On Malini Parasarathy's Malodorous Malady

by Sachi Sri Kantha, October 14, 2008

Ms. Malini Parthasarathy, the high priestess of the House of Hindu added her tuppence-worth sentiments on the recent outpouring for Eelam Tamils in Tamil Nadu, under the caption, “The dangers of Tamil chauvinism” (The Hindu, Oct.14, 2008). There is no mistake that she has been following in the footsteps of her forbears, who valiantly sided with the administrative machinery of British colonialism against Mahatma Gandhi’s liberation movement for free India. The malodorous mischief in Malini Parthasarathy’s commentary deserves some criticism.

Ms. Parthasarathy’s peeve is that “the latest campaign in Tamil Nadu masterminded by a desperate LTTE must not be allowed to undermine the sound policy decision upheld by successive Indian governments since 1991 to stay out of Sri Lanka’s internal affairs.” The assertion that the successive Indian governments since P.V. Narasimha Rao’s period have stayed “out of Sri Lanka’s internal affairs” is a bold-faced lie. Apart from the cross-border military ties between India and Sri Lanka at the governmental level (to distract from military links between Sri Lanka and Pakistan), that the operatives of India’s intelligence agency – the Research and Analysis Wing – have repeatedly poked their noses into the Eelam Tamil issue is a recorded fact.

Ms. Parthasarathy crows much about President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s assertion that “he also took care to explain that the military action against the LTTE was against terrorism and not against the Tamil community.” As they say that the proof of the pudding is in the eating, so can President Rajapaksa demonstrate his goodwill to Tamils (both the indigenous Tamils and Tamils of Indian origin) by rescinding the Sinhala-majority policy adopted since 1962, and instituting recruitment of Tamils into government institutions on a population percentage basis? The Sri Lankan armed forces is touted to be 160,000-strong, so recruitment of 15 percent Tamils should benefit 24,000 Tamil youths. If this is not forthcoming in spirit and execution, then the words of the current President (like those of his predecessors) have to be deemed hogwash! Real democracy lies here, Ms. Parthasarathy, and the origins of the LTTE among the Tamils in 1976 have to be understood from this context. One can jibe about “the hegemonic ambitions of the LTTE chief Prabakaran” who has consistently sabotaged all attempts to find political solutions to the ethnic conflict.” How about some focus on the hegemonic ambitions of the brown-skinned Buddhist Aryan Nazism of General Sarath Fonseka and his companions?

Ms. Parthasarathy also listed that the “rebellion of the powerful LTTE commander Karuna and the fact that there is now in place an elected provincial council in the Eastern Province have rendered irrelevant many of the points in the earlier Sri Lankan Tamil platform.” Arrant nonsense. That the “powerful LTTE commander Karuna” has recently been nominated to the parliament through the backdoor of President Rajapaksa’s party, without any consensus of Eelam Tamil opinion sheds evidence on the fact that the ex-LTTEer is nothing but a tiger turned dog, having two leashes - one on his neck and the other around his scrotum. The fact that the coterie that is currently showcased by Ms. Parthasarathi as “an elected provincial council in the Eastern Province”, has committed uncounted social crimes since 2004, by killing parliamentarian (Joseph Pararajasingham), journalists (Taraki Sivaram and Aiyathurai Nadesan) and has abducted the Vice Chancellor of Eastern University (Prof. Sivasubramaniam Raveendranath) doesn’t seem to pain Ms. Parthasarathi’s psyche.

But what seems to pain Ms. Parthasarathi is the stimulation of “the secessionist sentiment in Tamil Nadu as long as Sri Lanka continued to have ethnic strife”, because of the LTTE’s existence. Get real, Madame Parthasarathi. The secessionist sentiments prevail not only in India (apart from Tamil Nadu), but also in China, Taiwan, Canada, UK, Spain and Italy. That the secessionist sentiment is universal is unrecognized by jaundiced-eyed journalists.

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