India’s DMK Chief Karunanidhi suffering from selective amnesia

The leader of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, octogenarian Muthuvel Karunanidhi, the Doomsday prophet, presently he seems to be suffering from selective amnesia.

The leader of the DMK who has been rejected by his own people in the fourteenth legislative assembly election of Tamil Nadu, which was held on 13 April 2011 to elect members from 234 electorates and when the results were released on 13 May 2011, the ruling party DMK was relegated to the third position by managing to win only 23 seats, while AIDMK won 203 seats and became the ruling party and DMDK led by the Actor Vijaykanth won 29 seats and he became the leader of the opposition .

Karunanidhi who has been rejected by his own very Tamil people and he has suddenly taken over the role of a Tamil leader and started interfering in the affairs of the Tamils of Sri Lanka.

As far as I am aware nobody has mandated him to interfere in the affairs of the Tamils of Sri Lanka. Even Prabhakaran as well as the other leaders of the Tamil militant groups never accepted Karunanidhi as their leader.

He is a failed political leader and it is unfortunate that he has failed to grasp the present situation in Sri Lanka and also has conveniently forgotten about his party’s stance in the early days.

Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam presently led by M.Karunanidhi, but in the initial stages the outfit was led by the founder leader C.N. Annadorai and advocated for the separation of Dravida Nadu (Dravidastan), consisting of all the Southern Indian states.

To end the cry for separation, the Indian Government brought in an amendment to its constitution which put halt to DMK’s cry for Dravidastan – a separate state for the Dravidians in the South India.

DMK submitted to the amendment to the constitution and unceremoniously gave up its separatist call, which was the basic platform on which the DMK was formed somewhere in 1948.

At this juncture, I wish to recall that in 1967 the then Prime Minister of India Ms. Indira Gandhi visited Sri Lanka for the first time as the prime minster and I had the opportunity to interview her in Colombo.

At that time, I was a staff reporter attached to the Independent Newspapers group which published Sun, Dawasa and Dinapathi the three main morning dailies.

When this newspaper group started the Tamil daily in 1966, I was transferred to Dinapathi on the request of the editor of Dinapathi, ( late) S.D. Sivanayakam.

If I remember correctly, during those days there was no international airport and international flights used to land in the Air Force Airport also located in Katunayake.

In June 17, 1967, India’s Prime Minister Indra Gandhi visited Sri Lanka on a 4-day goodwill mission to Ceylon (Sri Lanka) for the first time and I had the opportunity to interview her in Colombo.

Indira Gandhi arrived on an official visit to Sri Lanka at the invitation of the then Prime Minister Dudley Senanayaka.

Unlike now, there were no security problem and journalists were able to go near the visiting dignitaries and talk to them freely without any problem. Journalists who frequent the airports to cover the arrival of foreign dignitaries were well recognized and were duly respected by the airport authorities those days.

I had the opportunity to speak with Mrs. Gandhi freely for more than 15 minutes at the airport and she spoke to me very relaxed and explained how Indian Government reined in the separatists moves of the DMK by introducing an amendment to the constitution which made DMK to give up their separatist agenda by preventing those with separatist goals from contesting in the elections.

The 16th amendment to the Constitution introduced in the year 1963, enabled India to combat cries for secession from organizations and their activities which could not be restricted otherwise.

Accordingly in 1963, on the recommendation of the Committee on National Integration and Regionalism of the National Integration Council, the Indian parliament unanimously passed the Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which sought to "prevent the fissiparous, secessionist tendency in the country engendered by regional and linguistic loyalties and to preserve the unity, sovereignty, and territorial integrity" of India. This was essentially in response to the separatist movement demanding a sovereign Dravidistan.

Subsequently DMK dropped its Dravida Nadu (Dravidistan) stance after the 16th amendment was adopted in the Indian Constitution.

At the same time in Sri Lanka the cry for separate state of Tamil Eelam emerged in 1974 with the adoption of the Vaddukoddai resolution on May 14, 1976. The resolution was adopted by the Tamil United Liberation Front, a new political entity of that period of time.

In the 1977 Parliamentary General Elections TULF won in the North and Eastern Provinces overwhelmingly and claimed that the Tamils have mandated them for the separation of North and Eastern provinces and to be called a separate state of Tamil Eelam.

Eelam was one of the names by which the present Sri Lanka was called.
The name of the country evolved into "Sri" + Lanka, with the Sanskrit honorific "Sri" denoting the diffusion of radiance, beauty and grace. The name Lanka as written in the Sanskrit version of the Iramayana came into existence as the kingdom of the ‘Asura’ (in Tamil this denotes a teetotaler and a vegetarian).

The kingdom of King Iravana, who was a Tamil, was known as "Ilankai" (Lanka is the Sanskrit version). Ilankai means radiates and in Tamil there is no need to adopt an honorific because the name itself depicts the holiness of the land. Up to May 22, 1972, the country was known as Ceylon, although during the prehistoric period it was called "Elam", (the eternal country), Ilam (Ilam is the Tamil word for gold) Eezham, Eylom and presently Eelam. The pronunciation depends on the proclivity of one's tongue. - Sri Lanka: The Untold Story – by K.T.Rsjasinghsm

After the 1983 Holocaust the sixth Amendment to the 1978 Sri Lanka’s constitution was enacted and it was made compulsory to swear allegiance to the constitution.

Accordingly, Parliamentarians or those intend to contest in the General Elections were made to solemnly declare and affirm or swear that the person will uphold the constitution of Sri Lanka and he will not directly or indirectly in or outside Sri Lanka support, espouse, promote, finance, encourage or advocate the establishment of a separate State within the territory of Sri Lanka.

In the beginning when the sixth amendment was introduced in 1983 August, A.Amirthalingham, the Secretary General of TULF, M. Sivasithamparam the President of TULF and even the present leader of the TNA refused to swore allegiance to the Sri Lankan Constitution and boycotted the parliament.

But in the 1989 Parliamentary General Elections Amirthalingham, Sivasithamparam and others of the TULF contested in the general election to the parliament by swearing allegiance to the constitution. Once they swore allegiance to the constitution they have unceremoniously ditched the so called mandate they had in 1977 for a separate state of Tamil Eelam.

The present TNA leader and others who have contested in the parliamentary general elections have simply given up the Tamil Eelam similar to DMK leaders, like of C.N.Annadorai, M. Karunanidhi and others who have unceremoniously ditched the call for Dravidastan in 1963.

The DMK leader Karunanidhi must understand that there can’t be two yardsticks, one for him and his coteries while another for the Sri Lankan Tamil Leaders.

When the Indian Parliamentary delegation under the leadership of Shusma Swarajh, BJP stalwart and the Opposition leader of the Lok Sabah was in Colombo, they met the Tamil leaders including the TNA leaders.

In their meeting with R.Sampanthan and his TNA delegation it was reported that TNA Leader Mr. R. Sampanthan has clearly said that the Tamil Leaders in the Island Nation wanted a political solution to the ethnic problem within the framework of a united Sri Lanka and no one raised the issue of a separate Tamil Eelam.

It was further reported that TNA Leader Sampanthan has said that I am a Sri Lankan and wanted to die as a Sri Lankan.”

This is the position of all the Sri Lankan Tamil Leaders. When the Sri Lankan Tamil Leaders have proclaimed that they are not interested in a separate Tamil state, and then who is this Karunanidhi to challenge anyone and say that he wants to have a referendum conducted in the Tamil parts of Sri Lanka regarding Sri Lankan Tamils’ people’s position on Tamil Eelam.

Karunanidhi’s call for a referendum for a Tamil Eelam is the biggest joke of the year.

- Asian Tribune -

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