114 refugee camps across the state will not vote.
Sujatha, Shriradha or David Muttu (all names changed) are not voters of the 2009 Lok Sabha elections. Instead, they are among the 75,000-odd faces that portray the hottest political issue of poll-bound Tamil Nadu as all parties try to swing sentiments in their favour talking about them.
They are the Sri Lankan Tamil refugees in India. The faces of sorrow and devastation but never-ending hope spread over 114 refugee camps set across all over the state. They will not vote. But their presence — showcasing the fallout of a war for a Tamil Eelam (Tamil homeland) — may determine the fate of election at least in the southern part of Tamil Nadu, which with 39 Lok Sabha seats.
David Muttu, 63, had spent almost one full day in his boat before he reached Nagapattinam on March 22. His boat had three engines. “But I took off two of them to avoid louder noise. Otherwise, the Sri Lankan navy could have caught me,” says the fisherman who had a roaring business. “After the fall of Killinochi, the Sri Lankan Airforce started rampant bombarding in our area because we were shifting along with the Tigers (LTTE). For the past two months, I was living in and out of the bunkers. I have lost everything. But here at least I can sleep peacefully,” he speaks with moist eyes. Muttu is one of the last-batch refugees who are allowed to move freely inside the refugee camp and even go to nearby areas. But the latest batch of 33 men, 27 women and 8 children are still in the quarantine in the Mandapam refugee camp near Rameswaram. “They belong to Puddukudi and nearby areas known as LTTE’s den. So we are trying to verify their identity,” says a local cop.
The men’s quarantine chamber is a big hall with no windows and just one grilled gate heavily guarded by state police. The women’s quarantine, 200 metres away, has separate rooms but very small windows and a high wall to keep off any outside contacts.
Dushant (name changed) from men’s quarantine, however, is allowed to meet a lady in the woman’s section whom he claims to be his wife. Dushant has badly injured one of his arms. But his wife’s both hands are blown off from the wrist. As the lady refuses to eat from anyone else’s hand, Dushant is escorted by a police thrice in a day to feed his wife with his own hands. The authorities suspect both of them to be LTTE cadres.
According to the Organization for Eelam Refugees Rehabilitation (OfERR), after the war resumed in 2006, 23,639 refugees have fled to Tamil Nadu. This year, 471 refugees have come so far. OfERR chief Chandrahasan shows his makeshift head office on a terrace of a building in Chennai. “One day we must to back to our homeland. That’s why we work from a temporary structure to remind ourselves about our aim,” he says.
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The refugees are given education and various vocational training to enable them to “build the war-torn nation” once they go back to Sri Lanka. But as the 25 year-old war of the LTTE against the Sri Lankan army comes to a decisive end and political parties in India try to score their own brownie points, the 75,000 Tamil refugees find an uncertain future.
“I came to India at the age of four in 1990 with my mom after losing my father in war. My village is at Kallappadu, close to Puddukudi, where the war is on now. My mother and two younger sisters are in the Thirunelvelli refugee camp. I don’t think there will be peace,” says Mayuran, a volunteer in OfERR. Many young men have crossed the Bay of Bengal to avoid being caught and killed by the army for being suspected LTTE cadre. Similarly, many youth fled to India to avoid being an LTTE recruit. Shriradha spent Rs 22,000 to escape to India in September 2008 from the volatile Point Pedro area after her husband was shot dead by the Sri Lankan Army.
Thousands like them wish to return to their homeland but just don’t know when it is possible. The world’s history is not by their side, though. As it shows in most of the cases, refugees could never go back to their native places. But even after losing everything in war, most Sri Lankan refugees here still retains one thing in their heart that will one day take them to their motherland — hope!