BANGALORE - Even as the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of
Tamil Eelam (LTTE) observed a two-day ceasefire in the island early this week,
the LTTE and its supporters are heating things up in the southern Indian state
of Tamil Nadu with threats and vitriolic speeches.
While Indian intelligence agencies have raised an alarm that the LTTE could
attack senior political leaders in the country, politicians in Tamil Nadu known
for their links to the LTTE just a few score kilometers across the Palk Strait
have threatened
bloodshed in the state if LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran comes to any harm.
India's month-long elections for 543 seats in the Lower House of parliament,
the Lok Sabha, began on Thursday, with voting taking place in five phases -
Tamil Nadu votes in the last phase on May 16 to elect 39 representatives.
Last week, security officials warned of a possible threat to the lives of
Congress party chief Sonia Gandhi, her son Rahul and daughter Priyanka from the
LTTE. Sonia and Rahul, both members of parliament, are contesting in the polls
and have been campaigning for Congress across the country.
Sonia is the widow of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, who was assassinated
by an LTTE suicide bomber in May 1991 while campaigning at Sriperumpudur in
Tamil Nadu.
Indian intelligence operatives believe that the Gandhi family is once again on
the LTTE radar as it is furious with the Congress-led United Progressive
Alliance (UPA) government for not pressuring the Sri Lankan government to halt
its military operations against the battered LTTE. Also thought to be high on
the LTTE's hit list is the chief minister of Tamil Nadu, Muthuvel Karunanidhi,
whose Dravida Munetra Kazhagam (DMK) party is a close ally of the Congress.
The LTTE has suffered grievously in the war over the past two years and has
lost all the territory it once controlled in the north and east of the island.
The Tigers are now reportedly confined to a 17-square-kilometer "no-fire zone".
While the LTTE has refuted reports that it has the Gandhi family in its
crosshairs, media and politicians known to be close to the Tigers have made
vituperative attacks on Sonia, holding her responsible for the LTTE's military
debacle. According to pro-LTTE media, it is because of Sonia that India is
quietly supporting the Sri Lankan government's ongoing military campaign to
once and for all destroy the LTTE.
An Indo-Asian News Service report has drawn attention to a commentary in the
Puthinam website, reportedly linked to the LTTE's political wing, which argues
that Sonia is determined to wipe out the LTTE. She "will not sleep in peace
till the last nail is hammered on Prabhakaran's coffin", it says, blaming Sonia
for the suffering of the Tamils and concluding that it is India, not Sri Lanka,
that is their enemy.
As venomous in their attacks on Sonia are pro-LTTE Indian politicians such as V
Goplalaswamy, aka Vaiko, leader of the Marumalarchi Dravida Munetra Kazhagam
(MDMK). In speeches last week, Vaiko, a strident supporter of the LTTE who has
vociferously campaigned for the Tigers to be de-proscribed, hurled abuse at the
government, holding it responsible for Tamils being killed in Sri Lanka.
"They've supplied arms, they've supplied radars, they've sent military for the
genocide of Lankan Tamils," Vaiko alleged.
"If anything happens to Prabhakaran, rivers of blood would flow in Tamil Nadu,"
he thundered at a rally, warning that India wouldn't remain a united country,
that is, Tamils would secede from the country if the war against the LTTE was
not stopped.
"It has been quite a long time and we have forgotten what happened in
Sriperumbudur," Vaiko said, in a chilling reminder of what the LTTE is capable
of - the LTTE's suicide bombing of Rajiv Gandhi 18 years ago.
For the first time in many years, the Sri Lankan Tamil issue is at the center
of the Tamil Nadu election battleground. This is thanks to the efforts of a
host of LTTE sympathizers in the state, such as P Nedumaran, Thol
Thirumavalavan and Vaiko. For several years, these leaders have been openly
campaigning for a lifting of the ban on the LTTE. In the past two years, with
the war going against the LTTE, these leaders have organized rallies, strikes
and marches to pressure Delhi to take a more pro-LTTE stand.
While their efforts have cut no ice with the government, it has worked in
stirring sympathy for the Sri Lankan Tamils and in turning the public mood in
Tamil Nadu in favor of the LTTE. Opinion polls indicate significant sympathy
for the LTTE. This is no small achievement, considering the revulsion the
LTTE's brutal methods have evoked among sizeable sections of the population
since Rajiv's assassination.
With public sentiment now sympathetic to the Sri Lankan Tamils and to some
extent to the LTTE, being seen to be unsympathetic to the plight of the Lankan
Tamils would be disastrous this poll season. Parties have therefore protected
themselves by expressing support to the Sri Lankan Tamils in their manifestoes
and/or organizing hunger strikes and rallies on the issue.
The DMK and the Congress are on the defensive, fighting off accusations from
the opposition alliance led by the All-India Anna DMK (AIADMK) and pro-LTTE
parties like the MDMK and the Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) that the UPA
government has ignored the plight of the Sri Lankan Tamils and failed to
"protect the Tamil race from genocide" by the Sri Lankan government.
The decibel-level of speeches by politicians like Vaiko and others would
suggest that it is the Sri Lankan problem that is the main issue in the Tamil
Nadu elections. It is true that this issue has dominated media coverage of the
poll in recent weeks. But the important question is whether this factor will
determine how people vote.
In the 1991 election that followed Rajiv's assassination, the DMK, which was
then in power in Tamil Nadu, was wiped out. Its brazen support of the LTTE from
1988 to 1991 was resented by the Tamil Nadu electorate, which blamed the party
for the assassination and punished it at the election.
But in the years that followed, it has been caste, corruption and governance
that have determined how people voted. The Sri Lankan Tamil issue was not a
factor. The steady improvement in the PMK's electoral performance for instance
must be attributed to caste factors, not its pro-Tiger rhetoric.
Political commentators say that in this election, too, while the Sri Lankan
Tamil issue is raising the political temperature in Tamil Nadu and anxiety
levels in Colombo, it will be issues of governance, development and corruption
that will dominate in most constituencies.
This will put the DMK-Congress combine at a disadvantage. As the ruling
alliance in the federal and state governments, it is likely to come up against
an anti-incumbency vote. Moreover, the opposition AIADMK has managed to pull in
more parties - the PMK, MDMK and the left as its allies.
The MDMK and the PMK are expected to do well. How will that impact on the
post-poll scenario? These are small parties, contesting just four and seven
seats, respectively in the elections. These figures might seem small in a
543-seat Lower House, but in an election which is expected to throw up a very
close result these numbers will be significant. They could wield influence far
greater than their numbers would suggest.
It is difficult to forecast their post-poll moves as it is not ideology but
political expediency that has guided the strategies of Tamil Nadu's parties.
Consider this: his fiercely pro-LTTE position notwithstanding, Vaiko is in a
seat-sharing arrangement with J Jayalalithaa, leader of the AIADMK, who was
responsible for dismantling the LTTE network in Tamil Nadu in the 1990s. He has
been careful not to make his pro-LTTE speeches when he shares the campaign
platform with Jayalalithaa.
The MDMK and the PMK might be spewing venom on the Congress today, but the
possibility of either switching sides in the event of the UPA coalition
returning to power cannot be ruled out. The PMK has said so in so many words.
There is some concern that should the pro-LTTE parties do well, they will
demand a more pro-LTTE position as the price of their support. But this is
unlikely to determine which alliance they will support post-elections. For all
their rabble-rousing speeches on the Tigers, it is the fruits of power - how
many ministers and which portfolios - that will decide which alliance they will
eventually back.
Sudha Ramachandran is an independent journalist/researcher based in
Bangalore.
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