Jaya's stand on Lankan Tamil issue nuanced & principled
NT Bureau | Mon, 17 Sep, 2012

No other issue touches an emotional raw nerve among the citizens in Tamilnadu as much as much as the plight of Sri Lankan Tamils.

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The core aim of the right-thinking people has been a constant: To ensure safety of the Sri Lankan Tamils and help get them their due rights from a violently-disposed, apartheid-practising Lankan government. But the complexity of the whole problem is such that it doesn't lend itself to understanding in easy black and white terms, the colours to comprehend it have to be varied and vivid. The Tamils there have been buffeted and bludgeoned by not only a chauvinistic Buddhist majority, but a militant Tamil ruff also spoiled the legitimacy of their cause. Further, a time-serving, lip-servicing chest-thumping political ragtag from Tamilnadu have been keeping themselves warm on the pit-fire of a timeless tragedy. It is in this context that Chief Minister Jayalalithaa's very principled, and more importantly, nuanced stand for the welfare of Lankan Tamils stands out in bold relief. Why her position on the issue is circumscribed by moral right is the fact she was able to draw an important distinction between the ordinary Lankan Tamils and the violent Tigers who, in the eventual scheme of things, did a lot of harm through their blood-lusty methods to an essentially noble fight. As the Chief Minister over her three different tenures, Jayalalithaa steadfastly opposed the ways of the Tamil Tigers, whose trigger-happy approach cast a dark shadow in this country, too. And after the Tamil Tigers were virtually wiped out by the Rajapakse government in 2009, marking a major watershed in the narrative, Jayalalithaa has been at the forefront in fighting for the Lankan Tamils both at the international arena (by passing resolutions in the Assembly condemning the Lankan government) as well as with the Central government here. Be it her firm and timely opposition to the training sought to be given to the Lankan armymen and airforce personnel by India, or be it her repeated appeals on the Katchatheevu island issue (a fresh plea is to be filed in the case with the Supreme Court this week) or be it in fighting for the safety of Tamil fishermen on the high seas between India and Lanka, Jayalalithaa has spared no effort both as the Chief Minister as well as a tall leader of the Tamils. There may be many slippery skeins of the Lankan Tamil issue, but Jayalalithaa has never lost her footing because her steps are measured and methodical. So it is more than laughable when the DMK and its chief M Karunanidhi makes vague, intemperate noises against her and the AIADMK on the issue. As a matter of fact Karunanidhi's has been a classic, and cruel, case of running with the hare but hunting with the hounds on the Lankan Tamil issue. As being part of the Central government, Karunanidhi could have helped to deliver a lot for the Tamils. But at every turn, he chose to ignore the sorry predicament of the Tamils, and instead safeguarded his own and his family's interest. If his sham of a fast (lasting between breakfast and lunch) when the war in Lanka was far from over (and the UPA government was in a position to actually stop the genocide in the last days of the war in 2009) was a heartless joke, his subsequent posturings have been just high on bombast and braggadocio. In 2009, months after the Tigers were quelled, the DMK's men were part of the Indian parliamentary team that flew to Sri Lanka to have a look at the plight of Tamils lodged in the refugee camps there. Nothing really came out of the trip, except bestow a backdoor legitimacy on the working of Rajapakse government. But not a squeak of protest from Karunanidhi.  Even with regard to the review petition filed on behalf of the three convicts facing execution for the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, Karunanidhi stood exposed. The three convicts wrote to Jayalalithaa seeking commutation of death sentence. Jayalalithaa, however, pointed out that she did not have power to commute death sentence of the convicts. She said the convicts should appeal to the President again because the Chief Minister could not do anything after the President rejecting their mercy pleas. 'Only the President of India has the authority to commute death sentence. It's beyond my powers,' she told the Assembly then. But, she took the lead in enabling the State Assembly to pass a resolution seeking pardon for the trio. The three were given the breathing space to move the High Court which has put on hold their sentence. So there is some hope for them. But Jayalalithaa did well to expose the chicanery and double standards  of Karunanidhi whose Cabinet had actually written to the Governor in 2000 to reject the trio's mercy petitions and commute only the death sentence of co-accused Nalini to a life term. Staying away from politics, Jayalalithaa took a principled stand and  played by rules and conventions on that occasion. It has been her hallmark. Sadly, her chief political rival has been just muddying the waters much to the detriment of all concerned.