Growing menace on India’s southern front

In a matter of time there will be a demand for a Pan-Tamil state in this region

by Ravi Vigneswaran, Tamilnadu

(December 13, Chennai, Sri Lanka Guardian) Sri Lankan smuggler seeds took roots on the southern Indian coast decades ago. They were pure and simple highly remunerative smuggler activities entirely monopolized by Sri Lanka’s Valvettiturai community. Traditional fisher caste folks, they capitalized and flourished in this venture on their sea-faring and boat building skills. While they kept to their fishing occupation, developing it more as a cover to their smuggling pursuits, they built a good relationship with the fishing communities along the southern South Indian coast of Tamilnadu.

Some Valvettiturai fishermen cum smugglers took Indian wives and chose to settle down in India, a few managing two homes one on either side of the Palk Straits. Thangachimadam, Vilunthamavadi and Rameswaram are such places where they have settled communities. The contraband goods were generally those that were valued largely on both sides with Indian sarees being popular in Sri Lanka and electronic goods from Sri Lanka prized very much in India. These goods varied according to the demands they fetched from time to time.

But the top notch items were drugs and gold. The smugglers operated fast boats with outboard motors that made the journey between the two coasts across a mere whistle and a song. One of the reasons for the success of this operation was corruption and the Valvettiturai smugglers kept the coastguards of both countries in good kinship. It is said that an occasional detection would have been preplanned often when a major operation was about to be undertaken.

___________________________

The danger threatening India now is more menacing and boding of evil than what the sub-continent continues to face on its northern borders ever since partition in 1947. Increasingly, the LTTE activists have been infiltrating in Tamilnadu and Kerala and possibly even in Karnataka and they are backed by massive funding not just from the Sri Lankan Tamil Diaspora alone.
__________________________

The arrival of Velupillai Prabhakaran on the scene added a new component to the Valvettiturai seafaring operations. He seized the opportunities available at that time especially India’s concerns about how successive Sri Lankan governments were treating the Tamils, to let his political ideas to take roots in India from the role that was cast on him through circumstances. From day one, he was for an armed struggle for Tamil liberation; in his case, a brutal and ruthless armed struggle. He, however, had his own agenda to create a mafia hold in the region.

The Indian Government was frustrated by the Sri Lankan Government’s attitudes towards the rights of the Tamils and had come to believe that the Tamils needed support. It was also, no doubt, concerned that this state of affairs was explosive and could threaten India’s statehood in respect of Tamilnadu. In consequence, the various Tamil liberation groups in Sri Lanka found favourable response from New Delhi.

The training facilities for armed action against Colombo made available by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi enabled Prabhakaran and other Tamil leaders to go deeper into Tamilnadu to set up their camps and also interact with the local population. But even in India the LTTE would not tolerate other Tamil liberation groups. Prabhakaran was hell-bent on total monopoly even if that demanded decimating the other groups.

During this time, obviously unrecognized by Indian authorities, a dangerous and highly ominous activity began to develop in Tamilnadu. Like a dose of yeast souring a dosa mix, Prabhakaran’s ideas were making their impact on some petty politicians of Tamilnadu.

Prabhakaran’s recognition very early in his liberation career that these politicians could be bought for a song enabled him to make the Sri Lankan Tamil cause attractive to them. Tamilnadu politics caught emotionally in the claws of “Dravidanism” never went beyond it. Whether opposition or government, they found it has to be some kind of Dravida menu that clicked with the masses. They were virtually empty of political ideologies but perpetually pregnant with emotional outpourings in search of power and feasted the masses on the dramatics of stage orations, hardly anything further.

It all began with Dravida Kazhagam and then came the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, followed by the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and later Makkal Dravida Kazhagam, Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and perhaps many more political mushrooms conducting politics like the shuffling of casino cards. Tamilnadu lacks the stability of Kerala where the Malayalam-speaking population even democratized communism as nowhere else in the world.

The Tamilian masses in Tamilnadu are vastly influenced by the Tamil cinema, an industry that probably produces the most violent films in the world. Only exceptionally a good Tamil movie is produced but with such the producers take a big risk in respect of box office returns. Over the years knives pulled out from the back of heroes and villains have become larger that makes one wonder how such a large weapon could be hidden inside a shirt. But then everything about Tamils films is fantasy far beyond realities.

So much so, violence has become imbedded in Tamilnadu politics. The hero is often depicted as the one who will deliver the goods even if violence is the obvious means for it. Tamilnadu Chief Minister’s son, Alagagiri enjoys such a reputation and around December, Madurai considered his fortress gets shabbily jam-packed with posters celebrating his birthday. He is presented in five-storey high gaudy posters from Lord Vishnu and Rama to legendary heroes and cricketing stars with his supporters in full praise of him. Sadly all his violent activities are acclaimed heroic.

While Alagagiri is a political reality in Tamilnadu and such like people involved in politics, Prabhakaran has achieved a mythical invincibility, the ultimate in heroism in the minds of people who do not think beyond their noses. They are heavily dependent on the Tamil cinema that constantly preaches the gospel of violence as the be all and end all of everything. Film story and script writers like Karunanidhi thrived on the mass hunger for films that served them emotionally. The TV serials too have taken their cues from such films.

The danger threatening India now is more menacing and boding of evil than what the sub-continent continues to face on its northern borders ever since partition in 1947. Increasingly, the LTTE activists have been infiltrating in Tamilnadu and Kerala and possibly even in Karnataka and they are backed by massive funding not just from the Sri Lankan Tamil Diaspora alone. There are many evil forces at work to destabilize India and the LTTE and Tamilnadu’s traitorous mini-political parties are part of this process. One is committed to terrorism as the means and the other is immersed in corruption of the worst kind.

The LTTE will almost certainly be finished off in Sri Lanka but a considerable numbers of its activists are already in southern India and they have accommodating friends and their names are widely known. It is also known that they are in the pay of the LTTE from their international sources. In such a circumstance, the next stage of LTTE activity is crystal clear. If Prabhakaran lives for another few years, he will remain its accredited and forceful leader perhaps somewhere in India.

But if he dies, he will become god for his supporters and the traitorous Tamilnadu politicians will ensure his memory is kept alive for their own benefit. They will even produce films to ensure that this terror leader is deified. Even now he is being seen as an incarnation of Lord Muruga by these evil minds. There are people who associate a vicarious association for themselves with characters very much like the village bully having his followers.

But the greatest danger facing India is the possibility of a Pan-Tamil state being canvassed for encompassing the north and east of Sri Lanka and Tamilnadu. This will be another Kashmir but more evil, more violent and highly destructive to both India and Sri Lanka. If what the LTTE has done in Sri Lanka is any indication and if this portentous peril is not brought to end, Tamilnadu can expect statewide violence that can become a terrible plague and may even be beyond control.

Tamilnadu has a history of demanding an independent state and there is a powerful Sri Lanka Tamil Diaspora that wants just that in Sri Lanka and they have the means to support such an operation. The Indian Diaspora in the west is not political whereas the Sri Lankan Diaspora is immensely political and is not culturally conscious and rooted as the former, with the latter mere sailors on the crest of a wave. India just cannot afford to have the kind of terrorism the LTTE is capable of on its southern front especially with politicians like V Gopalswamy, Pazha Nedumaran, Dr S Ramdoss and Thol Thirumavalavan in total state of flirtation with the LTTE.

These are the leaders of the mini-political parties Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, Tamil Nationalist Movement, Pattali Makkal Katchi and the Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (Liberation Panthers Party) respectively. In Tamilnadu they are six, seven and eights of the pack shuffling every time there is an election but on the national stage, they are nothing but twos and threes in a pack of cards.

But they pose a great danger to India and to the South Asian region if their support and admiration of the LTTE is not abated and brought to an end without any more delay. It is quite apparent that the LTTE has become heavily dependent on Gopalswamy, Nedumaran, Ramdoss and Thirumavalavan and others of their ilk to relocate itself in Tamilnadu and even Kerala and Karnataka once it is flushed out of Wanni and already plans are in operation to shower massive funds in southern India through these traitors.

Three decades of Tamil liberation struggle headed by Prabhakaran has caused Tamils innumerable damage and even laid the path of extinction in Sri Lanka for that community. If the LTTE menace is given a new life in Tamilnadu, it will effectively lay the seeds that will destabilize India. New Delhi is beholden to bring strong measures against the LTTE and even more against politicians such as Gopalswamy, Nedumaran, Ramdoss and Thirumavalavan.
- Sri Lanka Guardian