A news item in the Sunday edition (July 10, 2016) of New Indian
Express holds out the promise of Indian citizenship to Hindu refugees
from neighbouring South Asian countries, especially Bangladesh, Pakistan
and Afghanistan. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to make this
historic announcement after unfurling the national flag from the
ramparts of the Red Fort on Independence Day, August 15, 2016.
Attempts to build the nation on the basis of Islam, increasing
popularity of obscurantist Islamic political parties, attacks on Hindu
places of worship, forcible conversion into Islam and assassination of
Hindu priests have become regular phenomenon in Bangladesh and Pakistan.
Over the years, the Hindu population has registered a steady decline
and, what is more, many Hindus are being converted to Islam. The Hindus
do not occupy high positions in important walks of life like armed
services, diplomacy, teaching, law and medicine. The more daring among
the discriminated Hindus take the risk, cross the borders and have
sought asylum in India. Conferment of Indian citizenship on these
unfortunate children of Mother India will definitely be an act of
magnanimity and will be welcomed by all sections of Indian population.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has always advocated strong links
between India and the people of Indian origin living abroad. Since
religion is an important source of identity, the BJP has been promoting
religious and cultural links. Three years ago, thanks to the initiative
taken by Swami Vigyananda, a World Hindu Conference was organized in New
Delhi. Delegates from Hindu organizations, spread across the world,
assembled in New Delhi; free and frank exchange of views took place and
number of decisions was taken to further deepen the contacts between
India and the Hindu Diaspora.
It should be highlighted that the BJP in its election manifesto for
2014 parliamentary elections had promised to confer Indian citizenship
on Hindu refugees. After coming to power concerned Ministries were asked
to speed up the administrative and legal procedures. An amendment to
the citizenship provisions of the Indian Constitution will also be
introduced in parliament in due course.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s decision to confer Indian citizenship
on Hindu refugees is a welcome departure from the earlier policies of
the Government of India. Speaking in Parliament on Tibetan refugees
Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru explained the three pillars of India’s
refugee policy. The first was 1) The refugee issue is a bilateral
matter; 2) The refugees will be received with compassion and
understanding and 3) When the situation becomes normal the refugees
should return to their homeland. The return of Chakma refugees to
Bangladesh is an illustration of the third point.
But, there is one section of Hindu refugees about whom the Government
of India has not spoken so far. These are the Hindu refugees from Malaiaham (hill country) of Sri Lanka, who are of Indian origin and who are very eager to get Indian citizenship.
This essay is an attempt to bring the issue of citizenship to these
Hindu refugees of Indian origin into sharp focus. The Author hopes that
their just demand will not be turned down by the Government of India. I
would also urge on the Prime Minister to make a reference to these
unfortunate people of Mother India in his Independence Day address to
the nation.
The refugees from Sri Lanka can be divided into two categories.
First, Sri Lankan Tamil refugees. The Sri Lankan Tamils are as
indigenous to the island as the Sinhalese are. They do not consider
themselves as of Indian origin, but of Tamil origin. They do not
participate in the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas organized by the Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs in January every year.
The second category of refugees is Indian Tamil refugees or Malaiha (hill
country) refugees. They are of Indian origin and the term Indian Tamil
is used by the Governments of Si Lanka and India. They are also shown as
Indian Tamils in the census data. Their welfare was very dear to Indian
nationalist leaders, especially Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru.
They do participate in the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas every year.
The Malaiha Tamils are those who are the descendants of the
Tamil labourers who were taken to Ceylon by the British government to
provide labour for the development of rubber and tea plantations and
also for the construction of roads and railways in the country. On the
eve of independence, they were more in number than the Sri Lankan
Tamils. But the first legislative enactment of the independent
Government of Ceylon was to render the Indian Tamils stateless. The
problem of the Stateless people vitiated India- Ceylon relations for
many years. However, when Lal Bahadur Shastri became Prime Minister he
entered into an agreement with Ceylon by which India agreed to confer
Indian citizenship on majority of Indian Tamils. There was also another
agreement in 1974. By these two agreements of 1964 and 1974, New Delhi
agreed to confer Indian citizenship on 600,000 with their natural
increase and Colombo agreed to confer Ceylonese citizenship on 400, 000
persons plus their natural increase on the ratio 0f 7: 4.
Despite the common bonds of language and religion the two Tamil
communities followed different political strategies. While the Sri
Lankan Tamils drifted from co-operative arrangements with the Sinhalese
political parties to the demand for a separate state, the Malaiha Tamils
realized very early that a separate state will not lead to their
political salvation. They wanted to live in harmony with the Sinhalese
in whose midst the plantations were located. But their hopes were
shattered. They were subjected to vicious and savage attacks by the
lumpen sections of Sinhalese population in 1977, 1981 and 1983. After
1983 holocaust many came to India as refugees. They sold all their
belongings and came to India with the hope that they can permanently
reside in India and eventually become Indian citizens. What is more,
their children have inter-married with local families and are well
integrated into Tamil society. According to reliable statistics, the Malaiha Tamil refugees number 29,500. During my interactions with them they told me “come what may, we will not go back to Sri Lanka”.
According to the citizenship provisions of the Indian Constitution
all these people qualify for Indian citizenship. What stands in their
way is a circular issued by the Government of India that the refugees
are not entitled for Indian citizenship. The tragedy of Tamil Nadu is
that no political leader – Jayalalitha, Karunanidhi, Vaiko, Nedumaran,
Ramdas, Thirumavalavan – speaks a word about their fears, hopes and
aspirations.
The Tamil Nadu Government has advocated that the Sri Lankan Tamil
refugees should be conferred dual citizenship. This demand ignores one
reality. Only people of Indian origin, who have taken citizenship of the
country in which they live, are entitled for dual citizenship. And, as
pointed out earlier, the Sri Lankan Tamils do not consider themselves as
a part of the Indian Diaspora. The second suggestion, which was
articulated by Sri Lankan Tamil leader Satchidanandan, few years ago, is
to give the Sri Lankan Tamils the same rights and privileges that the
Nepalese enjoy in India; in other words, like the Nepalese the Sri
Lankan Tamils should have free entry into India and they should be
permitted to work in India. This suggestion is riddled with great
difficulties. Can India afford to make a distinction between two
categories of Sri Lankan citizens – Sinhalese and Sri Lankan Tamils?
The tragedy facing the Malaiha Tamil Hindu refugees becomes
more poignant if one compares their predicament in mid-1960’s and their
precarious status today. When the two agreements, to which mention have
been made earlier, were signed in 1964 and 1974, neither Colombo nor New
Delhi made any attempt to ascertain the wishes of the people concerned.
Savumyamurthy Thondaman, the undisputed leader of the Indian Tamils,
described the situation as follows: “We are a community of human beings,
with soul, mind and body, with personality and cannot be apportioned
between countries like beasts of burden at others’ whims and fancies
only to maintain good neighbourly relations. Humanity cannot be
converted to merchandise in this modern age”.
In his absorbing novel, Refuge, Gopal Gandhi movingly
describes the tragic predicament of the Indian Tamil plantation workers.
When their applications for Sri Lankan citizenship were rejected, they
did not know what to do. Avadai, toothless old man, called by the fellow
workers as the “wise one” echoed their feelings: “We came to this land,
because our own land could not sustain us… I remember how parched the
earth was, how hungry we all were in our village of Avur in Pudukkottai.
My father said, “Come, let us go and register in the Ceylon office”.
And so we registered and we came here. We came in order to be able to
work, to eat…and now we have lost all links with our native land, when
we have sent our roots deep into this soil, like the tea bushes planted
by us, we are told … that we do not belong here, that we must go back to
India, that if we stay on here we will have no rights. Is this fair? Is
this just?”
It will be a great pity if the Government of India does not sympathetically consider the request for Indian citizenship by the Malaiha Tamil
Hindu refugees. They belong to Mother India and over the last few years
they have taken deep roots here. And, what is more, to draw a divide
between Hindu refugees from Bangladesh and Hindu refugees from hill
country in Sri Lanka will be an act of discrimination. As Avadai in
Gopal Gandhi’s novel asked: Is this fair? Is this just?
(By Dr. V. Suryanarayan is founding
Director and former Senior Professor, Centre for South and Southeast
Asian Studies, University of Madras, Chennai His e mail id: suryageeth@gmail.com)
Courtesy: South Asia Analysis
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