BETRAYAL OF MALAYAGA THAMIZHARGAL BY THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA.

UPROOTING MILLIONS OF TAMILS AND THE OPINION MAKERS OF TAMILNADU

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[People from Europe went to America and they are citizens of America today. People from India went to Ceylon, Burma and other colonies of British and French. Naturally they should have become citizens of the soil where they toiled for few centuries. But it is not so. The bureaucracy in India, especially in foreign office has neither vision nor brains. By their foolishness they created Stateless citizens especially in Ceylon. Anna in his speech made in December 1964 at Rajya Sabha [Upper House of Indian Parliament] questions the negation of human dignity which involved uprooting 3 lakhs of people irrespective of their wishes, people to whom Ceylon was homeland for generations. We reproduce his speech to provoke fresh thinking on past blunders...... N.Nandhivarman]

ANNA's SPEECH

Mr.Vice Chairman, the Minister of External Affairs has given us a fairly full picture of the present international situation. I have the fullest sympathy towards the Minister for External Affairs when he is called upon to solve problems bristling with difficulties and confounding the best brains of the present day world. Though the field is very alluring, I do not propose, due to embarrassing time factor, to enter into the very alluring grounds covered by the Minister for External Affairs.

I propose to be nearer home and deal with only one problem, the so called Indo-Ceylon pact. In dealing with that problem I may request the Minister for External Affairs to take my speech to convey the feeling of remorse and agony by millions of people over this Indo-Ceylon pact.

The Minister has been telling us how politicians and statesmen all over the world are trying to enthrone justice and equity, are trying to find out how best human dignity can be safeguarded. I am going to measure the Indo-Ceylon Pact by that rod of human dignity, international justice and common sense. Measuring it with such a rod, I find that this pact means a gross betrayal of millions of people whose one sin has been looking towards this country and this government for solace.

The Indo-Ceylon Pact, the very name I would say Mr. Vice Chairman, the very name is a misnomer. There is no problem at all between two sovereign countries like India and Ceylon. The main problem is between millions of people settled for generations together in Ceylon and the Ceylonese government in matter of treatment meted out to them. The only part that we could have played and the legitimate part we should have played is by stressing the human aspect of the problem.

All along, it has been stated that we are not going to look at this problem as other than a problem of human interest. The persistent, the consistent and the logical policy being followed by the previous government, to be more correct, by the late lamented Prime Minister of this country has been given a go by, without an iota of remorse. He has been stressing that the problems of millions of people who have been unfortunately termed as stateless is a problem that has to be tackled mainly and solely by the Ceylonese Government. The Indian Government enters the picture only to guide the Ceylonese government when it needs guidance.

A point has been raised in this House, whether the sovereignty of one country can be abridged by the actions and consultations of another country. Various views on sovereignty there have been, and the present trend is that even sovereignty is to come under the aegis and under the guidance of the eternal principles of justice and fairplay.

If this is merely the sovereign right of the Ceylon Government, Mr.Kotewala, Mr.Dudley Senanayake, after that Mr.Bandaranaike and now Srimavo Bandaranaike need not have, and would not have, and could not have, come to this country for consultations.

The very fact that successive Prime Ministers of Ceylon have come to this country for consultations on this problem means that this not purely a problem wherein the sovereignty of a country is at issue. This is a problem wherein the whole world has an interest. The fact of the matter is that millions of people who are called people of Indian origin are settled in Ceylon, not for a decade or two decades, but centuries together.

It has been stated that only the Indians there are people of Indian origin. May I ask the Minister of External Affairs to delve deep into the annals of Ceylon? It may give him an insight into the fact that the so called Sinhalese are people of Indian origin who went to Ceylon during the reign of King Vijaya and the millions of people who were now dubbed as people of Indian origin have gone there later. Therefore to call the people of Indian origin aliens to Ceylon is a travesty of fact. The Government ought to have countenanced such barefaced injustice. The main burden ought to have been on the Ceylon government to come to this country or before the bar of the world and they ought to have stated in what way they are treating, they have been treating and they are going to treat people who have settled there permanently.

Most of the people today who are called men of Indian origin have no connection, no hovels, no homes, no relations in this unfortunate part of our country, Tamil Nadu. The only affinity between those people and people of Tamil Nadu is the affinity of language. If the Ceylon government turns around and says this is your problem, what prompted the Government of India to accept that version of the Ceylon Government's proposals? What is that they have surrendered to? Is it to temptation? Is it to pressure? Is it to various other extraneous circumstances? Why they have surrendered to the temptation of taking this problem as their problem? Even after taking that false stand, did the Government of India or the present Ministry follow the best tenets of democratic principles? What did that Prime Ministers of Ceylon do? When Dr.Dudley Senanayake came here, when Mr. Kotelawala came here and when Mrs.Bandaranaike came here, they took into their confidence; they consulted the important leaders of the opposition in their own country?

I remember when Mr.Dudley Senanaike as Prime Minister came to this country, he brought along with him as one of the members of the delegation, and the late lamented Mr.Bandaranaike. Why is that when a small country like Ceylon maintains and works along the best democratic tenets, you have not taken care to consult the opinion of any opposition parties? Why is it that the Ceylon government when it came here came fully armed with the unanimity of opinion of all political parties functioning in Ceylon and even of the Communist party which is called the Lanka Sama samaj Party. Why you are presenting to this House and to this country, a fait accompli. Why has the Minister stated in the other House that he was constantly in consultation with the leaders of opinion in Tamil Nadu ?

May I ask the Minister of External affairs to inform this House if he has taken to care to consult any one of the leaders of major political parties in Tamil nadu ? No. He can turn around and say that the Chief Minister of Madras has given his blessings or consent and another Minister who was deputed here- Hon.Ramiah- had given the consent. What else can they do? Can they expose the Government of India? They cannot. Their loyalty to the party and to the Government stands in the way of opening their hearts to say what they feel. Even after accepting the Indo-Ceylon Pact, speaking if I remember correctly at Baroda, the Chief Minister of Madras stated that he would have been happier if a smaller number of people had been asked to come. What does it mean?

It means there is a volcanic eruption though in mild form, in the mind of the Chief Minister of Madras. He is not happy over this Pact though he cannot, as a loyal congressman, as a loyal state Chief Minister, question the propriety of the Central Government. Therefore to cite the support given by the Chief Minister of Madras or his Deputy is merely burking the issue. Why have you deviated from the path followed by the late lamented Prime Minister? What did he say on the floor of this house, on the floor of the other house, on many occasions? He had very correctly stated that he would take any number of people coming to this country, if they come voluntarily.

What is this Pact? This is not voluntary repatriation. You have assured the Sinhalese that you would take 5 lakhs or more that will be coming and you have persuaded after much difficulty- I can understand the difficulties-Ceylon to retain 3 lakhs of people. You have left without taking into consideration, for the present only I hope, 1, 50.000 people. Well. When a similar problem confronted Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and Mr.Kotelawala, what were the terms?

What were the terms of the Indo-Ceylon Pact of 1953-54? The main terms, the soul of the Pact, was that repatriation of the people ought to be voluntary. The people in Ceylon should be given the option to opt for India or remain in Ceylon and the Ceylonese Government at that time went a step further and said that it was working upon a scheme of inducement, that they are going to induce the Indian residents there, as they called them, to go to India by offering temptation of cash bonus. Even that has been given up or given a go-by in this Pact.

After the 1954 Pact did the Minister of External Affairs or even the Prime Minister look into the aspect of how that Pact has worked? It has been stated and it has not been repudiated by the Ceylonese Government, that when more than 8 lakhs of people applied for registration of citizenship in Ceylon, merely 1, 25,000 people were registered. It has been said by Senators and Members of the House of Representatives in Ceylon itself that the 1953-54 Pact was not implemented in just manner. Even the present Cabinet Minister there, who has now resigned Mr.Felix Bandaranaike, stated on the floor of the House of Parliament in Ceylon, that the Pact has not been worked out equitably and justly.

When a Government, after having entered into a Pact with this Government has not worked the Pact correctly and justly, why you have walked into that parlour and signed on the dotted line? That is why millions of people today think that the so called Indo-Ceylon Pact is a betrayal of the interests of millions of people. Hon. Members here have stated and particularly Mr.Chengalvaroyan has said “What alternative is there?” Well what alternative is there when you sit tight over the fate of our country and these people? When you do not mete out justice what alternative is there? That alternative will be found out by the people at large. If you are going to solve every problem with this condition" what alternative ", we can solve the Chinese problem very easily. Already I find a trend from the speech of the Hon.Mr.Sapru and another Hon.member that they are thinking along the line of “what alternative “What alternative?” should not or ought not to be the argument of a potent Government. What alternative has the Ceylonese Government if we refuse to sign this Pact?

If we refuse to take those 5 lakhs into this country, what is the alternative open to the Ceylon Government? Have they got the guts to keep these millions of people in a Belsen camp? Have they the power to defy world opinion by shooting them down? No. Even the Ceylon Government cannot go so far. When many Hon. Members addressed the Minister of External affairs as the Foreign Minister, I at first was irritated and then I thought he is really a Foreign Minister and that is why he has left it to the discretion of a foreign government to settle the fate of millions of people. Mr.G.G.Ponnambalam, who held the Ministry of industry in Ceylonese Government said when resigning his post on the floor of the House of the Representative:

" The Indian and Ceylonese citizenship Act as enforced and implemented, as to render it utterly oppressive with the deliberate objective of denying to several hundreds of thousands of Tamils who call no country other than Ceylon their own and owe no allegiance to any other country, their inalienable right to be part of the permanent population of this country "

Ceylon has not implemented the Citizenship Act of 1953-54. When the Ceylon Government has not implemented the Indo-Ceylon Pact of 1953-54, how can we believe that this Pact is going to solve the problem? and when a Member of my party in the Loksabha put a very pertinent question to the Minister of External affairs, he wanted a definite, categorical answer from the External affairs Minister, my friend there, Mr.Sezhiyan wanted a clarification from the Minister, as to whether this repatriation will be voluntary or compulsory, The Minister of External affairs- I have come to realize that he is adept in the art of by-passing straight questions-said, " why should we take a hypothetical stand?” Two labour organizations of Ceylon one led by Mr.Aziz and other by Mr.Thondaiman, both have declared their repudiation of this Pact. They have said that they are not going to opt for India. Therefore this is not a hypothetical question. When the people of Ceylon refuse to opt for India, what are you going to do? Are you going to take them in shifts and get the 5 lakhs of people here, whether they are willing or not and dump them on India?

Another member said that we have no jurisdiction. I find from reports that a Professor of Delhi university- I do not remember his name at the moment- has stated, in one seminars conducted by Delhi university, that the Ceylon government has got an obligation, according to the United Nations charter on Human rights, to confer citizenship on those lakhs of people there. Instead of taking into consideration all these aspects, The External affairs Minister, good man that he is, has signed this Pact, or is it the Prime Minister ? I do not know-which is a betrayal of the human dignity of lakhs of stateless people there. It is only to register my protest against this attitude, that I have taken part in today’s discussions.

ANNA's SPEECH GIVES AN INSIGHT OF THE BETRAYAL OF MALAYAGA THAMIZHARGAL BY THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA.

[Sinhalese imagine them to be Aryans and the North Indians who also imagine them to be Aryans forgetting they too are of Dravidian stock are extending support to Sinhalese at the cost of Tamils. In Chennai media so-called opinion makers with leanings towards a dead language Sanskrit are anti-Tamil for centuries and they use any opportunity to betray Tamils be it Ealam or Malayagam or even in Tamil Nadu and their games stands exposed even in those days by few lines of Anna's speech...... K.Kamaraj used a bus owner money bag Nataraja Mudaliar to defeat Aringnar Anna in 1962 Tamilnadu assembly polls at Kanchipuram. Then he was sent to Rajya Sabha where he spoke. The game of Kamaraj resulted in his defeat in 1967 Assembly polls by DMK Student Leader P.Srinivasan. Tit for Tat. N.N]