Outlook attacks The Hindu’s Sri Lanka deception

திங்கள், 10 செப்டம்பர், 2012

Outlook attacks The Hindu’s Sri Lanka deception

[TamilNet, Sunday, 09 September 2012, 00:31 GMT]
The Hindu’s Sri Lanka policy came under severe attack in an article written by S. Anand that appeared both in print and online editions of a mainstream Indian media, Outlook, on Saturday. Viewing what unfolded in Tamil Nadu in the past week as a “vulgar charade of competitive righteousness on the part of all players, including the media,” the role played by The Hindu’s orientation was brought out in the article in the following words: The Hindu’s former editor N. Ram had said within two weeks of the end of the war: “Justice has not been done to Mahinda Rajapaksa’s government for its astonishing feat of rescuing by military means close to 275,000 civilians.” And later, a Sri Lankan minister picked up on the perverse cue and described the war as “one of the greatest humanitarian operations in modern times.”

S. Anand

Outlook is one of India’s four top-selling English Weekly Newsmagazines.

The outlook article by its former journalist and Navayana activist Anand came hard on The Hindu for casting a deception on the situation of Eezham Tamils.

Earlier this August, the establishments of both New Delhi and Colombo got Carnatic musicians T.M. Krishna and Unnikrishnan, and Bharatanatyam dancer Alarmel Valli to perform at a three-day festival held in Jaffna’s Nalloor Kanthasaami temple, marketed as the first such event in 30 years.

“The media’s abetment in this manufacture of normality has been crucial. So The Hindu—ever-eager and Rajapaksa-doting—obliged with a slew of reports that certified this festival as a sure sign that the region was ‘limping back to normalcy’. Neither Krishna, Valli nor The Hindu may have cared to notice the 28 new Buddha statues that have sprung along the A9 Highway that leads to Jaffna, especially near Vavuniya, a Tamil area where hardly any Buddhists live,” the Outlook article pointed out.

The New Delhi initiative: Alarmel Valli performing at Nalloor last month [Photo courtesy: Dailynews]

While sarcastic about the recipe for forgetting the wounds of war being clearly a mixture of tourism, sport, music, dance and literature and occasional military training from a “friendly” neighbour, Anand’s article said that what is “more worrisome is the apathy of India’s writers and intellectuals.”

The article was citing the examples of Githa Hariharan who campaigned to boycott Israel, having no qualms about going to Galle literary festival and to India-Sri Lanka foundation deliberations, and historian Mukul Kesavan having a holiday in Sri Lanka coming out with a ‘tourism’ literature.

According to Anand the current deliberations are a run-up to Sri Lanka hosting the CHOGM in 2013, when 54 heads of nations will gather—an exercise that is expected to condone the well-documented war crimes.

But it is not merely the CHOGM. Before that there will be the UNHRC session. Harping on between the 13th Amendment and the LLRC implementation, the deliberations are orchestrated at various fronts by various actors. The ultimate aim is successfully establishing the model of annihilation of a nation through genocide, yet coming out impeccable from the crime – the most deceptive part of the ‘counterinsurgency’ of Washington and New Delhi, commented Tamil political activists in the island.

Australian diaspora - UK initiative: Dr. Tanya Nissani Ilangakkone Ekanayaka of Edinburgh College of Art, UK, taking a piano lesson at Chu'ndikkuzhi Girls College in Jaffna on Friday. The workshop, initiated by diaspora's St. John's College alumni (SJC87) based in Australia, was attended by students of Chu'ndikkuzhi Girls College, Uduvil Girlds College, Vempadi Girls College, St. John's College, St. Patricks College and St. Antonys College. No school event with diaspora assitance could take place without permission of the occupying SL military. [Photo courtesy: Daily Mirror]

The Hindu is only part of the script perfected over decades. As it is based in Tamil Nadu, it has been chosen to play the role of the kingpin media actor, to lead the Goebbels campaign of an array of dubious writers and actors, the political activists said.

On the issue Anand was raising, The Hindu’s line was quickly picked up on Friday by D.B.S. Jeyaraj, who titled a feature on a music workshop with pianos for the elite girls’ schools in Jaffna by British-Sri Lankan Dr. Tanya Nissani Ilangakkone Ekanayaka, as “Post-War Jaffna Children Feel the Heeling Touch of Music,” the Tamil political activists cited.

At least there is an awakening in India now over the deliberations of New Delhi. This is mainly because of the powerful grassroot movements. Popular political leaders cannot escape or engineer for long. But the one-million-strong Eezham Tamil diaspora and the dealers and survivalists that come from it detract political uprising and shield the ‘scriptwriters’ in the West, hoping that the establishments would do something for nothing, the Tamil political activists in the island further commented.