[TamilNet, Thursday, 20 August 2015, 06:27 GMT]The NPC Chief Minister Justice C.V. Wigneswaran’s written statements
during the elections for people to have their own independent judgement
in voting for polity and personalities might have implied transcending
TNA’s political discourse, but by reporting it as “urging the Tamils to
vote for radicalism” the New Indian Express reporter P K Balachandran,
based in Colombo, has only proved his journalistic incapacity in
correctly conveying statements issued in Tamil to English readers in
India. The New Indian Express should immediately recall him if it cares
for journalistic justice in reporting sensitive statements coming in
Tamil language, unless such reporting is the current official policy of
the media corporate on the affairs of the island, commented Tamil
activists for alternative politics in the island.
“There were two pro-LTTE Tamil parties in the fray, both urging the
voters to adopt a radical stance. And then, there was an unexpected
challenge from the Northern Province Chief Minister, C.V.Wigneswaran,
who issued a statement urging the Tamils to vote for radicalism thereby
indirectly appealing to them to ditch the TNA which happened to be his
own party!,” reported P K Balachandran in The New Indian Express on
Tuesday.
The
Chief Minister’s full statements in Tamil and English are reproduced
herewith in PDF for the Indian media corporate to evaluate either the
Colombo reporter’s proficiency in comprehension or his brazenness in
blatant spin.
The
New Indian Express reporting is a serious journalistic crime at a
crucial juncture in projecting Eezham Tamil polity to non-Tamil masses
in India.
Apart
from reporting the Chief Minister’s call for independent assessment in
voting as urging to vote for radicalism, Balachandran projected the
28-year-old disillusionment of Eezham Tamils with the 13-Amendment also
as radicalism.
Balachandran’s use of the phrase “pro-LTTE” for
any shade of Eezham Tamil nationalism other than the “Tamil National
Alliance” is funny and is obviously aimed at fooling the Indian masses,
long conditioned by the Indian media rhetoric. Balachandran should get
clarification from the TNA whether it agrees with his implied baptism
that it is not ‘pro-LTTE’.
While ground observers perceive direct
active hands of both Washington and New Delhi in the current hoodwink
that takes place in the island, the Indian media circles, for reasons
yet to be understood, are in a scurry to cast an image that it was New
Delhi that has achieved the electoral outcome and the hold over the TNA.
This
is not going to augur well for the TNA, the UNP or for any solution, as
the problems of the Sinhala nation with India are more deep-rooted than
those of Tamils, however hard New Delhi may try to tread on Tamils to
woo the Sinhala nation.
Meanwhile, in tandem with reports such as
the one coming Balachandran that ‘pro-LTTE’ diaspora was behind the
political stand of Wigneswaran, there are voices that the diaspora
should not try remote-control politics.
The paranoia about
diaspora first came up when New Delhi’s Romila Thapar delivered a sermon
at Colombo shortly after the war. The views in the lines of her earlier
obsession with the Sikh diaspora and New Delhi’s concerns of the Tamil
diaspora away from its grip are understandable. But outfits in the West
such as the International Crises Group (ICG), Public International Law
& Policy Group (PILPG) etc were also talking of the diaspora.
The
nature of the gang-genocide enacted on Eezham Tamils was such that
diaspora was the only place to come out with polity of relative freedom.
The realities of the contemporary world are also such that diaspora
can’t be separated from home whether in polity or development. Any
adversary to a struggle would first try to wedge the diaspora from the
people at home.
Yet the remote-control debate can’t be ignored,
because the diaspora could also be misused. What is more important is to
identify and expose the ultimate remote controls. Without addressing
them, generally talking of diaspora remote control will weaken even the
little independent resources the nation of Eezham Tamils manages to
retain.
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