Indian Elections: Jayalalithaa vows to send Army to carve out Tamil Eelam in Lanka

By M Rama Rao, India Editor, Asian Tribune

New Delhi, 30 April (Asiantribune.com): Stepping up her J.Jayalalithaapoll rhetoric to win over the undecided TN voters, Jayalalithaa Jayaram, the AIADMK supremo, has promised to do for ethnic Tamils of Sri Lanka what Indira Gandhi did for the Bengalis of erstwhile East in 1971,

Campaigning in Tiruchi district, the revolutionary leader, as Jayalalithaa is hailed by the faithful, has vowed to send the Indian army into Sri Lanka to carve out a separate Tamil Eelam state, if her party joined the next government at the Centre and had the numbers to play a decisive role in it.

The former chief minister said she would follow the same norms and provisions of international law that Indira Gandhi had used to win freedom for Bangladesh and Rajiv Gandhi had invoked to send troops to Sri Lanka.

Jayalalithaa dismissed the criticism of the Congress that her views on the Sri Lankan issue were against the interests of the nation. In fact, she appeared to snub the Congress by invoking the name of Rajiv Gandhi and his decision to send IPKF to Sri Lanka in the eighties.

Speaking at an election rally in Musiri, on the banks of the River Cauvery, about 400 km from Chennai, AIADMK leader said, ‘We will respect international laws and norms just as Indira Gandhi did. Like her son Rajiv Gandhi did by sending IPKF’.

Ticks Off Cong, DMK

‘Will the Congress spokesman say Indira Gandhi was unaware of international law when she sent troops to Bangladesh? Or will he say Rajiv did not understand international law’, Jayalalithaa thundered as the receptive audience greeted her remarks with a thunderous applause, according to a media dispatch, which noted that Jayalalithaa had never shown excessive concern for the Sri Lankan Tamils so far and that hitherto she had been a votary of strong action against the LTTE for its terrorist activities.

Campaigning for the AIADMK’s Perambalur candidate, .Jayalalithaa ticked off Chief Minister Karunanidhi saying he was ‘misleading’ the people by claiming that the ceasefire was an outcome of his fast.

‘Karunanidhi wanted to take credit for solving the problem and thus went on his sudden fast. But the deal is that the ceasefire will last only till the elections in Tamil Nadu are over. The Sri Lanka army will again begin attacking the Tamils after the polls,’ she told a rally at Namakkal.

The AIADMK leader alleged that the halt to hostilities against the LTTE was the result of a secret deal with chief minister Karunanidhi.

Trying to turn the tables on her critics in the DMK and the Congress, the AIADMK supremo told her audience that advocating the bifurcation of India could be termed an anti-national act and not the partition of another country.

‘The real act of treason was done by the Congress government at the Centre and the DMK regime in the state in 1974 when Kachchativu was ceded to Sri Lanka, ignoring a constitutional bar on ceding of territory and a Supreme Court verdict’, said Jayalalithaa.

She also ridiculed DMK president’s fast for a ceasefire in Sri Lanka. It was a drama, she remarked. ‘He (Karunanidhi) called off the fast after a few hours claiming that the neighboring country had declared a ceasefire. But even before he reached home, Sri Lanka had clarified that there was no ceasefire. Attacks using heavy weapons are continuing’.

One-Upmanship Politics – Caveats

That electoral compulsions are responsible for the change in Jayalalithaa speak is clear from the digs she has been taking at the Congress and the DMK in a bid to project herself as a true champion of Lanka Tamils.

Ten days back she plunged into electioneering from Tirunelveli as a virulent critic of LTTE with her sympathies in place for Tamils of Sri Lanka who have been wronged politically and economically and socially.

With in four-five days, she appeared to harden her stand in a bid to make the issue her mail election plank, much to the discomfiture of the Congress-DMK combine, and to the glee of the Eelam campaigners.

Jayalalithaa came out in support of Eelam for the first time on April 26 when she told an election rally at Erode that an independent ‘Tamil Eelam' was the only lasting solution to the decades-old ethnic crisis in Sri Lanka and promised to strive towards that objective.

‘It is now clear that the Sri Lankan government's sole agenda is to wipe out the Tamil race from the island. They have no intention of giving them equal rights’, she said attributing her change of heart on Eelam issue to a video footage of war-torn land spiritual leader Sri Sri Ravi Shankar had shown to her.

In fact, in its election manifesto, the AIADMK had stated that ‘Tamils should be accorded equal status with that of the Sinhala majority, with devolution of administrative power in the Tamil-dominated provinces of Sri Lanka. If these moves fail, then the AIADMK will press for a separate State of Eelam to ensure that Tamils in the Island live a life of dignity’.

Last Saturday her slogan was: Vote for us (AIADMK Front) for Tamil Eelam.

Now her promise: Vote for us for a Bangla in Sri Lanka. She has slipped a caveat and that should not be missed. And the caveat is ‘If a government that listens to me is formed at the Centre, I will take action for the dispatch of the Indian army to Sri Lanka and create a separate Tamil Eelam’

For her, any further talk about devolution of powers and solution with in the frame work of Sri Lankan constitution is a waste of time.

Analysts in Chennai and Delhi term Jayalalithaa Speak as Gobbledygook. And wonder how a regional party howsoever endowed with the powers of a kingmaker can force a foreign policy change. ‘It is all rhetoric. And one-upmanship politics’, they say.

Since DMK is saying that it has brought the ceasefire, she is promising to send the Army to create Tamil Eelam in Lanka, according to these analysts who believe that the rhetoric may not sway not more than one to one point five percent voters in Tamil Nadu. This segment has the potential to change the outcome in several constituencies.

-Asian Tribune -