The people of the Jaffna peninsula expect the newly established Indian Consulate General in Jaffna town to help secure a political solution to the Tamil question in Sri Lanka, says the Tamil daily Sudar Oli.
In a recent edition, columnist Yaazhavan said the people of Jaffna saw the establishment of the mission as yet another way in which India was trying to get a footing in the Tamil-dominated northern peninsula. The Jaffna man’s mind went back to 1987, when India came in the guise of a peace keeping force (IPKF) to get a foothold, he said.
India might be seeking a foothold in Jaffna to serve its own interests, but in the view of the people of Jaffna, with the establishment of the Indian mission, the responsibility for securing a political solution to the ethnic question had been handed over to India, the commentator said.
Yaazhavan said that the people of Jaffna welcomed External Affairs Minister S M Krishna’s statement of November 27 that the decision to set up a consulate in Jaffna followed a need to keep track of the many Indian development projects in the region and also to re-establish the ties between the Jaffna Tamils and the people of South India. But the commentator pointed out that the people also expected India to help them politically.
India, Yaazhavan said, should “wash off the sins” it had committed against the Tamils in the past, by playing an “honest” role in finding a political solution to the Tamil question. It should chalk out new plans for this.
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