Shenali Waduge

17% of the world population lives in India which has a population of over 1.18billion. Over 41% (422,048,642) of the Indian population speak Hindi while Tamil is spoken by only 5% of the total population though Tamil Nadu has over 62m Tamils & is the 6^th largest populated State among 28 states in India. Hindi remains India official language and it is Hindian politicians that control & dominate Indian government. What we are often made to forget is that it is India that is denying freedom for Tamils.

From 1938 there have been more than a dozen cases of anti-hindi agitations throughout Tamil Nadu culminating in the call for independence in 1968. It is good to wonder why Tamil Nadu has been in search of becoming independent from India. Basis of this stems from the fact that there was never an India until the British conquered the Indian subcontinent & decided to set up administrative units to facilitate them to rule. Therefore, people under British rule including Pakistan & Bangaldesh fought to free from British rule as a common goal. Once the British decided to end their rule that common purpose dissolved & soon Pakistan became independent while the rest of the territory became India It must be reiterated that India by name took place only after the arrival of the British. Immediately following independence in 1947, the Indian parliament became dominated by Hindian politicians & naturally Hindu becoming & remaining the official national language of India (even in the non-hindi speaking states). It was only after separatist tendencies began to emerge from Tamil Nadu in 1962 with DMK winning 50 legislature seats on the platform of independence that the Indian Government was quick to introduce legislation disallowing any party, group or individual who spoke in support of freedom from India to contest elections.

Why would Tamil Nadu wish to separate, why would the domination of Hindi throughout the country spur & inspire separatist tendencies? It is only looking further into how India functions that one begins to understand why Hindi imposition is likely to infuriate. It is not only the domination in the linguistic arena, but knowledge of Hindi affects state employment, including private sector and there remains plenty of criticism as to how the Indian Government controls television & other broadcasts to promote Hindi (private channels are available only through cable & satellites & are costly & available in urban areas only). Another grievance shared commonly by Tamil Nadu & other states is the manner in which taxes from the states go to the central government as revenues & then are returned to the states as infrastructure projects, loans, grants etc.

While most in Tamil Nadu do not have anything against Hindi language per se, the argument that is raised is why should Indian Government employees from Tamil Nadu learn & work in Hindi (in non-Hindi areas). It was in Kanchipuram in 1938 that the first anti-Hindi imposition conference took place against making hindi compulsory in Tamil Nadu schools. The following year Anti-Hindi march from Trichi to Chennai took place & the slogan Tamil Nadu for Tamils In 1939 the WomenAnti-Hindi conference was held & a few women arrested died in prison. In view of the opposition, making hindi compulsory was withdrawn in 1940 but was reintroduced two years later igniting anti-hindi protests & once again the order was withdrawn. The same pattern took place in 1946. Following independence hindi was finally made compulsory in 1948. The new Indian Constitution came into effect in 1950, January 26 despite opposition Hindi was made the official language of India, hindi was made a compulsory subject in both middle & high schools & once again intense protests ensued throughout Tamil Nadu till Government once again withdrew the order. It was in 1965, when Hindi was said to become the sole official language of India that the series of random agitations ended up with black flags all over Tamil Nadu. The protests eventually culminated in the first of a series of trends in self-immolation & eventually police & army opening fire in 21 towns across the state, arresting over 10,000 and deaths numbering over 100. In the 1967 general elections Congress Party was defeated and DMK (Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam) won a landslide victory to form the State Government though this did not stop hindi imposition which came from the Indian Central Government. It was in 1968 that calls for Tamil Nadu to become an independent country began to surface & Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was handed a letter by the Tamil Nadu Students Anti-Hindi Agitation Committee saying that if Hindi imposition continued, the fight for independent Tamil Nadu would continue. It was in 1980s that the Tamil Nadu Liberation Army (TNLA) was formed. What makes empathy towards Tamils in Tamil Nadu is the fact that while over 95% of Tamils in India live in Tamil Nadu & Tamil speaking Tamils also live in Tamil Nadu it is surprising why the Indian Central Government would want to continue to impose Hindi in Tamil Nadu however, this is not the same in Sri Lanka. The Tamil speaking population in both the North & East while making over 60% when Muslims (who speak Tamil) are taken out of this equation leaves only 35% of Tamils.

Understandably, why would the hindi dominated Central Government desire to put hindi signs across States (in offices, railway stations, bus stands etc) when 99% of the populace do not speak hindi? Since English is taught in every school in India why cannot signs be in English? The opposition against Hindi names etc in Tamil Nadu is essentially to protest against Hindian supremacy, domination & hegemony over Tamils. Most Tamils agree that a Tamil working in a Hindi state must learn Hindi, but why should a Tamil learn Hindi when he is working in Tamil Nadu? Yet what clout has the Dravidian parties like DMK, AIADMK have over the Indian Central Government none except of course pretending to exert pressure on Sri Lanka so that the internal issues get sidelined. But the irony is that when elected representatives from Tamil Nadu & Tamil Nadu State Government cannot do anything about the Hindi imposition by the Indian Central Government in Tamil Nadu why should they be so pleased when the Indian Government pretends to pressure Sri Lanka whose Tamils do not desire to give up Sri Lankan citizenship & reside in Tamil Nadu? Can the Indian Central Government deny that for over 65 years Tamils have been fighting against injustice to them & that is why voices were heard for separatism but Indian intelligence was quick to devise separatist thoughts & have it take off in Sri Lanka so that it would give breathing space for the Indian Government while Tamil Nadu could be made to watch separatism taking place off shore.

Separatism & freedom for Tamil Nadu certainly did not mean terrorist activity and commercial interests which invariably ended up what LTTE was all about completely departing from what Tamil Nadu people desired in Tamil Nadu? With terrorist activity over in Sri Lanka, and grievances nothing compared to or as near as those that Tamil Nadu has against the Indian Government, it is perhaps good for Sri Lanka Tamils to make a self-assessment & accept that they have been fairly treated except the ugly incident of 1983 where total responsibility & accountability must belong with the UNP Government & politicians that were in power at that time.

 In case Tamils in Tamil Nadu & others globally may not know there are some truths that cannot be denied of liberties enjoyed by Tamils in Sri Lanka. Over 30% of professional jobs are held by 12% of these minority Tamils who enjoy twice the per capita income as of Sinhalese, their rate of unemployment is half of the Sinhalese. Unlike India, Sri Lanka has recognized Tamil as a national language & their religious days are given as public holidays while they are also recognized on the national flag through the color yellow. If fairness is the key denominator, was it not unfair for the majority Sinhalese to be deprived its rightful status all throughout colonial rule where even by 1956 (8 years after independence) Tamils held over 75% jobs in the public service.

But clearly, an ethnic group as large as the Tamils with over 72million population is without a homeland and it is this desire that is raising its head from time to time globally. Those that have migrated are similarly crying for that right nevertheless what is unfair in their pleas for separatism is that they are encouraging the unemployed, poverty stricken youth to take up arms & fight while they wish to remain in foreign soil, get on with their comfortable lives and land as peace envoys from time to time. It is certainly important that innocent Tamils realize the follies that have prevailed & under the mask of separatism the dishonesty that took place especially in the case of Sri Lanka. Tamils who had not been party to terror activity will better understand by questioning how some Tamils who led ordinary lives either in Sri Lanka or now abroad are living so comfortably now & the links they had to the LTTE networks which would have helped them to leverage their living standards?

Returning to the question of rights of Tamils in Tamil Nadu where the entire separatist issue was created, it is good for Rahul Gandhi to first satisfy the injustices that prevail as a result of hindi imposition on Tamil Nadu before pointing fingers at sovereign nations. We understand how India functions & these immature retorts can be completely ignored because these are meant to once again divert attention of Tamil Nadu leaders who themselves powerless against North Indian hedgemony prefer to show their colors across the Palk Strait at least giving them a semblance of respect. One poignant question is asked of Tamils & their leaders in Tamil Nadu, if Tamils of Sri Lanka are the brethren of Tamils in India why are they called Sri Lankan Tamil refugees why should they languish in refugee camps, should these people not be treated like their own and welcomed to settle down in Tamil Nadu and perhaps go to the extent of asking all other Tamils who feel they are better looked after in Tamil Nadu to make permanent residency in Tamil Nadu? Those who enjoy depicting the LTTE as an entity that fought to protect its own may like to also explain why LTTE killed scores of Tamils and kidnapped thousands & turned into child soldiers or suicide bombers. Yet, those that speak at Tamil forums globally lamenting the annihilation of the LTTE & its top brass are completely ignorant of the truth or prefer to be blinded by false notions. It is advised that these people perhaps see how the people of the North & East are now living without LTTE nepotism & LTTE threats to realize the extent of that relief that the LTTE is no more. It is well & fine to be crying war from overseas but it is the innocent people that end up suffering & have those that sent funds to the LTTE through the years never spent a penny on uplifting the lives of their own people who had to live amongst the LTTE just to show that the LTTE had a support base?

Yet one thing that is common to the uprisings that took place in Tamil Nadu & Sri Lanka echoing separatist tendencies is the link to the Church. It was the Christian Bishops & priests that were instrumental in creating a Tamil movement in India but the large Hindu component with Brahmin leadership managed to defeat Christian ideology which unfortunately was not the case in Sri Lanka. Chelvanayagam who formed the Ilankai Thamil Arasu Katchchi later to be known in English as Federal Party was a Christian and the formation of this party which literally translates to amil state was formed in 1949 far earlier than the often mentioned Sinhala Only introduced in 1956 which hardly took off the ground. Therefore, desire in some quarters for a separate Tamil state existed far before Tamils in Tamil Nadu or Sri Lanka would like the world to believe. In Sri Lanka the lame excuse has been to raise the Sinhala Only policy as the reason to start fighting against oppression by Sinhalese against the Tamils but the Federal Party with its mission to work towards a separate state was formed 6 years before the Sinhala Only policy was introduced and almost immediately after Sri Lanka gained independence. So these grievance rhetoric was only a camouflage against a greater design & plan.

The Church has a way of entering into conflict stricken countries & create further unrest & division. In India the Church has made inroad success in states like Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland while interior states have thus far proved to resist Christian domination though coastal states like Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka have shown vulnerability.

Similarly, it was the Church that divided Sri Lankans along linguistic lines (Sinhala Tamil) and it was the Church that backed the LTTE as can be seen by the numerous Christian & Catholic based NGOs operating during & throughout the conflict. LTTE theoretician Anton Balasingham himself was a roman catholic while Prabakaran himself was a turned Christian. This in no way diminishes the respect Buddhists have for intellectuals like Ponnambalam Ramanathan, Ponnambalam Arunachalam, Commraswamy, the former who was responsible for pushing to make wesak a public holiday.

In India, the Churches influence in Tamil Nadu can be seen in the manner Jayalalitha repealed the anti-conversion law enacted by her own Government to appease the Christian community & became recipient of the Golden Star for Dignity & Honor by a Ukraine-based Christian organization named International Human Rights Defense Committee (funded by the USAID) She has even spoken against the Sethusamudram Project, her election manifesto speaks of exclusive commitments for Christian Dalits, All Souls Day to be made a holiday though she remains uncommitted on repeal of the ordinance on Tamil New Year. It is clearly evident that a great Eelaam means a greater Christian state encompassing Tamil Nadu & North & East Sri Lanka.

Keeping to the topic of homeland it must be accepted that when 84% of the worldTamils live in Tamil Nadu, Tamil Nadu is the homeland of the Tamils and therefore it is pointless any separatist activity taking place in other countries on the excuse of creating a separate Tamil Homeland. All colonial rulers (British, Dutch, Spanish, French, Portuguese) created colonies but they kept to one homeland, and though there are large populations residing in countries like US do they also demand separate homelands just because of their numbers. Of course the excuse that is being propagated is that an ancient Tamil kingdom existed before the Sinhalese kingdoms. This again raises the argument that if there were such Tamil kingdoms why are there only a mere 2.4m Tamils against 15m Sinhalese? There are no historically written evidence, no monuments, no inscriptions to prove this theory except that Tamils that arrived from India came only as mercenaries. However, there are plenty of ancient Sinhalese monuments & inscriptions throughout Sri Lanka to prove the presence of the Sinhalese.

A lesson from India is that despite the injustice that prevails in terms of Hindi imposition in states that do not speak Hindi & despite agitations against these unjustified actions which has India bring legislation to protect India from separatist tendencies disallowing political parties, groups & individuals who demand freedom & separation from India, why has Sri Lanka not taken steps to also include similar legislation?

We cannot tell India how to rule India whether the impose Hindi in all of its 28 states remains the decision of India & those against such moves must sort it out with the Indian Government, however India must stop demanding Sri Lanka to do what India wishes. Now, if this is so difficult to do it is best that India invites all Tamils that feel they can find better pastures in India to permanently reside in India.

Sri Lanka Tamil who have been languishing amongst a terror group after almost 30 years are breathing without fear. Obviously people including some Tamils living all this time in foreign climes do not understand nor can comprehend the magnitude of that fear that these Tamils were living under. People who have supported the LTTE from afar & those that have done so for commercial gain will never understand how much in fear the people of Sri Lanka lived. As a country, we can now travel without the fear of bombs exploding or suicide bombers disguised as civilians deciding to bomb themselves up just to get media attention for the LTTE.

The fact of the matter remains that all separatist agendas that are taking place all over the world really have nothing to do with separating & separately living from an aggrieved party. These conflicts are created only to ensure the commercial advantages to some, the encirclement of agendas to another set & eventually the means of creating monetary transactions to make a few richer at the cost of the poor.

Shenali Waduge