Chennai: “Why has the Deputy Collector who insulted and brutally assaulted Sri Lankan Tamils living in the Mandapam camp in Ramanathapuram district not been arrested?” asked Seeman, the chief coordinator of the Naam Tamilar Katchi.
In a statement issued by him on this, he said, “The Deputy Collector Kalaimannan’s assault on Jaganathan, a Sri Lankan Tamil residing in the Mandapam camp in Ramanathapuram district, using his footwear is strongly condemnable.
The Tamil Nadu government official, who should have protected the Tamil brethren who came seeking refuge, has instead attacked them with a shoe, and thinking of it brings tears of blood. Who gave the authority to attack the people living in the camp with a shoe? On whose orders are such cruelties being carried out? Is it the indifference that if Sri Lankan Tamils are attacked, there is no one to question it?
Escaping the brutal attacks carried out in their homeland of Sri Lanka by Sinhala racist rulers, and taking refuge in Tamil Nadu to survive, the Sri Lankan Tamil brethren who have been living here for many years are still being denied citizenship by this country to this day, and are being confined and tormented like slaves in open prison camps.
If the Sri Lankan Tamil people, who are struggling against the rulers governing the country for the right to live, are also mistreated by government officials, then what way is there for them to live here? Why does this country, which provides countless comforts to Tibetans who came from some corner of China, inflict on our Tamil people alone the cruelties it would not inflict on them?
Can such cruelties be inflicted on Hindus coming from Pakistan or Tibetans who came from China?
Even the European countries that once ruled over us and kept us in bondage are embracing and granting citizenship to the hundreds of thousands of Sri Lankan Tamils who went there as refugees seeking shelter. More than them, does this country, for which we ten crore Tamils pay taxes, cast votes, and stand in love, have the responsibility—and the duty—to protect the Sri Lankan Tamils who came believing it to be the land of their fathers? Does it or does it not?
You say to people who have been turned into refugees for political reasons—one country to be born in, another country to survive in—that they should be beaten, abused, treated like slaves, and told, 'Go to another country.' If all the countries in the world were to commit such cruelties, where would refugee people go to live? Is being made into a refugee their crime? Is it a crime that they were born in the country that turned them into refugees? Or is it a crime that they came trusting this country in search of shelter?.
Where is human rights in this? Where is human morality? Is this what Buddha and Gandhi taught? Is it right for a country that has Ashoka's Dharma Chakra on its flag and Gandhi as the Father of the Nation to act like this?.
This is the law of this country; if that is justice, where is human compassion in it? If such cruelties had been happening back then, could Buddha, born in Nepal, have gone to Buddha Gaya in India, or Gandhi, born in Gujarat, have gone to South Africa?
Could they have risen to be human saints, loved across the world? In this country, where many sages who taught the world love and righteousness have lived, is it right to show such hatred and drive away fellow human beings like us, who also have blood, flesh, life, and feelings? This country need not give them any special privileges just because they are Tamils. At the very least, can’t we be treated with humanity as human beings?
I urge the Tamil Nadu government to arrest Deputy Collector Kalaimannan, who attacked Sri Lankan Tamil resident Jaganathan with a shoe at the Mandapam camp in Ramanathapuram district, and ensure that he is given severe punishment as per the law. Otherwise, I would like to state that the Naam Tamilar Katchi will lead a massive protest in Ramanathapuram in support of Sri Lankan Tamils,” he said.
