Former Chief Minister Jayalalithaa, who received tributes from a wide spectrum of political leaders of Sri Lanka, had always pursued a strong line on matters concerning the neighbouring country, though she did oscillate on the Eelam war and Tamil refugees.
In the initial years, after the Black July of 1983 when anti-Tamil riots broke out across Sri Lanka, the AIADMK leader had supported the cause of Tamil extremists, especially the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). It was the period when the Central government was also supportive of the rebels. In the run-up to the dismissal of the DMK ministry headed by M. Karunanidhi in January 1991, she had turned her ire against the LTTE and urged the Union government to remove the DMK regime on the ground that the LTTE was carrying out “illegal and clandestine activities” with the “connivance and encouragement” of the State government.
Thankful to Centre
When the Narasimha Rao government at the Centre banned the LTTE in May 1992, a year after the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, the AIADMK leader, who was in her first innings as Chief Minister, profusely thanked the Central government. “We have been asking for this step for quite some time. The activities of the LTTE in India, if left unchecked, would lead to very serious consequences for the sovereignty and integrity of our country,” she had said then.
During 1996-2001, Jayalalithaa accused the then DMK regime that the LTTE was being given support. She also demanded the dismissal of the DMK government for “supporting the formation of Tamil Eelam”. A week after the LTTE founder Prabhakaran’s press conference in April 2002 wherein he had expressed regret for the Rajiv assassination, Jayalalithaa tabled a resolution in the Assembly, demanding his extradition.
Dramatic fast
The AIADMK leader had continued this line of approach till the final stages of the Eelam War IV. When she was desperately seeking to stage a comeback to power after losing it in May 2006, she undertook a day-long fast in March 2009, a couple of months before the Parliamentary elections demanding an immediate ceasefire. She accused the DMK government in the State and the United Progressive Alliance government at the Centre of “criminal neglect in failing to provide relief and succour to the Sri Lankan Tamils”.
After she returned to power in May 2011, the Assembly had adopted several resolutions, seeking an international probe into the alleged war crimes and genocide in the final phase of the civil war. She expressed her opposition not only to the presence of Sri Lankan military personnel receiving training anywhere in India but also to that of sportspersons from the neighbouring country.
As for Sri Lankan Tamil refugees living in Tamil Nadu, the AIADMK leader had changed her position. Originally, she justified the refugees taking shelter in the State “as long as the genocide continues” in the neighbouring country. But, after the Rajiv assassination, she had branded the refugee camps as “breeding grounds” for militants. However, she turned sympathetic again to the refugees in 2011. She not only enhanced allowance for them but also announced a scheme for building “durable houses.”
On the Katchateevu issue, her position did not see much change. She had raised the retrieval of the islet in her maiden Independence Day address in 1991 and this continued till the end. She had also mooted the idea of getting the islet through a “lease in perpetuity” solely for fishing, drying of nets and pilgrimage by Indian fishermen.
