It is doubtful whether the fishermen associations of the two countries would be able to go ahead with their ‘planned dialogue’ for a solution to their woes. A delegation of fishermen is scheduled to go to Sri Lanka on September 15 for talks with their counterparts, and government officials. “We are scared to go there though the permission has not been revoked by the Sri Lankan authorities”, says Devadass of the Tamil Nadu Fishermen Welfare Association.
He and other interested persons led a 12-member delegation from Rameswaram to the Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh and apprised him of their concerns. They urged the Prime Minister to come out with an amicable solution to end the fishermen issue.
They also presented a package of measures that will ease their problems. One of these is construction of a channel from Rameswaram. “We represented that creating a channel from Rameswaram will enable fishermen to go deep sea fishing”. Taken up in conjunction with plans for an alternative alignment for the Sethu Samudram project, the channel plan may offer a long term solution.
The targeting of Sri Lankan visitors has however not gone down well with all sections in and outside Tamilnadu. “We strongly condemn the attacks on pilgrims and tourists from Sri Lanka and hurting them is wrong. The state and Centre should take stringent measures against these outfits”, said Devadoss of the Tamil Nadu Fishermen Welfare Association. His message to the pro-Eelam outfits is: You play politics on whatever you want, but not on the lives of our fishermen.
U Arulanandam of Alliance for Release of Innocent Fishermen echoed the same sentiments when he pointed out that most of the Sri Lankan nationals targeted by the “Pro-Eelam”, groups were themselves Tamils. “Unfortunately, most of the Sri Lankan nationals attacked by these outfits are, in fact, Tamils because they are originally fishermen from Tamil Nadu’s coastal areas who settled there due to severe famine in the year 1800,” he said.
His case is that the Tamil outfits, which want to take political mileage, must verify their facts thoroughly because Buddhist Sinhalese people will not come to churches in Tamilnadu.
On its part, Sri Lanka has issued an advisory to its citizens to not travel to Tamilnadu ‘unless unavoidable’. The Tamilnadu government must allay the fears of the visitors from Sri Lanka and put in place a security blanket for them. At the same time it should keep under check loose canons among the chauvinist organisations from going over board.
Admittedly the stoning of the buses carrying the Sri Lankan Christian visitors is not a one off incident. In January this year, Thirukumar Nadesan, the husband of Deputy Minister Nirupama Rajapakse was attacked by an unruly crowd during his visit to Ramanathanswamy Temple in Rameswaram. He is a relative of President Mahinda Rajapaksa by marriage. A similar fate befell Senthil Thondaman, a nephew of Sri Lanka minister Arumugam Thondaman when he visited Thirunallar Temple in Pondicherry. Senthil is an elected member of the Uva Provincial Council.
The two main Dravidian parties, DMK and AIADMK are generally never on the same page. But on the issue of Lanka Tamils, DMK is synch with Delhi as a member of the ruling UPA-II alliance; AIADMK under Jayalalithaa is opposed to LTTE and its Eelam demand. It is understandably upset at the recent spate of attacks on fishermen from Rameswaram and Nagapattinam; and it may even view these attacks as a calibrated attempt of Colombo to block informal channels from Jaffna. But then there are ways to articulate such concerns.
Competitive populism is not the way out; in fact populism is not good on whether it is emotional issues or issues of bread and butter.
