Note:- This is the first ever guest post on this blog. And the author is Deepu from Canada, a non-blogger and an ardent reader of Cuckoo’s Cosmos.

The post is a little long but worth a read and very informative for people like me.  Let your thoughts rain on this. He has promised to reply each one of them.

India and Sri Lanka have a history that is inseparably intertwined.

1.    Hundreds of years ago English settlers found that the uplands of then Ceylon were very suited to coffee, tea and rubber cultivation. To cultivate the lands, they brought Tamil as laborers from India, current Tamil Nadu, probably around a million in number.
2.    It meant the missionaries followed, who made sure that the Tamils were well educated in English, many a Tamil laborer would convert to Christianity. This cultural contribution of colonial Britain would sow the seeds for conflict.

3.    The perfect British state at the time was Ceylon, prosperous and rich with its exports. Before independence, most administrative and government posts were held by well educated Tamils, who knew English, though they constituted less than 30 percent of the country’s population. Enough cause for simmering ethnic tensions beneath the surface.
4.    In 1947 India, the mainland, gains independence, and the British can no longer administer the island and they decide to leave Ceylon. The contrast compared to India is that there were no protests in Sri Lanka against the British rule, no real leaders to lead the cause.
5.    1948, the country of Ceylon gained, rather given independence. The leaders of the country were the elite with no connection with the masses. So they fed the Sinhalese nationalistic views for getting votes that left the minority Christians, Muslims and the rest of the Tamils marginalized. Majority of Sri Lankan’s were Buddhist. The Tamils were stripped of their citizenship and lost their right to vote.

6.    In 1956, Bandaranaike becomes the Prime Minister. He is more British than he is Sri Lankan, decides to take this policy to the next level, he makes Sinhalese the official language of Sri Lanka. This single act became known as the root cause of all the blood that has flown there.
7.    Why? Making Sinhalese the official language means, the Tamils and Christians could no longer apply for government jobs, education in English or Tamil was of no use, and effectively they had no representation in the administration. For the Sinhalese youth, who at the time were happy, this meant that they would be un-employable for their lifetime, as everyone wanted people who knew English, with increasing unemployment, intense resentment against the government  would result.

8.    The Tamils felt discriminated against. To add fuel to the fire, the government favored nationalistic views to divert attention from the global economy gloom (Ceylon relied on exports to sustain its prosperous economy) that would escalate into anti–Tamil riots in 1958 and result in many hundreds of Tamils dead.
9.    Bandaranaike was killed in 1959, and his widow was sworn in as Prime Minister. She is no leader, a woman with no qualities her own, she continues her husband’s double edged policies.
10.    Tamils start peaceful protests against the government’s policies.

11.    In the background, the JVP, the Marxist Sinhalese nationalistic party formed and started a violent uprising against the government with their mind set on replacing the government.
12.    The government sent troops to quell the JVP, most of the party supporters were killed.
13.    To prevent further uprisings, lady Prime minister renamed Ceylon to Sri Lanka, Buddhism is made state religion, a move that is only to appease the majority community.

14.    The result is a country in which there are literally two states, one that speaks Tamil and another that speaks Sinhalese.
15.    Tamils are now rebellious and get trained in India in armed warfare. The LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) the more prominent among them would start an armed struggle for a new state they want to name the Tamil Eelam.
16.    Sometime in the 1980’s, the Tamil public library in Jaffna is burnt, said to be by the Sri Lankan army. This strikes at the core of the Tamil people’s values, the library is an ever-present symbol of their culture dating back hundreds of years and they are furious.

17.    The Tigers take revenge by killing a dozen soldiers in the north.
18.    The Government would arrange a grand state funeral for the dead soldiers in Colombo, which would escalate into wide spread riots against Tamils all over the country. It would leave hundreds, sometime whole families, dead and houses burnt as the army and police looked on encouraging the rioters. The civil war had started. And you thought genocide was a term that is not associated with Sri Lanka?
19.    Tamils start leaving the country if they have the means to do that; some to India, some abroad. The Sinhalese army starts killing innocent Tamil youngsters in the North. The LTTE retaliate by killing Sinhalese civilians.

 Photo Source : www.spur.asn.au

20.    The Indian government’s sympathy for the Tamils let them provide arms and training to the LTTE in India. The violence in Sri Lanka escalated and Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi decided it is time for India to intervene. In an apparent show of support and concern for the Tamils, India sent in air drops of emergency supplies for the civilians into Sri Lanka, much to the chagrin of the Government there.
21.    The Tamils in Indian state of Tamil Nadu started having their own ideas of secession. It was only a matter of time before the conflict flowed across the border. As the violence escalated with bombings in Colombo and fighting elsewhere, Rajiv Gandhi did a U-turn in policy, and backed out on his support for the LTTE, and sent in the IPKF (Indian Peace Keeping Force) between the warring Sri Lankan army and the Tigers. To bring peace, the idea was that the LTTE disarm and that they appoint an autonomous government with Tamils getting the administration of the region. The LTTE for their part murdered the more moderate Tamils who are in favour of a peaceful consensus, and refused to disarm. This could have stopped the bloodshed, but would it have worked? Well, we would never know.

22.    After few months Gandhi decided there is no choice but to disarm the LTTE by force, a bloody battle ensued that had disastrous consequences for the IPKF and the LTTE. The IPKF for their part killed enough innocents there.
23.    After two years they (the IPKF) were withdrawn, a mission failed, and Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated near Madras during an election rally, by the LTTE in revenge. This incident left the LTTE in disfavor of the Indian government, a price they would pay for later.

24.    The JVP gained momentum. The JVP for their part was ruthless against the Sri Lankan government soldiers and policemen, leaving hundreds dead, murdering ordinary civilians when they chose to. The Sri Lankan government again used their brutal and bloody tactics against the nationalists by executing innocent youngsters in the south, by the thousands, if this was not state sponsored terrorism, nothing else was. It was said anyone suspected of being in the party was summarily executed, most were simply innocent civilians who happened to be in the wrong age group.
25.    With their success with the JVP, the Sri Lankan government turned back to fight the Tigers, who specialized in guerilla warfare in the north, and suicide bombings against leaders in the south. The Tigers carried cyanide pills round their neck and never wanted to be caught alive. Their tactics were brutal and bloody, and anyone suspected of supporting the government was executed.

26.    In 2001, after the 9/11 and intense anti-terror legislations, LTTE was worried about an Afghanistan style invasion. Things looked good as the LTTE agreed for a ceasefire, choosing for regional autonomy, but the real reason was that there were not enough people left to fight. The Kumaratunga government accepted for the first time that discrimination and human rights violations against Tamils and Muslims have occurred in Sri Lanka. Norway played a big part in the peace talks mediating the ceasefire.
27.    In 2003, the LTTE is officially designated as a terrorist organization. They could no longer raise funds in Europe and Canada needed for their cause. Their assets and accounts were frozen.

28.    An uneasy peace prevailed until the Kumaratunga government fell. This also meant that the Government was not in a strong position to negotiate peace talks with the Tamils; as they didn’t have a majority support in the Sri Lankan Parliament.
29.    The JVP started looking for democratic way of winning power with fierce nationalistic views that went against the Tamils, to form the next coalition government. The LTTE, in a show of force in 2007, attacked the Colombo airport in a bombing raid leaving most of the Sri Lankan airlines fleet in cauldrons.

30.    This resulted in another round of peace talks, the interesting part of peace talks in the region was that they started only when one party was on their knees, this time it was the Government, which was not a good sign.
31.    In Jan 2008, after both sides violated the ceasefire many times, the government pulled out of the ceasefire and fighting resumed. At least 500,000 people are said to be affected by the fighting, with both sides targeting innocent civilians.

India says that it is an internal matter of Sri Lanka. Is there no value for human lives?  Does it need pressure from a political party to send Pranab Mukherjee to Sri Lanka? They are abetting their own political agenda while innocents die.

What does this mean for the thousands of innocents caught in the middle?  Thousands of people are shelled and attacked by own government, news comes of a government jubilant about capture of “its” own territory. No news reporting is available as reporters are brutally dealt with by both sides alike for reporting from the battle zone. When brute force is the policy of both sides, and have no qualms of killing their own, Sri Lanka is not a country one would want to be in, if you cherish your freedom.

“A war has no winners”.  The statement perfectly sums up the situation. But can we do anything for the affected?

P.S.- Deepu introduces himself as an aspiring writer; one who thinks being good at heart.  All views on this post are solely of the author.

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