Matt Shurtleff and Dr. Chad Emmett, Geography
Most political situations have an interesting background. They are the stuff that spy movies are made of. The involvement of India in the Sri Lankan civil war is no exception.
I wanted to find out just how much Tamil Nadu has been affected by the conflict. I was able to interview many people who were well educated on the problem and who also had strong opinions. Tamils in India and Sri Lanka share the same language, Tamil and have a feeling of connection and desire to support one another.
I had a question. What, in an Indian’s opinion started this conflict? I had an excellent interview with a Tamil lawyer (who everyone called Advocate) from Madurai that I met through a NGO. He knew the leaders of the Tigers (the LTTE, or Tamil separatists in Sri Lanka) before they were Tigers. According to him, 1983 was the start of the war. The British had ruled Sri Lanka; before them the Dutch and Portuguese. During the Colonial Period, the north and east peoples were educated by the English. Most of these people were Tamils. The Advocate described the Sinhalese as “docile” but “very good” and “hospitable”. The Tamils are “shrewd and intelligent”, and were dominant because of education he said. They were therefore used by the British in administration. The word Dorei means Lord. The Sinhalese called the Tamils and also the British that. Tamils referred to British as Dorei also. Sinhalese are “lazy” according to Advocate and find it difficult to learn English. 90-95% of population could not vote because they were illiterate. The genesis of the problem was the Sinhalese wanting government jobs. 75% of the population was Sinhalese and 20% of Tamils had 80% of the jobs in 1948. On Feb. 4, 1948, the British left. The Tamils demanded 50% of the power and the Sinhalese said no. Sinhalese was made the official language. Tamils were promised land and federal status but they never got it. Youth unrest is responsible for this position now.
Or could it be a stubborn attitude on both sides? As I hear Advocate call the Sinhalese “lazy” I can’t help but wonder if there is built in prejudice similar to the unfortunate white vs. black situation that was dominant in early U.S. history and is still found in some areas today.
Tigers were becoming a menace in Tamil Nadu. Rajiv refused to train them anymore and told them to settle with Sri Lanka. Rajiv had a good relationship with Pres. of Sri Lanka. The LTTE had Rajiv Gandhi assassinated and the group was banned in India. Advocate is writing a book and people are saying he doesn’t support the Tamils because he is in support of a unified Sri Lanka. Is pride more important than peace?
I interviewed an American woman who has been living in Tamil Nadu for the past eight years and has to fly to Sri Lanka once a year to meet visa requirements. She told me that the island is a beautiful place but when you go from your airplane to the airport you know you are in a war zone. There are anti-aircraft guns and in the city there are a lot more people publicly displaying firearms.
Since the 1970’s, Sri Lanka has been home to some of the most intense separatist groups in the world. Sabaratnam has commented that,
The Sri Lankan Civil War has been going on in earnest for more than twenty years. Much of the fighting is drudgery, showing a marked tolerance for death at the hands of violent men and women. Yet it is the occasional dramatic event that has entered the world’s media. The island, known at one time for its tourist attractions and its exemplary democratic tradition, is now known more as the site for inhuman violence demonstrated by both everyday acts and the occasional media byte. The fact that these events do not discriminate between innocent victims and military personnel gives them the dubious merit of being called terrorist, both state terrorist and guerilla terrorist (Sabaratnam 227).
Mr. Sabaratnam has titled the LTTE as terrorists, as mentioned above. Is the killing of policemen and politicians that support the Sri Lankan government and instigation of riots grounds for being labeled terrorists? Mr. Manivannan, a Tiger spokesman, does not agree. “The primary motive of the Sri Lankan Government’s international propaganda is to portray the Liberation Tigers as a terrorist organization and its war with the Sri Lankan armed forces as terrorist activities. Its principal objective is therefore to cause damage to the image of the Liberation Tigers in the outside world and thereby belittle the Eelam liberation cause” (Manivannan, 1997). The argument is that the Tamils have been forced to use arms as the Sri Lankan government seeks to silence them. They contend that they are fighting for Tamils freedom from oppression. However, Tamil Maanila Congress president in Tamil Nadu, G.K. Moopanar asked the question, “If the LTTE is safeguarding the interests of Tamils there, why is there an increase in the refugee flow to India” (Frontline, 2000)? The number of refugees, over 150,000, seems to be an overwhelming amount.
I wanted to understand what the plight of the refugees was, so I visited a refugee camp near Mettupalayam. A local government leader met me and drove my wife and me out to the camp. It was located far out in the country and had one strip of pavement that abruptly ended in a pile of dirt. The people were curious as to why a young American couple wanted to visit their village. (Much to my chagrin, I found out several months later when the interviews were translated that the leader told them I would be presenting my findings at the international level so that I could fix their problems). The refugees were friendly, but anxious. They had left Sri Lanka to escape the conflict and had been in India for 14 years. They all wanted to go back, but knew that it wasn’t possible at the present time. I asked question after question and kept getting the same answer: they need money for education. The refugees see education as the only way out of the conflict and poverty that they find themselves in. There are 15 scholarships given per year to prospective students in Tamil Nadu. Each one is worth about US $111. Government aid is almost non-existent. The Indian government seems to put up with them but does not necessarily champion their cause. The village asked a local representative to get additional buses so that their children could go to school. He told them to write a petition and give it to him. Nothing has happened so far. The government built some houses for them but later reclaimed the property and demolished the dwellings. No reason was given. The refugees also showed me rice the government supplies. It was peppered with black rice that was rotten. They seem to get what is left. Refugee life is hard, and they know that it will be until the conflict in Sri Lanka is resolved.
I wanted to know just how much India had been involved in the training of Tamil separatists. During the 1980’s there were reportedly training camps in Tamil Nadu for Tamil Separatists who were then sent to Sri Lanka. Indira Gandhi, India’s Prime Minister, approved the training of militants in Tamil Nadu saying it was “a safety valve to prevent a resurgence of separatist ambitions in Tamil Nadu”(Hagerty 1991, 354). This allowance was hoped by Indian officials to curb possible uprisings by the Tamils in Tamil Nadu over India’s inaction with the conflict.
Agents of RAW (Research and Analysis Wing), were extensively involved in the covert training and arming of Tamil militant groups. There were thirty-nine rebel camps based in Tamil Nadu, where an estimated 3,000 guerillas were being trained (Bullion 1995).
It was also reported that “Tamil Nadu, besides being a sanctuary, offered the LTTE financial and material support. The LTTE painstakingly created a clandestine network of smugglers, fishermen, political activists, transport operators, businessmen and officials” (Frontline, 2000). This covert training of militants was seen as hostile by the Sri Lankan Government.
My interviews only strengthened the evidence for these claims. I interviewed a wealthy landowner in our village. According to him, Coimbatore, the city we were living near, at one time contained factories that were making guns for the rebels. It seems that at first, most Tamils supported the cause of the separatists in Sri Lanka. Back in the 1960’s Tamils in India wanted to break away from India. Hindi was being forced on them and that was not acceptable because “Tamil is the first ancient language” according to Tamil tradition. India crushed the rebellion and some 50 to 500 people were killed in the process. I asked the landowner if Tamils still wanted to split from India. He said that Tamil Nadu as a whole does not want to break away from India. If there are any that do, they are a small minority in this age. I separately interviewed this man’s wife on a different occasion. She told me that there are people who still covertly support the LTTE but it is top secret. She said she tries not to think about the conflict or let it bother her and that the U.S. has many different peoples and is prospering. Why can’t Sri Lanka? I tell her I don’t know. Maybe she doesn’t know that her husband is one of the supporters. I decide not to tell her. Although he doesn’t agree with the tactics, he is all for the cause. The landowner personally knows the leader of the LTTE whom he met while living in Madras and attending school in Sri Lanka but hasn’t talked to him in 10 years. Although LTTE is banned, landowner does not feel bad for supporting them in their cause but not their actions. I asked him what the effects of the conflict were on Tamil Nadu. He said the average villager won’t know a thing about the conflict and that there is not much affect on Tamil Nadu. Refugees affected specific areas but not the state as a whole.
I spent some time thinking about the comments of the landowners. In India, the caste system has been formally abolished. However, one visit to the less urban centers of India will confirm that traditions thousands of years old cannot be abolished with the passing of a law. The village I lived in was an “Untouchable” village. The people living there have been discriminated against according to their family status for hundreds if not thousands of years. Right in the middle of the village live the Landowners. They started the village hundreds of years ago and have allowed Untouchables to live on the land. The Landowners are high up in the cast system, and the Untouchables are not allowed to visit them unless it is on business. They live in a large home with inner courtyards and servants. Village members recall tales of the Landowners owning elephants just for show. The Landowners have not had to worry about how they were going to feed their families or if there would be jobs to be found. The wife’s comment that she tries not to think about the conflicts or the refugees seems fitting for a life of luxury. It doesn’t affect her, so why should she care?
However, there are those that have been affected and do care. As the conflict in Sri Lanka raged on, Tamils in Tamil Nadu India were gathering the strength and courage to speak out against the Central Indian government. An argument that still stands today is this: Tamil Nadu has never been a part of India. Proponents of this view argue that the British conquered the kingdoms of the Indian subcontinent one by one and lumped them all together as an administrative unit called “India”. Before that, India did not exist as India. It has been said that India is an ancient country with an ancient heritage. This is not true they say. The central government has hindianized India, making Hindi the official language of all aspects of life. They argue that the central government wants the taxes they receive from Tamil Nadu and will not let them go because it amounts to billions of Rupees every year (Tamil Tribune, 2005).
There are Tamil Nationalist groups in India such as the Tamil Nadu Liberation Army (TNLA), and the Tamil Nadu Retrieval Troops (TNRT) who follow this argument. The Patali Makkal Katchi (PMK), also wants a Tamil Nation within India and supports the LTTE (Tamil Tribune, 1999). They desire to be separate from the rest of India and some even want to link up with the Tamils in Sri Lanka to form “Greater Tamil”. In the 1980’s, when India was helping the LTTE become trained, they became a powerful militant organization. The ethnic bond between Tamils in Tamil Nadu and those in the LTTE is strong. The TNRT and TNLA give the LTTE a chance to infiltrate India and the LTTE can now provide arms to those in India and the Indians will provide the manpower (Francis, 2000). It seems that a separatist war in southern India is eminent.
Advocate says that there is no chance of Tamil Nadu splitting off
I looked for signs of Tamil nationalism that could perhaps help me better understand the political environment of Tamil Nadu. I found little to no reference to the LTTE as far as graffiti or signage was concerned. I did find a sign declaring the Tamil language to be divine. I checked the daily newspapers as often as I could and found that the Sri Lankan conflict was regularly reported on. Rumors of state government assistance to the LTTE were brought up, only to be squashed by politicians. Refugee success stories were also reported.
I found an interesting book in a Tamil Nadu bookstore. It is titled, “War or Peace in Sri Lanka” and is written by a Sri Lankan Ambassador. I read it cover to cover and found that he is absolutely pro-peace but can also see the validity of the arguments on both sides. However, he is not afraid to describe the atrocities that the Sinhalese government and the Tamil separatists have inflicted on one another. The Sinhalese have taken part in some less-than-gracious actions, although they seem to have been heavily provoked. After my interviews and all that I have read, I have a hard time feeling bad for the separatists. Their level of violence and total disregard for human life is hard to swallow. I read account after account of ruthless murders of people in their own homes, and most by youth. Any police person or official that made any kind of statement or action that suggested something that was contrary to the LTTE’s plans had in effect signed their own death warrant. The LTTE believes that excessive force will eventually get them what they want.
At the present time, most Tamils are willing to be a part of India. Without them, India would be a different country and their secession would be a great loss culturally as well as politically. My hope is that LTTE’s mentality of force never fully makes it to India. To some extent, Mrs. Landowner is right. We can live in peace if we desire it. I am wondering what both groups in Sri Lanka truly desire. Life is too short and the world is too small for us to destroy each other for any cause. On my first train ride in India, I was sitting across from a family from Coimbatore. After speaking with them for a while I found that they were traveling home from a wedding in Chennai and that the father and son were both pastors in a Christian church. I asked them what they thought a good solution for the conflict in Sri Lanka was. “The people there need Jesus Christ” was the reply. I can’t say I disagree.
References
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