Tiger troubles

(April 08, Chennai, Sri Lanka Guardian) The LTTE is down and out. If the Sri Lankan defence reports are anything to go by, the war against the Tamil Tigers is all but over. In the last one week or so, the LTTE, which has been holding out against the Lankan troops for over two decades, suffered some of the heaviest casualties in recent times.

The death toll is being quoted in the hundreds. The LTTE supremo Prabhakaran, who is claimed to be in Lanka, is said to be confined to a bunker. Prabhakaran’s son, Charles, is reportedly injured in the battle.

Whether that is true or not, several top LTTE men, who have been the ones fighting at the battle front while the likes of Prabhakaran have been making a show of it, have also been snuffed out by the Lankan forces, who after years of being disunited and dispirited, seem to have rallied around through recent successes. Put it simply, this is the worst hour for the LTTE in its entire history.

But you wouldn’t know it going by the echoes (actually, the lack of it) in Tamilnadu and its political arena. It is a given that whenever the LTTE has found the going hard in Lanka, its various megaphones in Tamilnadu politics become strident and shrill. This happened a couple of months ago when the entirety of the State was almost brought to a needless stillness as various forces jostled amongst themselves in trying to show that they had more tears than the other over the plight of the suffering Tamils in Lanka.

Of course, as with many things in Tamilnadu politics and the Dravidian culture, it was shameless sham. It was nothing more than a duplicitous show of whipped emotions in a bid to score political brownie points. In the bargain, the Central government was painted as the villain as because it was reluctant to use its good offices to rein in the marauding Lankan troops.

The DMK and the PMK, apart from vocalizing vacuous sounds and making pointless threats of quitting their respective seats in Parliament, never did that. It was all part of the skillful skullduggery that they have patented out. These parties, along with others, behaved as if their entirety depended on ensuring peace and happiness for the Lankan Tamils.

But now when the heat of the elections is on, and when the heat is also on the LTTE in Lanka, the silence in Tamilnadu on the matter is, to use a cliché, deafening. The DMK manifesto, the PMK’s are delightfully general and predictable on the Lankan issue. There are no specific assurances and guarantees that you should be expecting from these parties, considering their volubility on the matter.

Also, these parties have not wangled out any assurances from their alliance partners. The DMK continues to be tied with the Congress, whose position is at variance with the DMK’s public stand. The DMK is trying to create an image as if its supremo M Karunanidhi has lived all his life for the cause. But we all know that to be bunkum.

The PMK has chosen a partner, the AIADMK, who is extremely critical of the LTTE. Somehow this seems to have escaped the attention of the otherwise ever-vigilant Dr S Ramadoss. So proof if ever was needed that Tamilnadu politicians have merely used the emotive and real pain of the Lankan Tamils to further their own political and personal career, this hour has thrown up that.

The Tamils in Lanka have to be realistic and begin to fend for themselves rather than trust the two-timing, slimy politicians of Tamilnadu. The troubles of island people don’t was up on these shores. This is the sad reality!

-Sri Lanka Guardian