Tamil Refugees In Tamil Nadu; Return To Their Native Land

By S. Sivathasan –December 15, 2015

S. Sivathasan

“Will they be thinking of their own land?
Longing for the day to see it again, or
will they dream of their Mother’s abode?
They have wept and wept;
And wept and wept again.
Now they have lost their strength,
Even to weep any more”

A century old song of Bharathy in Tamil, on the plight of Tamil expatriate labour in the cane fields of Fiji.

Urge to be Back

If the above lines that melt anybody’s heart, do not apply harshly to the condition of the Sri Lankan Tamil refugees in Tamil Nadu, the benign treatment they have received would explain. Ethnic affinity has played its part. But having run its course, it is on its way yielding to fresh compulsions. However benevolent the host is, overstaying one’s welcome for decades and beyond, needs rethinking. For thoughts of a return to their land of birth, political environment is changing with a new government in position. Ground conditions too are turning for the better.

The country will soon see a return of the prodigals. About all what conditioned their past as exiles and what impels a life reborn, one may hold with the lines of Sir Walter Scott.

“BREATHES there the man with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
‘This is my own, my native land!’
Whose heart hath ne’er within him burn’d
As home his footsteps he hath turn’d
From wandering on a foreign strand?”

Not too “foreign” and not too far one would say. To the reality of renascent lives, both governments Indian and Sri Lankan would certainly respond positively and happily.Read More