Quite a lot of people on social networks don't understand the reason/timing of Tamil Student Protest Movement - after four years of the war. Writing this post to outline my thoughts on the same.
Murder of Rajiv Gandhi
To understand the current Tamil Student Protest Movement across arts, engineering, medical and law colleges, we need to look at the murder of Rajiv Gandhi. Thanks to this unforgivable act by LTTE, it lost the Tamils Support & TamilNadu Logisitcs Chain for the continued war. And the support for Eelam was always interpreted as support for LTTE in TN - the organization that killed a beloved Indian PM.
That is why, the Tamils did not protest - even when the genocides organized killings were happening in Sri Lanka.
Street-Smart Karunanidhi:
Whatever your opinions are about Karunanidhi, everyone will agree on his street-smartness. Rather than being reactionary like Jayalalitha shutting down colleges after the protest started. Karunanidhi shut down all the colleges (arts, science, engineering, etc. ) even before the first whisper of protest happened. So the protest movement never had a chance to take root then.
Media-Blanket
Worst of all, the media channels in India & newspapers continued to ditto the Srilankan army press releases - rather than finding out the real truth. But thanks to the growth of online media & rise of new Tamil Channels, Tamil people came to know the other side of the story.
Sustained Influencer Movement:
Over the last four years, a lot of key influencers in media & entertainment have been giving a lot of support, credibility to the entire Tamil Eelam movement. e.g. Dialogues in Aayutha Ezhuthu. This resulted in simmering Tamil Support for Srilankan Tamils - but not knowing what has to be done to show the support.
Final Nail in Coffin
So when US brought a resolution against Srilanka in UNHRC, it gave the movement a new meaning. So the Loyola Students first started the movement - followed by multiple colleges, giving a lot of credibility to the movement.
What Next?
While Vaiko & Co. would like to see the movement continuing, I expect it to fizzle out. Do expect the Congress(including Chidambaram) not to win even a single seat from Tamil Nadu in the upcoming Loksabha elections.
My Earlier Posts on the Topic
