It is unfortunate that
Chief Minister Muthuvel Karunanidhi
should use his literary skills to attack Pala Nedumaran, a Tamil leader
who has steadfastly supported the Tamil Eelam Freedom Struggle for
more than a quarter of a century. It is unfortunate but it will not
come as a surprise to
70 million Tamils living in many lands. It will not come as
a surprise because
Chief Minister Muthuvel Karunanidhi
has frankly declared that his policy on Tamil Eelam is the same as New
Delhi's policy on Tamil Eelam. And we must take him at his word.
"On May 25 2006, Karunanidhi, freshly
elected to power in Tamil Nadu, home to the largest concentration of
Tamils in the world, held a 15-minute one-to-one meeting with Arumugam
Thondaman, leader of the Ceylon Workers Congress (CWC) and a special
envoy of Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse. On Monday, after
calling on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and separately meeting Congress
president Sonia Gandhi in New Delhi, Karunanidhi revealed to reporters
what he had told Thondaman: "The central government's policy (on Sri
Lanka) will be the state government's policy." "
Times of India, 6 June 2006
Eight years before Mr.Karunanidhi's frank statement, India's former
Foreign Secretary and later National Security adviser
declared in 1998 with equal frankness that New Delhi's policy on Tamil
Eelam was an amoral one. And it appears that Mr.Karunanidhi's policy on
Tamil Eelam has always kept in step with that of New Delhi and has been no
less amoral.
In the early1980s, Mr.Karunanidhi voiced support for
the Tamil Eelam struggle within the frame of
Indira Gandhi's interventionist effort to destabilise West leaning
President J.R.Jayawardene's Sri Lanka and move it away from the Western
orbit. At that time (in 1983) Mr.Karunanidhi declared grandiloquently
at the Marina beach that if he was asked whether he was a Tamil or an
Indian, he would reply that he was both a Tamil and an Indian. But he went
on to add, to the tumultuous cheers of his audience, if the questioner
persisted and insisted that he choose and repeated the question again - are
you a Tamil
or an Indian, he would reply that he was a Tamil
first and only then an Indian.
But even then, at a meeting with a Gandhian organisation in
New Delhi in 1984, a north Indian peace activist bitingly remarked to a
Tamil lobbying group (which included the writer) - "Do not imagine that you
have the support of Mr.Karunanidhi. Please remember that when Indira Gandhi
tells Mr.Karunanidhi to stop, the barking will stop." He added, "Indira
Gandhi has enough ammunition to make Mr.Karunanidhi stop."
Unsurprisingly, later when
New Delhi's approach changed (having sacrificed Tamil lives in the altar
of New Delhi's strategic interests and succeeded in moving Sri Lanka away
from extra regional forces) Mr.Karunanidhi also changed - and the barking
became more muted. And so today at a time when New Delhi is
actively engaged in giving material and ideological
support to a
murderous President Rajapakse regime bent on annihilating the people of
Tamil Eelam, it appears that Mr.Karunanidhi is anxious to make his own
contribution to New Delhi's strategy by denigrating and defaming Pala
Nedumaran who has had the courage to consistently support his brothers and
sisters in Tamil Eelam in their
struggle
for freedom from alien Sinhala rule. That the Chief Minister of Tamil
Nadu and that too a 'Kalaignar' should write of Nedumaran -
'வலியின்றி
புலிக்கூட்ட முதுகினிலே
குத்திக் கொண்டே பணம் பறிக்கும்
இனத் துரோகி!'
will shock and anger many Tamils. Strength ( வலிமை) is reflected in
a fearless and steadfast commitment to principle - it is not reflected in
the opportunism of a weather vane. It is that fearless and steadfast
commitment to principle that Pala Nedumaran has shown during the past
several decades - a fearless and steadfast commitment which has earned for
him the respect and affection of hundreds of thousands of Tamils
living in many lands. Pala Nedumaran is no traitor to the Tamil cause or the
Tamil people - and
Chief Minister Muthuvel Karunanidhi insults not simply Pala Nedumaran but a
whole people by suggesting otherwise. Chief Minister Muthuvel Karunanidhi
will hopefully learn that strength will not come by hanging onto New Delhi
for your political advancement. The words of
TELO leader Sri Sabaratnam in August 1985 come to mind:
"There are two types of power. One is
'Thongura' power where you hang on to some body else and seek to derive
power from them. The other is the power that accrues to you when you
serve your people. Thongura power is not power - because with it, you
can only help yourself, you cannot help your people. The only true power
is that which comes from your own people."
And, ofcourse, Sri Sabaratnam had every reason to know. Given
Mr.Karunanithi's past contributions to Tamil language and literature, Tamils
in many lands may refrain from responding to him by using his own
intemperate language. They may therefore refrain from saying -
'வலியின்றி
புது டெல்லி
முதுகினிலே
குத்திக் கொண்டே பணம் பறிக்கும்
இனத் துரோகி!'
However, Tamils living today in many lands and across distant
seas will seriously question the reasons for Chief Minister Muthuvel
Karunanidhi's continuing support for a New Delhi establishment which is
concerned to encourage and prop up a Sinhala government which rapes,
murders,
executes,
abducts,
attacks Tamils in their homes and shops,
bombs,
massacres,
displaces Tamils in their thousands from their
homes
and denies them
their fundamental and democratic right to govern themselves
- Tamils who Chief Minister Muthuvel Karunanidhi often describes as his
'udanpirapukal'.
When the history of Tamil Eelam comes to be written (as
surely it will), the question will be asked: where was the 'Dravidian
leader',
Muthuvel Karunanidhi? And history will, no doubt,
provide a fair answer - he was busily concerned with advancing his own
political future.
[see also
comment by Kasil Hariharan]
