Prabhakaran and LTTE are history... Lankan Tamils are not

I had an argument with my uncle, a stanch supporter of LTTE and its late supremo V. Prabhakaran, about whether or not Lankan Tamils were served by Prabhakaran.

The Lankan Tamils were mistreated since Sri Lankan independence from Britain. Their language and culture was not recognized as part of Sri Lankan. They were slowly relegated to second class citizens. Sinhalese leaders did it deliberately and efficiently. The Sinhalese population also rioted against the Tamils over issues such as language. The disenfranchised Tamils started a popular uprising against Sri Lanka. This was supported by India. Their brethren in Tamil Nadu gave them all the support required. The largest of the militant groups fighting in Sri Lanka was the LTTE led by its leader Prabhakaran. By 1980s with Lankan army bogged down by several Tamil militant groups and India receiving constant stream of Lankan Tamil refugees, the Indian government forced Sri Lanka to a peace accord that would allow for devolution of powers and autonomy to Tamil majority areas in the northern and eastern parts of the country. Among the militant groups LTTE was not happy with the accord but agreed to it in theory. By theory, I mean they went ahead with launching attacks against Lankans. There are many storylines of who did what and why. But there is no doubting that Prabhakaran was not in support of the accord and did everything to bury it. He was confident of a military victory. In the end, the Indian peace keeping force ended up fighting the LTTE that India had initially supported with training and material support. History has recorded these events. LTTE retaliated against India by killing Rajiv Gandhi.

Today, the situation is same as before. I support the Lankan Tamils rights. But LTTE is a different matter. It is fascist movement led by a dictatorial leader who killed his own comrades, people and put guns in the hands of little children. Every war crime known to man, he has committed. Democracy is not something he believed in. Majority of the Lankan Tamils did not trust him!!! Even if my uncle did. They never did. He killed off every other popular Tamil leader. He believed that militarily he could win. Killing off friends and making enemies.

Many idiots like Vaiko believed Tamils support for LTTE was as unquestionable as its support for Lankan Tamils. It is NOT. Indian Tamils are Indians first. Our leader was killed. His children tried to make sense of the bloody history by visiting the people who killed their father and forgiving them. Jayalalitha thought Vaiko had found some holy grail during election time. She too tried to drink from it with allegations that Priyanka Gandhi’s visit spurred the Sri Lankan army to hit harder at LTTE.

When the news of Prabhakaran’s death was announced, my sense of sadness was only for the Lankan Tamils. As with all dictators Prabhakaran had killed anyone with a voice of his own and left his people like sheep. They have no leaders to speak for them or to pursue their rights. It is only hopped that the Sri Lankan government understands the war will never end until they address the aspirations of the Lankan Tamils for protection of their rights and autonomy.

New Parliament ups the ante from a MP shaving her head to threat of suicide.

Well the new parliament is up. Kudos on the election of a dalit woman as speaker of the house. Oh, we still have a long way to go on the women’s equality. The self congratulatory and condescending speeches from the males members would be enough to make any self respecting woman in the developed world reach for her bobbit razor.

More women’s empowerment to come. Reservation for women in parliament. That’s where champion of downtrodden through in a spanner in the works. Sharad Yadav threatened to kill himself if the bill was passed in the present form without specifying reservation within the reservation for women from scheduled caste and tribes like the speaker of the Parliament. Needless to say open that can of worms... and the bill would never see the day. Next some MPs will raise the banner of reservation in parliament for men of those classes too. That will bring in people asking for reservation for the minority community. Where will all this leave the actual process of election?

I don’t believe India’s democracy can dance that far out.


PS :- During the last parliament, Sushma Swaraj, dy. leader of opposition threatened to shave her head if foreign born Sonia Gandhi became Prime Minister. Sonia let Manmohan Singh take up the post and Sushma got to keep her hair on.