and genuine voice of the Tamil people in
Sri Lanka.
The survey has clearly shown that support for the LTTE is
growing in Tamil Nadu and that the Tamil people are aware
of the leverage Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and its leader and
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi has in the central
government. The survey shows that they want to make use of
that weapon to make the central government intervene
in the Sri Lankan problem.
The New Indian Express asked the people: What should our politicians
do to help solve the Sri Lankan problem? Twenty six percent
of the respondents said they should allow Sri Lanka to sort
out its problem. But 34 percent said DMK should cut
off ties with the UPA for arming and training the Sri Lankan
army.
Forcing the Manmohan Singh Government to act, by pressurising
Karunanidhi, is the strategy adopted by the pro-LTTE
lobby, and Karunanidhi is going to do just that. Yesterday
evening’s All Party Conference will authorise him to
do that.
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