MODI/BJP TO CONTINUE THE SONIA/UPA SUPPORT FOR THE SRI LANKA GENOCIDE AGAINST EELAM TAMILS?
Swapan Dasgupta’s SL job prospecting visit resulted in his piece in The Pioneer of 9 June that was meant to impress the Rajapakses that Modi/BJP could be pressured into continuing Sonia/UPA SL appeasement policies. The smarter Rajapakses are not likely to be that impressed with Swapan. The objective of The Pioneer’ piece was to argue that the Rajapakses have done enough to improve conditions in the North/Jaffna that Swapan commends to the in-coming BJP rule to assist the Rajapakses in relieving UNHRC and international pressure to enforce accountability for crimes committed on the Eelam Tamils. Swapan pursues this line (he has links to prominent Congressman Sashi Tharoor and others) more to extricate Sonia/South Block bureaucrats to prevent embarrassing details of their ‘in the loop’ collaboration in the Rajapakse crimes being revealed during the continuing UNHRC review. Specifically Swapan did a sloppy job, he spent only a few hours in Jaffna (south of Jaffna was the area most affected by the harsh SL war atrocities); he hardly had any contact with the victims of SL war crimes his information was a Chettiar businessman in Colombo. Briefly Swapan’s background is itself suspect (discussed below) and readers are cautioned to scrupulously establish the veracity of Swapan’s observations.
The narrow mindset of most paid scribes/apologists that Rajapakses recruit from time to time to veer the debate away from the Rajapakses’/Sonia-South Block crimes is well known. The contribution of paid scribes; Rams, Ramans and Hariharons from India and also the notorious Liam Fox (Defence Secretary) a British Conservative and his frolic mate Werrity from the UK is a sad story for Eelam Tamils and their compatriots in TN. That Sonia/South Block as anti-Tamils repeats the SL is a true friend of India mantra to Indians who constantly listen to the stream of Rajapakses’ anti-Indian snipes, find in Swapan a true blue blood Congress admirer to strangely claim ‘Sri Lanka for all its sins today is one of those countries which we can call a friend’. But a true Modi admirer SK Mitre disgusted with the Sonia/Congress SL appeasement believes otherwise. ‘India’s foreign policy planners have reduced the stature of India in the eyes of its neighbours in their efforts to please all. India did nothing to stop the genocide of Sri Lankan Tamils…has failed to take a strong stand.. .’ The paid scribes mischievously muddy the debate, but enlightened opinion has managed deservedly to subject them to harsh scrutiny sometimes earning the paid scribes contempt and ridicule.
Swapan’s comments follow closely the outlines of the brief that the Colombo Defence establishment provides to the paid scribes giving the limits beyond which they could not stray or trespass into. Likewise the visits to the minute detail are also specified. Swapan’s statements appear to be an exact copy of statements of another Rajapakse invitee, Indian Congressman and powerful lobbyist, Nachchiaappan who parrots the success story of the Rajapakses’ reconciliation works. The UPA requires rosy pictures on Rajapakses’ reconciliation works, to extricate from accountability proceedings not only the Rajapakses but also the Sonia team for involvement in the SL/Rajapakse crimes (genocide, massacres, dispossession, and harsh oppression to cause massive displacements). These come under a regular UNHRC scrutiny regime. Sonia Delhi supports doctored progress reports to eyewash the ‘Reconciliation’ works mandated by the UNHRC and international opinion. The success of the Sonia appointed point man Nachchiappan to actively canvass the Rajapakses to observe stilled silence on the ‘in the loop’ support for the Rajapakse crimes earned Nachchiappan a berth in the Delhi as Minister of State.
Unlike for Swapan, Nachchiappan’s views carried weight; he was sponsored by Delhi, had training in disciplines relevant to defend the Sonia/South Block involvement should the Rajapakses decide to open the can of worms implicating Delhi politicians/bureaucrats involved in the SL crimes. Swapan without the comparable credentials of Nachchiappan; was not part of any official (BJP) visit team though he was around in SL at a time when a Rajapakse sponsored BJP observer/visitors were there. In an unofficial capacity Swapan’s access to information for a progress report on the ‘reconciliation’ for his The Pioneer piece is most scanty. He was not given access to the affected victims of the genocide; this resulted in observations that were sharply dissected for shortcomings by TamilNet shredding his report to pieces and raising serious doubts about his intellectual and journalistic ethical standards.
Swapan swallows whole sale Chettiar’s SL falsehood that 30 percent of the population in the capital are Tamils (withnot making any ground contacts before making assessments of living conditions of the affected; mostly unemployed, living in hovels and paying exorbitant rents (thanks to the next of kin – diaspora) to the Sinhala landlords. The history of deprivation for Tamils goes back to the mob violence that recurred with a regularity beginning in 1956 to drive the Tamils back to the safety of the Tamil homelands. The agenda of the Sinhala/Buddhist was to clear the South clean of Tamils. Now thanks to the Rajapakses and Sonia/MM Singh Sinhala/Buddhist dispossession displaces numerous Hindu temples with Buddhist structures in the Tamil homelands. In Delhi the secular Congress impassively watches this tragedy happen in stilled silence; a Hindutva BJP regime would have reacted sharply to such blatant Buddhist vandalism of Hindu shrines.
A desperate Swapan relying on casual sources of information, especially from an indifferent Chettiar (the usurer Chettiars more concerned about money making not innocent lives) businessman (UPA Nachchiappan and Chidambaram are Chettiars themselves) who like the UPA are more concerned as Swapan is ‘India has very deep business relations with India’ not lives lost or whether fellow Indian Tamils in SL are being uplifted from their poorly paid impoverished conditions housed for decades in the same dilapidated one room lines without basic education to better themselves. SL friend targeted these Tamils first disenfranchising over a million of them the very next year after independence. Sonia/Congress secularism would not allow it to speak about it not to offend Swapan neighbour ‘friend’ SL. These impoverished Tamils are perhaps amongst the 70 per cent that the Chettiar claims control business in SL/Colombo! There are limits to the gullibility of readers of The Pioneer professing a conservative ideology. Conservative journalism does not enjoy much readership patronage even in UK.
Nachchiappan’s role, his strenuous efforts were to keep the Rajapakses happy enough purely to ensure that the Rajapakses observed utmost secrecy over the Sonia and her South Block teams’ role in the Mullivaykkal massacres. Nachchiappan was motivated to save his political masters; so did UPA’s Law Minister Aswani Kumar (dismissed) for attempts to save the PM and the UPA in the CBI investigation into the coalblock scam ended in a more serious scam. This is the Sonia/Congress style politics that Indians are fed up with. Is Swapan with his piece in The Pioneer expecting the BJP to follow the Sonia/Congress corrupt style of politics to court the friendship of the Rajapakses and argue to keep Eelam Tamils and with them TN Tamils a subjugated people always remembering the need pay for SL’s silence on Delhi’s ‘in the loop’ involvement in the SL war crimes.
Does Swapan seriously expect the BJP to reward him for buying the Rajapakses’ silence over the Sonia/UPA sad association with the SL crimes, never mind whatever are the feelings of the TN Tamilians or of Modi’s friend TN CM Jayalalitha. Was Swapan a UPA plant in the BJP visit team? The success story of the Rajapakses buying off numerous high-powered UPA politicians, SM Krishna, SS Menon, South Block bureaucrats (MK Narayanan) and a long list apologists Raman, Hariharon amongst others may have tempted Swapan to identify for the Rajapakses soft targets (individuals including Swapan and institutions) connected to the BJP to cajole it into assisting the continuing SL genocide.
For the Sri Lankan leaders the easy route to dislodge the de facto rule of the powerful Eelam rebels in the North was to use the corrupted and mercenary Congress most keen to defeat the LTTE/armed Eelam rebels to recoup for what the SL believes that the BJP pre -2004 rule did not allow. Swapan admits in a Niti radio interview: ‘that policy had the basic tacit concurrence …of India, because everyone in the (Congress) Government of India and in rest of the Indian society (forgetting how TN Tamils reacted; anti-Tamil racists Swapan, Sonia/Congress do not count TN Tamils as part of Indian society) knew that the LTTE wasn’t really an ordinary separatist movement… It was a menace…which had the ability to create a safe haven for itself in Tamil Nadu …that endangers Indian security. (a scare story)..which is why there was a basic understanding as far as Delhi were concerned that the destruction of the LTTE was a step in the right direction..India has … Sri Lanka for all its sins today is one of those countries which we can call a friend’. This is the Sonia/Congress story and Swapan its loyal apologist.
Swapan may attempt to mask Sonia/Congress’s foreign policy failures including its sins in SL; Modi is keen on a role for India to redeem the ignominy inflicted by the Congress. Modi’s stance is succinctly summarised by SK Mitra- (Indiatribune of Jun 21st) ‘India..has a (a role) in the international community at a time when its neighbours seem to have a dim view of its abilities and influence. The rebuffs and disrespectful remarks… directed at India in the last few months proves beyond doubt that the foreign policy of the UPA has reached its nadir. The Centre is dominated by self seeking politicians and fawning bureaucrats who are concerned with vote bank politics and have scant regard for…while China has seldom …lost an opportunity to extend its sphere of influence. India’s foreign policy planners have reduced the stature of India in the eyes of its neighbours in their efforts to please all…did nothing to stop the genocide of Sri Lankan Tamils…has failed to take a strong stand. Modi’s policies are bound to be pro-active unlike those of Sonia/Singh. ‘It is anybody’s guess how much importance a country like India views genocide but BJP leaders do not subscribe to the UPA line of thinking’.
The underhand tactics of the Rajapakses to buy off key personalities in Delhi are bound to fail under the committedly clean BJP leaders like Vajpayee and Advani …then in power in Delhi until 2004. The Tamil Net has critically exposed most of the flaws in Swapan Dasgupta’s logic specifically canvassing for military bases in Jaffna on behalf the Rajapakses though the SL military ‘operates below the radar’; are they really? All the boasted roads and other buildings including Buddhist structures in the North are essentially to strengthen the Sinhala/Buddhist occupation and to settle more Sinhalese to erase the historical reality of Tamil homelands demographically. Sonia/Congress may one day emulate the Rajapakses model and keep Tamil Nadu under permanent military occupation to prevent the threat that Swapan has touched upon. To the Eelam Tamils good roads do not compensate for the indignities of Eelam Tamils observing vigil to ready to flee surprise mid-night military visits of Tamil homes and flee to survive repeats of Mullivaykkal massacres. How could one rate Swapan as a journalist when he blanks out the legacy of the massacres, Sinhala oppression, and fear of death haunting the Tamils? Swapan’s shoddy piece may still please the Rajapakses and earn success in his job prospecting mission and some paid scribe assignments. When the history is that Eelam Tamils regularly lost lives in the Sinhala pogroms and massacres as bad as the Mullivaykkal massacres for Swapan to give a nod to omit police powers to the Northern Province under the 13th amendment has no other purpose than keep Eelam Tamils in perpetual subjugation.
The issue of the Eelam Tamil genocide would have been a closed book given the Sonia/UPA/Swapan support for it, had it not been for the tenacity of over a million diaspora. Most damage was caused by the paid scribes that were effectively countered by the contributions of the diaspora to the Eelam Tamils debate. Rajapakses’ paid scribes cruelly misinform the Indian public on the plight of the Eelam Tamils and sabotage the work of bodies like the UNHRC meant to discourage the Rajapakse crimes giving some basic protection to save the lives of victims by enforcing accountability. The Rajapakses turning against the Sonia/UPA may bring some relief to the Eelam Tamils only hastening their exit from Delhi politics and blunt their influence internationally. It is the return of the BJP to power that will bring back the Vajpayee era (until 2004) of peace for the Tamils.
Sharp observers will not fail to notice that Swapan and Mitra long time batch/soul mates are associated with The Pioneer, that is proud to their conservative credentials like the notorious Liam Fox, and worked with The Statesman, Times of India, The Sunday Observer, Hindustan Times, including The Pioneer. Mitre and Sonia/Congress’ blue eyed boy Shashi Tharoor are also close friends and Mitra also reportedly served as Tharoor’s campaign manager. Readers should by now feel the unseen hand of Sonia/Congress’ in Swapan’s visit to SL and his piece in The Pioneer.
vssubramaniam