If wishes were Tigers …

Wednesday 15th February, 2023

P. Nedumaran, who leads a fringe group in Tamil Nadu, has got grabbing headlines down to a fine art. He used to ride on the tiger tails of the LTTE, as it were, when Prabhakaran was around, and attracted a great deal of media attention. He has sought to do so again. He has told the media that Prabhakaran is still alive and will appear in public soon. He made a similar claim in 2018, and more than four years have since elapsed. Maybe the task of returning from the dead takes much longer than Nedumaran thinks it does!

If wishes were Tigers, so to speak, Nedumaran and others of his ilk would ride them. He is one of the few politicians who rode the Tigers, smiling like the young Lady of Niger, but were lucky enough not to return inside the beasts.

Nedumaran’s claim could not have come at a better time for the Rajapaksas, who are desperately looking for a bogey in the run-up to a crucial election to instill fear in the Sri Lankan public and offer to protect them against evils such as terrorism. It is claimed in some quarters that the recent brouhaha over ICE (crystal methamphetamine) finding its way into schools was part of their strategy to make a comeback by undertaking to save children.

The Rajapaksas have been accused of bribing Prabhakaran into forcing the people in LTTE-controlled areas to boycott the 2004 presidential election to enable Mahinda to win at the expense of UNP candidate Ranil Wickremesinghe. Eighteen years later, the Rajapaksas had to make Ranil the President perhaps due to karmic forces at work. They are likely to be accused of having paid Nedumaran to say that Prabhakaran is still alive so that they can market their brand of patriotism again by offering to protect the country!

It has been proved that Prabhakaran went the way of all flesh in the shallows of the Nandikadal lagoon in May 2009. But that will not prevent LTTE backers from waiting for the Tiger leader’s return. Nedumaran, 89, has exemplified Alexander Pope’s assertion that ‘hope springs eternal in the human breast’. He is still waiting for Prabhakaran! He is not alone in doing so. Let all of them be asked to be careful what they wish for.

What would happen if Prabhakaran were to return by any chance? He would not dare close even a bathroom tap, having learnt from his colossal blunder of shutting down the Mavil Aru sluice gates and forcing the Mahinda Rajapaksa government to retaliate, triggering Eelam War IV; Erik Solheim, who is serving as President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s international climate advisor would be re-designated as Norway’s Special Peace Envoy; the TNA leaders would have to visit the Tiger leader in the Vanni jungles, take his orders and act as his mouthpiece; they would have to accept the LTTE as the sole representative of the Tamil community; children in the North and the East would have to stop going to school again for fear of being abducted on the way and turned into cannon fodder by the LTTE; the people in those parts of the country would be burdened with illegal taxes; those who are fighting for democracy in the North and the East at present would have to give up their struggles and submit themselves to the dictates of the LTTE or be eliminated; President Wickremesinghe would not allow the military to fire their guns even on Independence Day lest the LTTE should take offence; the people residing outside the North and the East would have to live in eternal fear of bombs in buses, trains and in public places; the Sri Lanka Air Force would have to place its whirlybirds at the disposal of the Tiger leaders for them to shuttle between the BIA and Kilinochchi, the way it did during the UNP-led UNF government (2001-2004); soldiers would have to confine themselves to bunkers and stomach indignities of all sorts at the hands of the Tigers, and the Rajapaksas would be able to take the masses for a ride again, and enrich themselves.

Perhaps, there would be no war even if Prabhakaran were to return, for he would be able to capitalise on Sri Lanka’s pecuniary woes, opt for a truce and utilise the LTTE funds earmarked for arms purchases to buy the North and the East from the SLPP-UNP administration, which has already asked for assistance from the LTTE sympathisers residing overseas to straighten up the economy, and is offering state assets at fire-sale prices.

Nedumaran has proved that Sri Lanka is not alone in the predicament of having elderly politicians who need to grow up.