Citizenship is mirage for Tamil refugees from Lanka

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Citizenship is mirage for Tamil refugees from Lanka

Thursday, 12 December 2019 | Kumar Chellappan | New Delhi

The Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB)  2019 has ushered in a new narration to Tamil Nadu politics. The whole political class barring the AIADMK and the BJP is worried about the future of Tamils from Sri Lanka who have taken refuge in the State since the beginning of the civil war  in the island nation. While there are nearly 20,000 Tamil refugees from Sri Lanka spread across the length and breadth of Tamil Nadu, there is no explanation from the powers that be why these people are not given citizenship in India.  

Though there are four refugee camps for Lankan Tamils in Tamil Nadu which were once overflowing with those who came crossing the Palk Straits, situation has undergone a major change with the elimination of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and its leader V Prabhakaran by the Sri Lankan defence forces in 2009. “As on date there may be hardly 20,000 Tamil refugees in the State staying in camps and outside. Most of them have gone back to Sri Lanka after the civil war which rocked that nation for almost three decades came to an end in 2009,” said a former official of the Research and Analysis Wing, specialised in  Sri Lankan affairs.

The crisis in Sri Lanka has nothing to do with religion. “All refugees who crossed over to Tamil  Nadu where Hindus and Christians whose mother tongue is Tamil. They were forced to come over to India because  the LTTE and Prabhakaran had made life difficult for them. All economic activities came to aa halt and educational institutions were shut down by the LTTE brigands. The Tamils in northern Sri Lanka were left with no  options other than escaping to India,”   said Dr Subramanian Swamy, MP, who had closely followed the crisis in the island nation from  day one.

The crisis in Sri Lanka began in northern provinces where the Tamils revolted against the Government’s move to make Sinhala the national language. In a country where 70 per cent of the population is Budhists and speak Sinhala, the government could not be blamed for bringing such a rule. “The Tamils who had usurped Government jobs because of their  close ties with the British colonial masters had succeeded in changing the names of nearly 70 per cent of the places to Tamil from Sinhala. The entire trouble was confined to northern provinces,” said the RAW officer on condition of anonymity.

He too disclosed that it was not persecution of any kind which resulted in the exodus of Tamils to India. “The LTTE is to be blamed for that. They went on a killing spree and butchered many prominent Tamil politicians who had called for restraint from extreme measures. By early 1980, the agitation took a new turn with the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi  deciding to  support the  move for a separate Tamil nation (Eelam).

This led to Indian security forces extending training facilities for the LTTE terrorists in places like Dehradun and in  many places in Tamil Nadu,” said the RAW agent.

Many Tamils had come to India from the island nation even before the commencement of the civil war. “One of the early refugees went on to become a senior politician in a Dravidian party and ended up as a cabinet minister, pointed out the RAW man. The Governments at the centre and in Chennai had taken care of the refugees by setting apart seats for them in educational institutions, forming an exclusive bank and a plantation in Kerala,” he said.

Siri Fernando, corporate honcho based in Colombo who has witnessed with a heavy heart the riots between Tamils and Sinhalese which claimed thousands of lives said that the civil war was everything but religious or ethnic crisis. “It was all politics in which the innocents ended up as martyrs. How come the war was confined to northern Sri Lanka while Tamils in southern provinces were living in harmony with the Sinhalese?” asked Fernando who is busy giving finishing touches to his autobiography “We” which is also an account of the civil war.

T Ramakrishnan, author, whose volume “An Ethnic Conflict and An Accord” is  a benchmark book on Sri Lankan crisis says  the civil war has nothing to do with religion. ‘Yes, it was a kind of ethnic conflict. The refugees who came to India were all Hindus and Christians . The crisis was due to the language issue. But somewhere along the line we saw the Muslims being labelled as Sinhalese and the LTTE had even unleashed a reign of murder and mayhem over them,” said Ramakrishnan.

The BJP leadership may have to explain about the  reluctance on the part of the government to deny citizenship to those desirous of staying back in India. “There are many who have married into Tamil families and have acclimatised to the Indian State. But citizenship is still a mirage for these persons. That is why we are sceptical about the CAB 2019,” said a DMK leader who did not want his name to be quoted.                

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