CLASSIFIED | POLITICS | TERRORISM | OPINION | VIEWS

JVP’s Vote Sympathy and Patriotism

By Manoj Lanka Hettige

I was surprised to see the recent news item that the two JVP parliamentary members Bimal Rathnayaka & Ramalingam Chndrasekaran have been appraised by the Indian Politicians & News papers for initiating to amend the legislature to grant the Sri Lankan citizenship to around 28500 Indian origin Tamils residing in Tamil Nadu, Tamil’s homeland. Some reports say that the figure of 28500 is underestimated first to get the approval and when the process starts, the real number with their natural increase could be known. This was reported on the backdrop of the rumours spread over last week that the LTTE is canvassing door to door of the refugee camps of Tamil Nadu to recruit the cadres for the LTTE’s undeclared final war to capture the Jaffna. Brothers…! Why do you waste the time roaming so far to recruit the people, instead, we will bring them back to your back door to support for your struggle! JVP brothers might have thought.

The Srima - Shastri pact of 1964 and Indira - Sirimavo supplementary agreement of 1974 paved the way for the repatriation of 600,000 persons of Indian origin to India and another 375,000 persons were to accept as citizens by Sri Lanka. But, due to large-scale violence & vigorous campaign hold to resist the repatriation process, only 337,066 Tamils in addition to their natural increase of 125,385 had been repatriated. 1987, JR was further forced by then the Indian Prime Minister Rajeev Ghandi to grant the citizenship for those who supposed to apply Indian citizenship but still living In Sri Lanka. The last batch around 168,000 Tamils who are not eligible also were granted the citizenship by the Sri Lankan government led by president Chandrika Bandarathunga Kumaranathunga & coalition partner, Marxist JVP in the parliament in 2003 by introducing the necessary amendments to the Constitution. This brief history proves that the India has not taken steps to fulfil the requirements of repatriation agreement accepting at least the agreed number of Indian origin Tamils to their homeland.

However, keeping in mind of the history of JVP, self proclaimed patriots who one time supported for self determination of Tamils, the mysterious move initiated by JVP to grant the Sri Lankan citizenship for another set of Tamils already settled in North India develops the fear in the Singhalese minds. Is it not the aim of JVP to deprive a minimum right of the hill country Singhalese to own a land from remained areas confined already by tea estates & Tamil inhabitation? Has ever JVP done any thing for the betterment of Singhalese Buddhists other than killing Singhalese or looting their properties in 1987-1989 periods?

Immigrant Tamils have had committed enough havoc in Sri Lanka through out our History. Today, LTTE Tamil tigers are continuing their blood bath killing Singhalese due to failure of our kings & political leaders to control the immigrant minorities effectively in past. Today’s Sri Lanka’s inflation has gone up as much as 17% high. Sri Lankan government is in a major struggle to control the prices of commodities while facing the LTTE terrorism from Northeast and the strike threat from the JVP led unions Island wide. Sri Lanka is not a refugee free country but still undergoing harder task of re-settling the Tamils refugees in Northeast. India is in blind eye and hardly extending any help in our problem to win the war against terrorism. Europe union & USA have cut the minimum humanitarian (Tsunami) aids based on the exaggerated human rights iolations in Sri Lanka. In this unfortunate situation, JVP’s initiative to grant the citizenship for another set of Indian origin Tamils residing in India questions, are these the country men, sons of the soil who preaching us the patriotism?

However, only hope we have today that government led by President Mahinda Rajapaksha would re-think of this proposal taking into consideration of the India’s failure to fulfil the Shrima-Shastri agreement or postpone it at least until the LTTE is crushed.

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