Shenali Waduge

It has become an annoying feature to see contingents of Indians arriving in Sri Lanka enjoying Sri Lankan hospitality and returning to their native land and placing upon the gavel that the solution to Sri Lanka and the answer to the Tamil ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-problemƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ is nothing but the 13^th amendment. Why we bother to invite people to hear this same chant is a good question. A country that boasts of becoming an economic power house may well like to explain why 1m of its citizens escape India annually and many of them are illegal immigrants in the nations they scamper to whilst those that remain live in abject poverty, ill treated because of their caste, discriminated against because of the caste. Should India not be looking after its own people first?

While India is handing out funds and taking plenty of effort to take care of ONLY the needs of the Tamils in Sri Lanka, over half the population of India is in hunger. Almost 80% of IndiaƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s population lives on an income below $2 a day. In a population of 1.028billion of which 827m (80%) are Hindus, 424m belong to the scheduled castes & tribes or other backward castes. This means that over half of the Hindus are lowcastes!ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚  Then what about living conditions – 89% rural Indians do not own telephones, 52% do not have electricity and 20% of these rural homes donƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢t have safe drinking water or have to travel a distance to collect same. India is planning to give Sri Lanka electricity when during non-monsoon months there are daily power cuts. India is planning to improve education in Sri LankaƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s North but over 35% of the worldƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s illiterate live in India while more than 92% children cannot progress beyond secondary school. While India is busy forcing upon Sri Lanka various infrastructure ONLY to the North, close to 90% of Indian schools have no functional toilets and most have no proper water supply.

Health in India is no better. India allocates just 1% of its GDP towards health and 150m Indians are blind whilst 21.9m live with disabilities only 34% of this number are employed.ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚  In a country with a billion population there are only 585 rural hospitals and 985 urban hospitals. Each year 1.8m people develop TB in India and over 300,000 die annually as a result.

The rich in India are the elite Hindus who are either Brahmin, Kshatriya or Vaishya and they make up less than 10% of IndiaƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s population but they enjoy the best of things throughout India. 36 Hindu families are said to account for $191billion. Whilst ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚¼ owns IndiaƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s GDP, 85% of the country are poor. 76% of IndiaƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s land belongs to just 23% of its population leaving over 15m rural homes landless.

It is also predicted that by 2020, 716m will be without jobs and this should make Sri Lanka be extremely cautious of every Indian agreement that aspires to tag Indian labor into Sri Lanka! ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ 

Now, India and all other Governments for that matter will naturally aim to hold a stake in Sri Lanka. India will always push the Tamil theme while Muslim nations providing grants will also insist that these be ONLY distributed to Muslims. How fair is this and should the Government not insist that they will not accept any funds or commodities for a specific ethnic group only? When India gives Only Tamils, Muslim nations give Only Muslims ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢¢”š¬…” who will be sending funds for Sinhalese areas to develop? Apart from a few thousand expatriates there are no Sinhalese except in Sri Lanka! So why has the Government delayed in placing this clause clearly to all donors!

India has the highest number of street children in the world and it is believed to be close to 18m whilst over 60m children are drawn to child labor! 43% of children in India are underweight while there are 204m undernourished. There are said to be 40m Hindu widows in India and most of them are dumped by their relatives and left to beg on the streets. On an average 1 Indian woman commits suicide every 4 hours because of a dowry dispute. Rape has also seen a significant increase throughout India especially in the main cities including its capital Delhi. Incidentally, the capital of India is also known as the ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-crime capitalƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ Killing of female foetus is also a feature that cannot be ignored with 10m such girls falling victim. Annually over 11m abortions take place in India annually with over 80,000 dying in the process. Suicides are high amongst farmers too with over 25,000 Indian farmers committing suicide in 1998 unable to repay their debts.

Discrimination in India. When India accuses Sri Lanka of discriminating the Tamils we wonder on what grounds India understands discrimination for in India there is a crime against Dalits happening very 20minutes, every day at least 3 dalit women get raped or murdered or even have their homes burnt down. Dalits are too scared to even go to a police to register the brutality they suffer. India is abusing 200m Dalits and India is preaching to us! ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ 4m of IndiaƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s population are prostitutes with 60% of them belonging to the scheduled castes and tribes or a backward caste and over 38% of this number suffer HIV. In a hindu dominating Indian society Dalits are unlikely to see any change. Over 75% of Dalits are Christians.

Caste discrimination in India. It is believed that more than 200m people in India suffer discrimination because of their caste. There are said to be about 3000 castes and more than 25,000 sub-castes in India.

The discrimination is such that people are excluded from using village wells, going to temples, eating at restaurants, visiting public places, schools & hospitals, they are discriminated against in land and housing allocation, prevented from participating in local government institutions. Whilst being denied these low castes are subject to arbitrary arrest, torture, extrajudicial killing, their rights are not protected. Evidence of this is seen in over 100,000 incidents of abuse reported to the police between 1994-1996 these figures are anywhere near the real numbers as victims are fearful of retaliation and police bias.ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚  Nothing significant has been done or desires to be done to protect the low castes and in particular the Dalits in India and while the upper echelons do not go out of their way to bring about any significant changes centuries of oppression have made the victims believe they are destined to suffer these oppressions. Very few thus desire to actually wage against these abuses. But when the day they do join together they will pose a serious challenge to India.

Discrimination in India by Indian high castes have led to exploitation, inequality and suffering for millions of its own citizens and questions how India can like the US dictate how other countries should treat their own people.

There are reasons that India is unable to come out of this ugly practice. Caste has been part and parcel of society, politics and is very much part of the social hierarchy ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢¢”š¬…” the broad divisions of the 4 varnas (Brahmins-Priests, Ksyatriyas-Warriors, Vaisyas-Farmers, Shudras-Laborers and the Dalits-Untouchables who are considered impure).ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚  Why caste discrimination is not being addressed as it should is simply because it is a societal development and society simply does not desire to change the status quo.

There are even incentives to define oneself through caste to keep the system relevant meaning that to enjoy state benefits one must continue to be in a particular caste. Yet this still does not explain why atrocities against low castes should go unpunished as often 95% of all discriminations against scheduled castes and dalits result in non-punishment.

How can India boast of its super power status when over 52% of its populace belongs to the ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-backward castesƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚? (Mandal Commission) while there are 20 odd articles in the Indian Constitution that is supposed to protect low castes.

IndiaƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s jails are said to hold a disproportionate number of minority Muslims (19%) who number 138m in total. Muslims are also said to be under-represented in state employment and in the state of West Bengal there are no Muslims in public sector units.

When India is dictating to Sri Lanka on how to treat the LTTE terrorists arrested, IndiaƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s own courts are with 22m cases still pending. The Supreme Court had 3.5m and 32,000 pending cases in 2006. The little said about manipulations in judicial appointments the better.

While India enjoys telling Sri Lanka how to treat terrorists almost every state in India is plagued with some sort of separatist movement. India is one of the most terror-prone countries in the world and IndiaƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s response has been to invest in over 5.5m security guards. Terrorism has become a booming industry with India increasing its think tanks (over 400), research institutes, media houses and lobbying groups. Most of these entities are funded ironically by the global weapon industry and those employed are former spies, military personnel, diplomats and journalists. So one can imagine how they can create terror and manipulate the people. Thus conflicts create avenues for commissions from the sale of arms and lobbying entails lucrative jobs, citizenship in rich countries, educational opportunities and plenty of perks just by crying ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-discriminationƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚.

The state of Gujarat has been experiencing horrendous crimes against the Muslims withƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚  over 200 mosques being destroyed. We cannot forget what happened to the Sikhs in 1984 either when over 150,000 Sikhs were murdered within 3 days though that figure is said to be over 260,000. It is widely believed that besides Sikhs and Muslims Brahmin-Hindus discriminate other minorities as well ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢¢”š¬…” Assamese, Tamils, Rajasthanis, Biharis etc.

While India is demanding that Sri Lanka remove its military from the North, India stations over 700,000 in Jammu/Kashmir and 400,000 in Punjab. In IndiaƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s Kashmir for every 7 Kashmiris there is an Indian soldier and more than a million refugees. Hundreds of thousands have died and still continue to do so. Why is India evading solving the Kashmir issue?

For those who seem to think India is concerned about their well being may like to wonder why Hindu and Sikh migrants after over 17 years of living in India have still being denied citizenship?

Repeated again and again especially for the Tamils in Sri Lanka is to realize that they have a far better future in Sri Lanka amongst the other ethnic groups and it is becoming increasingly important that Sri LankaƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s citizens need to come together despite the odds and ignore the selfish divisions that some local politicians aim to achieve for their own survival. Sri Lanka was once a land where all citizens were living peacefully amongst each other and it was only because of foreign invaders that the status quo began to change. We need now to get back to those glorious past and start rebuilding those bridges and say no to foreign invasions of any kind.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Shenali Waduge