Dravidar Kazhagam - Tamil Eelam Problem

Tamil Eelam Problem

Another burning question which has been engaging the Dravidar Kazhagam actively since 1983 is that of the helpless Tamil population in Sri Lanka. Though Tamilians had been attacked off and on by the Sinhalese for a number of years, from 1983 the plight of the Tamils became miserable because the Sri Lanka government seemed to convince at the atrocities committed against the Tamils. Some Tamil groups equipped themselves and tried to meet the challenge of the Sinhalese militants. As a result of the continued skirmishes, hundreds of Tamil civilians, including women and children, were killed.

In order to induce the government of India to take some action at the political level the Dravidar Kazhagam took a series of steps. On June 18, 1983, it convened an All-Party Conference in Madras and discussed the ways to solve the problem. The consensus was that the Government of India should have a dialogue with the Government of Sri Lanka to stop the genocide and find means of allowing the Tamil population to live in peace in that country. Two weeks later, on July 2, the Dravidar Kazhagam leaders address a mammoth public meeting at Anna Nagar, Madras to inform the public how their brothers and sisters were being massacred in Sri Lanka.

On July 23, 1983, the General Secretary sent messages to all the Parliament members representing Tamil Nadu asking them to meet Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and urge her to everything possible to save the innocent Tamils. Finding that the Government of India was not taking immediate steps to solve the problem, the Dravidar Kazhagam decided to observe the August 15, 1983 as a day of mourning. The Party members were instructed to show their resentment against the Central Government's lukewarm attitude, by wearing black badges on their arms, flying black flags over their houses and hoisting black flags in public places. Further, the members of the State Legislative Party and the Parliament were requested through personal letters not to participate in any of the functions connected with the Independence Day.

By this time, refugees from Sri Lanka were pouring into Tamil Nadu in large numbers. On August 16, 1983 the General Secretary of the Dravidar Kazhagamthe announced that Periyar Rationalist Propaganda Institution would offer educational facilities to the children of Tamil refugees from Sri Lanka. When the President of Sri Lanka Jayawardene visited New Delhi to enter into a pact with Prime Minister of India, the Dravidar Kazhagam held a black flag demonstration to express its indignation against his inhuman attitude to Tamils. As a result of the meeting which Jayawardene had with the officials of the Indian Government, India agreed to send a unit of the Indian Army to Sri Lanka for keeping peace in the island; it was called Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF). The Dravidar Kazhagam arranged a number of meetings and expressed condemnation of this agreement signed on July 29, 1987 because it felt that the IPKF would be used to curb the activities of the Tamil rebels who wanted a separate Province Eelam for the Tamils settled in Sri Lanka.

On Independence Day August 15, 1984, the Dravidar Kazhagam observed mourning and its general secretary and members hoisted black flags in many places of Tamil Nadu. K. Veeramani and five thousand members of the party who were involved in this were arrested. On December 3, 1984, a unit of the Ceylonese Marine Force chased and shot down some Indian fishermen who were fishing off the coast of Rameswaram. When the General Secretary of the Dravidar Kazhagam and the Head of the Madurai Mutt expressed before the Madurai Collector's office their protest against the inaction of the Indian Government, they were arrested. The Dravidar Kazhagam gave help to the families of the fishermen who had been killed. In order to plan and organize continued support for the Tamil Eelam freedom fighters, Tamil Eelam Supporters Organization (TESO) was formed in Madras on May 13, 1985 with Dr. Kalaignar Karunanidhi as President and K. Veeramani and Madurai Nedumaran as members.

When the Central Government of India ordered Tamil Eelam leadership to be sent out of Madras, thousands of Tamilians marched along the streets of New Delhi protesting against the provocative order. Five days later TESO successfully prevented movements of trains throughout Tamil Nadu as a protest against the extradition of the Eelam leadership. When the situation on the borders between India and Sri Lanka were tense, Nedumaran heroically sailed to Sri Lanka, videotaped the plight of Tamils in Sri Lanka and on his return, went straight to New Delhi to meet Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi to apprise him of the situation in Sri Lanka. Rajiv Gandhi refused to meet him and thus showed his indifference to the sufferings of the Tamils in Sri Lanka.

When the Government of India sent an Indian Battalion] to Sri Lanka as IPKF, the Dravidar Kazhagam protested against it. (Periyar Father of Tamil 55) The worst fears of the Dravidar Kazhagam regarding the IPKF proved true within a week or two of its functioning in Sri Lanka. The battalion had to take orders from the Sri Lanka Government and naturally that Government employed the IPKF against the guerrilla fighters of Eelam. Very soon, Indian papers reported that the Indian Government was spending at the rate of rupees one crore per day for maintaining the IPKF in Sri Lanka. The general public then realized that making the Indo-Lanka pact was a historic folly on the part of the Indian Government awoke to the realities but stood on false prestige and did not wish to withdraw the IPKF. But ironically, the Government of Sri Lanka insisted on the withdrawal of Indian troops in May 1989 probably because this force tried to prevent the Sri Lanka army from hunting down not only the freedom fighters but the innocent Tamil civilians.