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NDA's partners in Tamil Nadu still confused

N Sathiya Moorthy in Madras

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi's statement in the assembly distancing the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam is owed to the two-year ban on the Sri Lankan extremist organisation, which was extended by the Centre over the weekend.

While Karunanidhi's has been among the strongest anti-LTTE sentiments expressed by the DMK since Rajiv Gandhi's assassination nine years ago, two other partners of the National Democratic Alliance -- the Pattali Makkal Katchi and Marumalarchi DMK -- have been sending out confusing signals that have been decried by Opposition.

"The DMK had distanced itself from the LTTE long ago... We became sceptical about the LTTE trying to save the Tamil race when it was going around killing its own Tamil brethren," Karunanidhi declared in the assembly on Monday. "Just because the DMK backed the idea of a separate Tamil Eelam at one stage, and also took up the cause of the suffering Sri Lankan Tamils who were then being butchered, it should not be construed that we supported all the activities of the various militant groups," he clarified.

The chief minister narrated the sequence of events from the time the first Tamil refugees landed in the State as far back as 1983, and sought to project the then AIADMK state government under the late M G Ramachandran as having been closer to the LTTE than the DMK. He pointed out that LTTE supremo V Prabhakaran accepted funds donated only by the state government, and the funds earmarked for the organisation out of a collection made by the DMK had to be distributed among other militant groups after the LTTE declined it.

What has not gone unnoticed is the chief minister's assertion that popular support for the LTTE in Tamil Nadu has gone down following the killings of moderate Tamil politicians on the island. "Even before the 1990 killing of EPRLF leader Padmanabha, the gunning down of moderate TULF leader Appapillai Amirthalingam and other rival militant leaders like Uma Maheswaran and Siri Sabaratinam had raised serious concerns about the LTTE's claims of protecting the Tamils' interests in Sri Lanka," he declared.

Karunanidhi also used the occasion to repeat his clarification about an earlier statement made by him in the assembly. Last week he told the assembly that he would be happy if Tamil Eelam was achieved either through war or negotiations. He was quick to reverse the stand the next day, when he told reporters that his statement only meant that he was all for an early end to the war in Sri Lanka's Tamil north, nothing more. This, he repeated in the assembly on Monday.

Even as the DMK chief sought to distance his party from the demand for Tamil Eelam, the MDMK and PMK, who had been raising their voices in the LTTE's favour, too seem to have restrained themselves, though only after considerable damage had been done to the NDA's and Centre's image. With the result that parties like the Tamil Maanila Congress and the Congress lost no time in welcoming the extension of the ban on the LTTE, and criticising the two NDA partners for their pro-LTTE stand.

Both the MDMK and PMK, seen as peripheral pan-Tamil groups owing their political allegiance to the Dravidian culture, have asserted their right to advocate the LTTE's cause, and have even sought a withdrawal of the ban that was imposed in the wake of Gandhi's assassination. But they have not criticised or challenged the government's decision to extend the ban.

It may be recalled that the Vanniar community, which is dominant in the northern districts and backs the PMK, had been voting only for a Dravidian party since the second general election of 1952. While in 1952, the Vanniars voted for two local community outfits against the Congress, the DMK cut its electoral teeth in the region by winning 15 MLAs in 1957, which number rose to 50 five years later, most of them from the Vanniar belt.

The PMK seems to reflect those sentiments, though it cannot be said that the entire community is pro-Dravidian or pan-Tamil. There is a strong nationalist presence as well, what with the Congress having had a sizeable presence in the region in the past, part of which is now shifting to the TMC and the Bharatiya Janata Party.

The MDMK, however, is an offshoot of the DMK, formed after Gandhi's assassination and the resultant electoral debacle in 1991. While the new party's birth was seen as a result of groupism and nepotism in the DMK, MDMK founder Vaiko aka V Gopalasamy was also seen as a strong advocate of the pan-Tamil, pro-LTTE cause. His well-known clandestine boat journey to Jaffna and his meeting with LTTE chief V Prabhakaran in 1990, reportedly without the party's consent and when Karunanidhi was chief minister, had caused the DMK serious embarrassment, which got magnified with Gandhi's assassination.

"There is little that the DMK, MDMK or PMK could have done after the Centre's notification declaring the LTTE a threat to the nation's sovereignty and territorial integrity," says an informed source. "This makes any pro-LTTE stance by any Indian leader, party or group an anti-national activity. For the DMK, which was nearly wiped out in the post-Rajiv 1991 election, the lesson is fresh in memory. For the other two, it's a question of their continuance in the Vajpayee government, which they need to further their political and electoral interests."

In this context, the source also mentions the reference in the Centre's order to the threat to India's territorial integrity. "Sovereignty, yes, but territorial integrity, it's a bit loaded," the source said. "Unlike the ISI-trained Islamic terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir, the LTTE doesn't seem to have targeted India for vivisection, yet the ban refers to territorial integrity."

This could only be a reference to the pro-LTTE groups, which may, or may not, have similar plans up their sleeves. "Now the extension of the ban will force the likes of the MDMK and PMK to shut up or get out, and the state government to deal sternly with the pro-LTTE peripheral groups like the Tamil Nationalist Movement (Tamil Desiya Iiyakkam) or face the charge of complicity, if not collusion. And their leaders are wise enough to understand the difference -- and make their choice."

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