BETA

That single name above, signifies a great deal for the Tamil nation of Eelam. It denotes a gentle; calm; unassuming man who was always smiling.  Tamilchelvan may be gone but his smile will always remain with us.

Tamilchelvam died a victim to the bombs that the Sinhalas have taken to ‘raining’ on civilian targets. The Tamil nation expected an attempt by the Sinhala government and army to try to balance the loss of face they suffered, in what the Sinhala Brigadier called the ‘debacle’ of Anuradhapure. When 21 Tamil heroes made mince meat of the Sinhala Air Force. The Sinhalas tried taking their revenge on the dead bodies of the Tamil heroes, but world opinion rebounded on them.

This attack on the administrative capital of the Tamil nation in Kilinochi, when Tamilchelvan was killed, only goes to prove that the Sinhala government will stoop to the foulest and most primitive methods in trying to regain their lost ‘prestige’ that is if they had any in the first instance.

In the death of Tamilchelvan, the Tamils have lost a long time champion there is no doubt about that. However, the Sinhalas have got mud on their face by the extermination of a face that was well known to the international world who was interested in resolving the civil war in the island.

The international media have plenty of footage of Tamilchelvan with the world’s international representatives. He has met foreign ministers of some of the leading countries who interested themselves in the problems facing the Tamil nation. My first information of his death was from the news channel of New Delhi Television (NDTV).

The death of Tamilchelvan does not mean that the Freedom Movement of the Tamil nation will crumble. No! It will make Tamils more determined that ensure that the many great people, both men and women, did not give up their lives in vain.

Sixty years ago, India and Pakistan attained their independence. The departing British broke up ‘British India’ into two segments, India and Pakistan. In breaking up British India, the British showed the same disregard for national identity as they were to show in Sri Lanka shortly after.

The British, having decided to carve out two countries out of their Indian Empire, ‘imported’ a British judge Cyril Radcliffe to determine the boundaries of each of these two countries. This man Radcliffe had never been to British India before its partition and never visited India or Pakistan after. He was neither a historian nor even a geographer and was probably appointed by the British government because he had been a judge and maybe, had a ‘sound’ upper middleclass background. On arriving in India, he perhaps sat at one of the ornate tables in one of the many opulent offices of the British Raj, with a map of British India before him and determined the fate of millions of persons by drawing an  arbitrary line on the map, to determine which parts should go to India and which to Pakistan. It is clear that the British government of the time had little understanding of the enormity of human suffering he was to create. He even dreamed up, an ‘East Pakistan’ that had no geographical link with the rest of Pakistan, being separated by the vast land mass of India from main Pakistan. Needless to say, this East Pakistan decided in time, that it would be independent of main Pakistan and, broke free, with the help of India under Indra Gandhi, and set up Bangaladesh.

I gave up being a Christian (of the Anglican denomination) many years ago. I have stopped believing in religion – any religion. From childhood right up to my 50th year, I had blindly followed the Christian religion, through the Anglican Church. This was because from childhood, I had been trained to believe in Christianity and Jesus Christ. I was still a student, and ‘religiously’ attended Sunday school. I however, had doubts about aspects of Christianity. I raised these doubts at Sunday school hoping to receive some amplification. I was still the amenable schoolboy from a Christian family and studying in a Christian school with its Christian environment, among friends who were mostly Christians. The Sunday school teachers I raised my doubts with were two young priests who were, at various stages, Chaplin of the school. 

Sad to say, I never received a cogent response but was instead given the stock answer that I still remember to this day. One was, ‘accept it on faith’ and the second stock answer to something I found difficult to follow logically or scientifically, was ‘it was a miracle’.