Poreg View: Both Tamil and Sinhala speaking people are known to immigrate often adopting the most risky means. The Tamils have always outnumbered their fellow countrymen in the quest for an El’Dorado. That is primarily due to denial of equal opportunities for education, employment and business in their home country. The end to the three decade old Eelam war has not brought any change in the situation.
On August 27, the Tamil Nadu police foiled one such attempt in Cuddalore and nabbed 12 Lankan Tamils, who had come to India as tourists. It is the first such ‘discovery’ for the Q branch of the TN police which deals with such matters, according to the media report.
Kerala coast is known to be patronized for some years by the Lankan Tamilians in their journey for greener pastures but then it coincided with the shift in LTTE operations from TN to Kerala. Police and coastguard vigil acted as a check on illegal human ferries. Like in Kerala, in Tamilnadu also ‘agents’ appear to have become active in the new thriven business.
It marks by all means a new twist to the Sri Lanka ethnic Tamil crisis which is defying a solution for want of political will. Unless Colombo puts its house in order and ensures a fair play for the ethnic minority, the urge to escape to a foreign shore will not go.
The post-war situation has not brought the promised relief at least on the economic front to the Tamils. In fact many of the Tamils who crossed the Strait for safety are reluctant to leave the refugee camps in Tamilnadu.
Tamil leaders in Sri Lanka told the Times of India that the situation there was still far from normal.
To what extent this Down Under Calling is going to affect India-Sri Lanka relations is difficult to crystal gaze. It is possible for the chauvinists to see in the migration an Indian hand to malign Sri Lanka. If such a reading takes place it will mark a sorry chapter in the bilateral relations.
Already the ties have come under strain these past few days because of the targeting of Sri Lankan pilgrims visiting prominent Christian shrines in Nagapattinam and Thanjavur districts of Tamilnadu.
As the New York Times said, “From New Delhi, where foreign policy attention is usually focused on Pakistan and China, it is easy to forget that Sri Lanka remains a potent, explosive issue in Tamil Nadu, roughly three years after the Sri Lankan government defeated Tamil rebels to end of the bloody Sri Lankan civil war”. Since the end of the war, TN leaders have been making out a case for India to pressure Sri Lanka to ensure that Tamils enjoy rights equal to the island nation’s Sinhalese majority.
But then criticism of Delhi by TN leaders is one thing and acting in a manner that affects India’s image and relations with a neighbour is another thing. It is a ‘dangerous game’ as The Hindu said editorially, and it must be desisted. Neither fanning emotions nor targeting the people who have come here on pilgrimage is the way.
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