Sri Lanka consul general: There isn’t a single stateless person in Sri Lanka

With reference to the article titled ‘Kashmiri Pandits, Sri Lankan Tamils and Indian hypocrisy’ by Aditya Sinha, editor-in-chief, DNA, on July 31, I wish to point out some factual inaccuracies.

It was surprising to note your lament in favour of, in your words ‘a large exiled community: the Sri Lankan Tamils.’ Your sympathetic expression for Sri Lankan refugees — ‘since 1983, three lakh Sri Lankan Tamil refugees have come to India. Many more migrated to the west, two lakh refugees to Canada alone.

The Sri Lankan government itself identifies 9.75 lakh stateless people on the emerald isle’ — is without a proper assessment of the real nature of the migration trend of Sri Lankan Tamils to certain foreign countries including India and the West.

There is no a genuine reason to brand them as an exiled community since most of them are economic refugees who migrated to western countries seeking better employment opportunities and higher living standards, pretending as refugees and marketing the ethnic issue of the country in the world for the individual benefits.

And there is not a single stateless person in Sri Lanka. Your reference goes back to 1964, when the Sirimavo Bandaranaike-Indira Gandhi Agreement was signed to settle the issue of the future of the stateless Tamils of Indian origin in Sri Lanka. Under the agreement, India agreed to take back 625,000 stateless people and Sri Lanka granted citizenship to the balance 350,000.

However, only 300,000 persons opted to come to India and the J R Jayewardene government granted citizenship to 300,000 Tamils of Indian origin who opted to remain in Sri Lanka in 1978, thus finishing the ‘stateless issue’ once and for all.

In the article you state that “though ethnic violence in Sri Lanka began 28 years ago, the number of Tamils who died during the war’s final phase (2008-2010),during the Sri Lankan army’s final offensive against the LTTE, according to the United Nations panel set up by Secretary General Ban Ki -moon, number as many as 40,000.

You may be aware that, the panel is not an organ of the UN system. Neitehr was it mandated by any intergovernmental or multilateral forum. The document is the product of personal initiative taken by the UN Secretary General. The ‘sources’ and the panel’s substantive records are classified as strictly confidential, which ensures that none of the so-called ‘sources’ and ‘materials’ can be examined. It is unfortunate that the figures of your article are based on the statistics of such a questionable source. It is not a secret that pro-LTTE elements are the mathematicians of these calculations.

Further, you have stated that ‘...notably, the political and constitutional reconciliation of Tamils that Sri Lanka had assured India appears forgotten.’ Unfortunately, you have completely forgotten the emerging democratic environment in the Northern areas of the country giving the Tamils more access to the democratic establishments and social solidarity, which they were deprived by the LTTE.

The relations between India and Sri Lanka are progressing in multifaceted areas and both countries have deeper understanding about these tendencies. I am confident that India as one of the biggest democracies in the world will properly articulate the terms of its bilateral and regional affairs for the best interest of the people.

Consul General, Sri Lanka Consulate General, Mumbai