SL: RELATIONS WITH SOUTH INDIA!!!

Our relations with South India............ By K. Godage

Before the British took over of this country we had excellent relations with the rulers of South Indian states; in fact our last King was a Nayakkar from South India whose Queen was also from there. Three of the Kandyan Chiefs who signed the Treaty with the British are said to have signed in Tamil. Professor Sudarshan Seneviratne, head of the Department of Archaeology and who holds the only chair in Archeology within the University system in this country, stated at a seminar held in Chennai last year that South India and Sri Lanka constituted a common geographical and agro-climatic zone. I shall quote him extensively for what he has stated is indeed very valuable.

He bemoaned the lack of understanding of this subject amongst our people saying, "for too long have we looked at each other’s region as the other region and have parochial images about the other region". He also stated that "due to ethnic and historical reasons and the attempt to see each other in different cultural categories, we have not tried to reach out or relate to each other". He further stated "We have to look at the best of human aspirations and intellectual and cultural elements and see how we can draw upon those human achievements celebrating both diversity and humanity.’’

``The area south of the Deccan Plateau is so much a part of Sri Lankan history as is the north of the Vindhya region. Buddhism came to Sri Lanka from the north of the Vindhya region. Various cultural elements from the Gangetic plains came to Sri Lanka. An entire spectrum of technological, spiritual and linguistics came from South India including from the states of Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Tamil Nadu." He emphasized the need for closer relations between the states of south India as in ancient times and also stated "we are only 22 miles apart but how much of each other do we know?" Yes, today we have only hostility instead of friendship and that has had a most adverse impact on our country. It is indeed in our interest to get to know South India better.

Party 1989 1991 1996 2001 2006

AIDMK 02 164 —- 196 61

DMK 151 02 173 037 96

Congress -34

PMK 18

Others 25

It is certainly in our interest to understand South India and the politics particularly of Tamil Nadu. The only Sri Lankan leader with a sense of history who sought to reach out to South India was Ranil Wickremesinghe who even sought to have a land bridge built to link this country with Southern India. He also cultivated the leaders of South Indian states forging personal friendships with them. In this context it is of particular importance for us to know the recent political history of Tamil Nadu and the origin of the Dravidian movement.

The first political party in present Tamil Nadu was the Justice Party which won the state Assembly elections in 1921. As its name implies, it stood for social justice. This party ‘governed’ for 15 years and then split up. The history of the Dravidian movement is replete with splits.

In 1944, the social reformer EV Ramasami, EVR or ‘Periyar’ as he was popularly known, left the Justice Party and founded the Dravida Kazhagam. Annadurai, a strong Tamil nationalist became its General Secretary and it was he who started the Dravida Nadu or ‘homeland for the Dravidian people’ cry and sought separation from India. This was abandoned after the Indo-China war. The Dravida Kazhagam was a movement directed against the Brahmins by non Brahmins who resented their control of the State administration. The DK fought for social justice. They particularly opposed the imposition of Hindi on the non-Hindi speaking south.

In September of 1949 Annadurai split with EVR, left the DK and founded the DMK. Their main plank was the neglect of the south consequent to the north-south divide and the control of the south by the north. It is important to remember that a fundamental tenet of the DMK is rationalism. The imposition of Hindi, the language of the North on the south, became a major issue. The language issue became a strident campaign slogan for the Party. It vowed to restore Tamil to its ancient glory and appealed to the sentiments of the Tamil people. It was this imposition of Hindi that that changed the politics of Tamil Nadu forever and resulted in the Congress which was a national party, whose leadership in the state consisted almost entirely of Brahmins, being replaced by a regional party, the DMK, which swept to power in the state in 1965.

The next split came in 1972 when MG Ramachandran was expelled from the DMK following differences between him and Karunanidhi. MGR raised issues of corruption against Karunanidhi and formed the Anna (named after Annadurai) DMK which later changed its name to All India DMK or the AIDMK under the leadership of Jayalalitha..

Yet another off-shoot of the DMK is the Marumalarachi DMK or the MDMK, which was formed in 1994 by V Gopalasamy who was expelled from the DMK. He has been succeeded by the notorious Vaiko, who is today the principal champion of the LTTE.

Yet another player on the scene is the Pattali Makkal Katchi or the PMK headed be yet another supporter of the LTTE, Dr. S Ramdoss who represents the strong Vanniyar community. He campaigns for reservations and social justice for the most backward classes. On all other issues the party’s objectives are identical to those of the other three parties.

Other than for Ranil Wickremasinghe who met and got to know Jayalalitha Jeyeram, none of our political leaders know the leaders of the Tamil people of Tamil Nadu; neither have they visited us nor have we visited them. As Prof. Seneviratne states, we need to think beyond our political borders. Our political leaders do not understand the political equation in India. The Congress government is wholly dependent on the DMK and Vaiko’s MDMK and if they pull out the government would crash. That is how weak the Congress government is. Therefore under no circumstances would the government in Delhi displease the Tamil parties who have most importantly a say in decision making at the center.

Tamil Nadu politics has a tendency to rotate power. I give below how the two principal parties fared in recent years at State elections:-

(Total number of seats in the Assembly is 234 for a population of over 50 million)

Considering the fact that at each election the ruling party has been defeated it seems most likely that the AIDMK will win the next election on form. This perhaps accounts for Karunanidhi’s actions motivated by panic.

Today the DMK has only two cabinet ministers: T.R Balu, Shipping, Road Transport and Highways and Raja, Minister of Communications and Information Technology. DMK also has two Ministers of State – PMK has one in Cabinet, i.e. Dr. Anbumani Ramdoss, son of Dr. Ramdoss, leader of PMK. (a vociferously pro-LTTE party). Congress has two Cabinet Ministers from Tamil Nadu i.e. P. Chidambaram, Finance and Mani Shankar Aiyar, they would not of course resign.

There are 39 members of Parliament from Tamil Nadu of which Congress has 22, DMK 16, PMK 6, MDMK 4 and CPI 1. At the 2004 election all these parties were in alliance and they won all the seats. However MDMK later on joined Jayalalitha’s alliance for the State election.

The two main parties in Tamil Nadu together command approximately 80% of the vote in the state; Nedumaran is politically insignificant. The smaller pro-LTTE parties that matter are: PMK (Around 6%), MDMK (around 3-4 %), the most important in the new equation is a new political party, DMDK (Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhakam) formed only in 2006 at the time of State assembly election by a film star called Vijaya Kanth. He enjoys about 10% voter support.

Karunanidhi is seeking a pound of flesh from our country in return for supporting the Congress to remain in power in Delhi. It is entirely their problem, but the machination of Tamil Nadu politicians does have an impact on our country.

Karunanidhi’s daughter, Kanni Mozhi, who has submitted a post dated letter of resignation is a Rajya Sabha member who was elected only some months back. She is rumored to be intimately friendly with a Christian Priest from Jaffna who is an LTTE sympathizer.

Parippu drop

We cannot of course be heading towards another parippu drop. India lost 1,272 men with over a thousand more were injured. Our ethnic issue is, as former Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh once stated, "a domestic matter for them to sort out". We must not become a pawn in a Tamil Nadu political game. There would surely be a huge uproar in this country if India intervenes again to bail out the killers of Rajiv Gandhi merely to remain in office or power.

The two main political parties are dependent on the smaller parties to form a government. These small parties are absolute supporters of the LTTE. The DMK (Karunanidhi) is supporting the Congress government, which is today in a precarious position due to the Communists having pulled out of the coalition and the Samajawadi Party ‘playing games’. The Congress government is dependent on the DMK to remain in power. The BJP has tied up with Jayalalitha’s AIDMK and her party too is wooing the small parties, which, as stated earlier, support the LTTE. But she has stated publicly that she does not endorse Karunanidhi’s demand which she describes as a political gimmick.

The LTTE’s political wing, the TNA, is also working overtime in Tamil Nadu traitorously exaggerating the conditions of the IDPs and rousing support to stop the offensive at the instance of the LTTE which knows it is facing a precarious situation; the Indian government is therefore placed in a difficult situation Why should they save the murderers of Rajiv Gandhi? Should not members of the TNA playing these games be charged for sedition?

Our relations

Indian friends tell me that we have created a credibility gap by promising their PM that we would come up with a political package to address the grievances of the Tamil people shortly after the government came to office and then seeking to cheat them by appointing the APRC which has according to them transparently dragged on the process unnecessarily till a military ‘victory’ was achieved. They claim that this act of the government has become so clear they find it difficult to accept its word any more.

I am also informed that after the government gave its assurance, the National Security Advisor Narayanan was sent by PM Manmohan Singh to assure Karunanidhi that Tamil grievance would soon be addressed and that they have now lost face and feel let down. I am also informed that an assurance had been given that fishermen from Tamil Nadu would not be fired upon but that we have reneged on this assurance also and that a number of MLA from the fishing villages on the west coast of Tamil Nadu are facing huge problems as a consequence.

To my mind it appears that the only way to head off the problem is to do what the President has always intended to do - reach out to the minorities with credible constitutional proposals immediately (this would pull the rug from under the feet of the LTTE) and at the same time to get our act together on the human rights front.

One final word; let us not put all our eggs in one basket let us also reach out and cut deals with other powerful countries to ensure our security. Let us also not forget one important fact: that if at all the political parties in Tamil Nadu, including the anti-LTTE AIDMK are agreed on any one thing, it is that the Tamils of Lanka must be able to live as equal citizens in dignity, in security and be able to decide on their own destiny in keeping with the principle of ‘subsidiarity’ within a united sovereign Sri Lanka. The ball, according to them, is in our court to come up with an offer which would be endorsed by them and which the LTTE would not be able to refuse.

The government should be able to formulate such an offer with the assistance of Indian constitutional experts in line with the Oslo formula. But the offer should be conditional upon the LTTE renouncing its goal of Eelam, renouncing violence as a means to achieve its political objective, agreeing to a phased demilitarization in keeping with their own security and accepting the principles set out in the Tokyo Declaration.

(The writer is a retired ambassador who served a term as Sri Lanka’s Deputy High Commissioner in New Delhi)


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