Does India care about its own citizens in the south?

By Satheesan Kumaaran

(October 02, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) As days go by, hundreds of fishermen who reclaim their homes in the southern part of the Indian State of Tamil Nadu are harassed and tortured. So far, over 500 fishermen have been killed by none other than the Sri Lankan military. India, as a sovereign nation with over 1 billion people of whom nearly 75 million are Tamils, are being taken for a ride by the Sri Lankan Navy after India handed over the island of Kachchatheevu to Sri Lanka. Kachchatheevu is located in the middle of Sri Lankan and Indian waters. The price for donating the island to Sri Lanka was the death of over 500 Indian-born Tamils who fish for their livelihood.

When the Sri Lankan State, which killed Indian citizens, appealed for help to nab LTTE vessels in the Indian Ocean, India sent warships, choppers, and warplanes to identify, and eventually helped to destroy, the vessels. Yet India failed to punish the perpetrators who killed the Indians, so in other words, India was supporting the Sri Lankan Navy jut as a prize for killing Indians.

A weak State relying on China, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and others

When the sons of Indian leaders mistakenly flew into the skies of India’s enemies such as Pakistan, these countries took serious actions against India. India countered the actions by merely issuing statements condemning the enemy countries. However, the weak State of India, with over 1 billion people, failed to stand up as a responsible model State and create confidence among the Indians by treating the enemies with serious counter actions. For example, most recently, the Chinese military managed infiltrated into Indian Territory and placard the Chinese flag and wrote China on the stone on the high peak of the mountain. Indian opposition parties urged the central government to take actions against China. However, the Indian ruling party issued statements that they would take appropriate actions, but the statements are just to whitewash the Indian general public. India mouths platitudes, but does not take actions against the perpetrators. Other than Kargil in Kashmir, India failed to create such confidence among the Indians, and the Kargil War, too, gained nothing militarily to India.

But, in fact, India is doing greater business with its rivals. Indian currencies are printed in Pakistan and China and the Indian central government allows the import of Pakistani and Chinese products while these countries import much fewer products from India. However, the fact is that Pakistani and Chinese intelligence agents hire many Indians for spying within Indian soil. However, despite having knowledge of the events, the Indian government does not take action.

All this exposes India as a weak State while others such as Pakistan and China become superior in the region. Another classic example is that Sri Lanka is an island in the Indian Ocean with nearly 20 million people, while India, with the so-called record of being the largest democracy in the world, collaborates with a government conducting a genocide war in Sri Lanka.

Sri Lankan President Rajapaksa openly declared the Tamils as terrorists and he would not let the Tamils call themselves Tamils, Eelam, etc. And India does not care. However, the stand maintained by India is understandable, but when it deals with supporting the terrorist State, it shows India as a weak State that has lost the faith of being a greater democracy in the world and as a superpower in south Asia. When thousands of people died on the island of Sri Lanka, India did nothing to prevent it. In fact, India did not even condemn Sri Lanka for launching military attacks on civilian targets while many western countries issued statements condemning the Sri Lankan State to stop military operations against Tamils. However, India was watching to the end and finally, after 30,000 Tamils were killed and nearly 280,000 were sent to Nazi-style camps, India issued statements that they would help resettle the displaced population. All these actions prove that India does not care about humanity.

India has set aside the path that their forefathers taught. Even when Indians were killed by their neighbouring State, India remained silent. Further, when hundreds of Indian-origin people were killed in Malaysia and Australia in the recent past, India took little actions to prevent such attacks despite that the Indian central government has established a ministry for expatriate Indians. The ministry only cares about collecting revenue and their skills imported back to India, but India does not come into assistance when they face difficulties in foreign countries.

Tamils are untouchables to New Delhi

Unlike other communities, the Tamil community is untouchable and indeed, when even Tamils in Sri Lanka died, India did not take any actions to stop the massacres. Even when over 500 Indian fishermen were killed, India did not give a strong voice condemning the Sri Lankan State to stop such an act. Further, just to cool down the sentiments of politicians in Tamil Nadu, New Delhi merely issued statements that they would take actions to stop such actions in the future. However, the words were never heeded by Sri Lanka and in retaliation, India did not take actions against Sri Lanka to protect its citizens.

The recent events coming from the southern shores of India are bitter. Most events taken by Sri Lankan naval officers include intercepting Indian fishermen and physically and mentally torturing them in the middle of the sea, stripping them naked, and driving them forcefully back to Tamil Nadu shores. The Sri Lankan Navy stopped 19 fishing trawlers and tortured the fishermen and damaged their property, including their nets and more often they kill the fishermen, which is what happened last week. Often the dead bodies reached the Sri Lankan and Indian shores after several weeks of the incidents. All these events were taking place when the LTTE was active. The Sri Lankan Navy’s excuse was that the Indian fishermen supported the LTTE to fight the Sri Lankan armed forces to carve out an independent State for Eelam Tamils. Many of these events occurred while the Sri Lankan Navy trespassed into India waters. Even Sri Lanka does not see these fishermen as human beings and Sri Lanka knows that these people are harmless. They are trying to make a decent living out of the fishing catches. Further, it is difficult to distinguish Indian or Sri Lankan waters as there is no boundary line between the two countries, and therefore, it is possible for both the Indian fishermen and the Sri Lankan Navy to cross each other’s waters illegally, but taking such brutal violence is not acceptable at all by any means.

There is no doubt that the excesses of Sri Lankan Navy are violations of all international norms and rules. But India has failed to stop the Sri Lankan forces that manifests its weakness and is step-motherly outlook towards Tamil people.

Even India, who only issued statements once demands were raised from Tamil Nadu to protect Tamil Nadu fishermen, was not serious, but offered very cautious and soft statements because India does not want to antagonize Sri Lanka whatsoever. Also, it is obvious that Sri Lanka has nothing to offer India in return because Sri Lanka is a failed State with a track record of human rights abuses and their leaders are on the brink of facing genocidal war crimes, which have been highly condemned by the western world. Also, Sri Lanka has natural alliances with Iran, Pakistan, and China, and has been issuing direct threats to many other democratic countries, such as Britain, which is considered the school of political culture among many nations in the world.

The end result is that the Tamil race will be wiped out eventually. Certainly, Sri Lanka will wipe out the Tamil race from the island. Also, India will indirectly help foreigners kill their own Tamil citizens and India is doing everything possible to make the Tamil race silently extinct. Middle and upper class Tamils will sing the United India national anthem without knowing the facts. All these people want is a fair living and they do unaware of the brethrens’ plight. As a result, they fail to recognize their enemies who are eliminating the Tamil race from the bottom up.

(The author can be reached at e-mail: satheesan_kumaaran@yahoo.com)

-Sri Lanka Guardian