In whatever ways Eezham Tamils may express aspiration for their national liberation, India and Rajapaksa government will quietly go ahead with their agenda of what they understand by ‘reconciliation,’ is the response that comes from the circles of the Indian Establishment. Informed Tamil political circles say there is a ‘high level’ understanding among all powers of geopolitical competition to negate Tamil independence. How to achieve the goal when all are against and what is the point in claiming freedom outside when people are subjugated inside are questions of those who are disillusioned by the psychological war. If crimes against Tamil nation are committed due to geopolitics the antidote is nothing but Tamil uprising to prove geopolitical superiority and the responsibility lies with Tamil Nadu.
TamilNet Editorial Board
More important than committing a crime is not accepting it a crime and also preventing the victims from justifying their case.
This is exactly what all the establishments involved in the crime in various degrees want to demonstrate to Tamils and through that demonstrate to the entire world of their ‘New World Order.’
The foremost part of the exercise is the nullification of the Tamil national question and making Tamils denounce their national aspiration on their own.
A thousand baseless arguments and crafty agendas of ‘development’ are now put to work side by side with intimidation, incarceration and colonisation of the nation occupied by forces in the island on one hand, and with concerted incapacitation of Eezham Tamil nationalists in the diaspora on the other hand.
As the focus of genocide has now shifted from physical crime to political crime, the pivotal strategy of the Establishments is to forge tangential polity for Tamils inside and outside of the island.
What is perceived in Tamil circles as an open show of arrogance is India that has committed war crimes against Eezham Tamils two decades back and abetted war crimes last year, now seeking leverages to forge Tamil polity without any recognition to their national question. Obviously the ‘true friends’ in Colombo and New Delhi contribute to each other’s confidence on many ‘ventures’ including this.
Not that the Eezham Tamil circles are unaware of the money that flow, people shuttle, long exiled personalities arriving in and plans hatching for providing ‘security’ to the orchestrated polity.
People in India have to realise that for all what India did, Eezham Tamils are not the ones who brought India’s competitors and security threats into the region.
Suffering from Asia’s longest duplicity of democracy in the island ever since the Donoughmore Constitution of 1931 that has evolved to the extent of democratically endorsed genocide, Eezham Tamils have only asked for their sovereignty not transferred to them by the British in 1948.
Failing to address the question, all forces now poking their noses endangering everyone in the region were brought in only by Colombo and by the wrong policies of the Kautilyas of New Delhi who were keen only in serving Tamil heads on the platter.
As long as India doesn’t recognize the nation and sovereignty of Eezham Tamils, any Indian-backed polity will not be acceptable to Eezham Tamils and will be resisted inside and outside of India goes without saying.
The immediate casualty of the emerging India-Mahinda machinations for Tamil polity is going to be the collaborators who served Mahinda in the war. It happens every time for those who don’t independently base their politics on their own people, but who learns?
* * *
Spelt-out Tamil sentiments against the Establishments of New Delhi and Colombo don’t mean others are overlooked. More than the obnoxious entries of China, Russia and some others, what is of serious political concern to Tamils is the stand of the West.
The US, which timed its rigorous sentence to arms procurers of the LTTE to demonstrate its ‘strictness’ a few days before the presidential elections of Sri Lanka, didn’t show that keenness in addressing war crimes resulted by its policies, even when people accused of war crimes and within its legal grip came in and out of its territory.
To what extent the West will show interest in delivering justice for war crimes and genocide and more importantly convert the justice into political remedy in the emerging scenario of the island is a question in the minds of Tamil circles.
Tamils may have to constitute their own independent war tribunal to set historical records right.
As far as the Tamil national question is concerned a ‘high level’ understanding exists among all the powers to nullify it, says informed Tamil political circles.
It is not a secret the West’s agencies were working hard and are working hard to forge tangential polity in the Tamil diaspora to match the Indian efforts in the Island.
“Cry for self-rule by Tamils is muffled by reality,” says an article in New York Times, Monday, citing a Tamil who was articulating on the side of those who were muffling it in the war and now speaks about ‘ground realities.’
Some other international media, for whom Tamil nationalism never existed and there was only ‘terrorism’, now have the irony of saying Tamil nationalism is weakened.
What actually baffles the West today is the determination of the diaspora that has re-mandated a polity to struggle for total independence and sovereignty.
* * *
Most of the Sinhala intellectuals are complacent that the civil war is over. For them Tamils are not a nation, but ‘minorities’ – permanent minorities. Their worry now is the division in the ‘dominant political class.’
On the future of Tamil polity in the island, Jayadeva Uyangoda wrote recently: “They [Tamils] have become sensitive to the fact that the military victory over the LTTE has reaffirmed the hegemonic hold of majoritarianism over the Sri Lankan state. They also know that at present, unlike in the past, minority rights struggles have no dependable friends, globally or regionally. Entering into pragmatic coalitions with Sinhalese political parties and regimes for political survival is likely to occupy their attention in the near future.”
An year ago, Prof. Uyangoda wrote Tamils have to now look upon to the ‘magnanimity’ of the Sinhalese. But the recent presidential elections have only proved the good old convention that no one aspiring for power in Sri Lankan state could afford to have magnanimous agenda for Tamils.
Bleak presentation discouraging struggle for liberation is part of calculated psychological war by all those who are opposed to Tamil independence, ranging from the Sinhala State and abetting powers to sections among Tamils who harp on the prospects of capital accumulating in Colombo.
Tamil circles didn’t fail to notice the amount of time spent by sections of media run by Tamils on Mahinda-Fonseka politics while sabotaging Tamil efforts laying foundation for independent polity. They will be again busy now with parliamentary elections announced Tuesday.
Division in the dominant political class of the Sinhalese is natural, as the war was not actually ‘won’ by it. When you depend on others for your victory, that too for an unfair victory, then you have to pay the price. That is what this dominant class is paying and will continue to pay.
Worshipping half naked at Nalloor Kanthasaami temple is no show of penitence to the naked killings of Tamil men and women. The dominant class good at con is neither prepared nor capable of conceding anything. Eezham Tamils should not waste their crucial time and energy that should be spent on re-organizing meaningful liberation politics in collaborations proving united Sri Lanka desired by hegemonic forces.
* * *
But many Tamils are likely to be disillusioned by the propaganda how to achieve liberation when all are against it.
Tamils have to ask the question why all are against. It is not that the powers have a special love for the Sinhalese and hatred for Tamils.
Earlier we were told a blatant lie that it was due to ‘terrorism.’ But now everybody is convinced that truth lies elsewhere.
The simple reason is the Sinhalese were able to articulate their geopolitical importance for a long time now in the region while the Tamils did not, despite having six times of the Sinhalese population in the same geographical region.
If freedom and well being of Tamils are ultimately going to be decided by the show of geopolitical strength in contemporary times, then it has to be jointly achieved by all Tamils on either side of the Palk Bay and by Tamils all over the world.
Successive governments and elite of Tamil Nadu share the responsibility in not asserting the state to its due geopolitical importance and in allowing the lopsided foreign policies of New Delhi to go unchecked. But responsibility for a ‘historic’ failure falls squarely on Mr. Karunanidhi.
Karunanidhi not only failed to articulate the geopolitical importance at a crucial juncture but also sabotaged the prospects of Eezham Tamil liberation and possible international recognition to it by negating the concept of Tamil Eelam in the State Assembly.
He was silent when Eezham Tamils requested recognition for Tamil Eelam but chose the moment for his negation when the Tamil military power was crushed. It was a surrender of the geopolitical strength of all Tamils.
Some Tamil circles think what is the point in articulating for Tamil Eelam in the diaspora and in Tamil Nadu, when people are subjugated in the island and no liberation politics is possible there in the current situation.
They make a mistake. The situation is an outcome of geopolitical concerns of powers. In our case, certain vital input altering the geopolitical equation has to largely come from outside.
The diaspora Tamils have started with re-mandating the Vaddukkoaddai Resolution calling for independent and sovereign Tamil Eelam. The impact of the democratic exercise in asserting to geopolitics and in laying foundation to political organization is manifold.
The voice, especially the assertion to geopolitics has to be firmly reflected by all people of Tamil origins all over the world.
It is now time for Tamil Nadu to begin a democratic process, ultimately to cast its full weight, if the crimes against Tamils are committed in the name of geopolitics and all forces choose to operate in that guise in the waters around Tamil Nadu. Preferably movements outside of electoral politics should take a lead and should associate Kerala and other southern states in the process.
Even though under subjugation, Tamil politicians in the island have a historic responsibility in setting the bearing of political organization away from collaboration politics.
Some of the fundamentals of the political task are laying strong secular foundation for the unity of all Tamil speaking people, shifting Tamil capital away from Colombo and developing genuine democratic institutions for our own social health and to resist colonizers and their abetters.
The way totalitarianism pervades the south, a time may come even the Sinhalese have to be protected by Tamils and our political foundations need to be laid with wider perspectives of inclusion and universality.
(For updates you can share with your friends, follow TNN on Facebook and Twitter )