The return of the venomous woman!

By K. Godage

Jayalalitha Jayaram has been acquitted after being charged with having acquired billions disproportionate to her income; the power of money ensured that her case dragged on for 18 long years and now she has been acquitted by a single judge, delivering an astonishing judgment that has shocked the nation and the Indian Judiciary itself, which only recently declared that corruption is a crime against the nation.

The respected Judiciary must surely be embarrassed; there is little doubt that there would be an appeal to the Supreme Court against this queer judgment. Meanwhile, Jayalalitha is now said to preparing to come back as Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu and there is no doubt that she would pick on her favourite hobby horse, the Sri Lanka Tamil issue, to get as much political mileage out of it as she can particularly because elections to the State Assembly are due next year.

How do we pre-empt her?

How we pre-empt her is the challenge facing us. For her part she cannot use the Indian military, as India did in 1987, when India stopped the Vadamarachchi operation and saved Prabhakaran, to pursue her aim, (some of the Pannikar types in Delhi are said to have even given thought to an operation such as the one indulged in by Turkey when they created Northern Cyprus, but fortunately for us we had the pro US JR in the saddle at the time and the US had made India agree to a limited operation).

Jayalalitha would also not be able to arm and train militants and let them loose on us as Indira Gandhi, that other venomous woman did in 1982 (for those who doubt this, please read “Ominous presence in Tamil Nadu” a comprehensive investigative report by the one and only Shekar Gupta in the ‘India Today’ of March 31st 1984). President Modi also would not seek to antagonise Sri Lanka to please this woman, but she would not be entirely put off as championing the issue of the Sri Lanka Tamils gives her the prominence she seeks.

Yes, how do we prepare to head off this woman, which we must? Delhi, or rather the Government of Prime Minister Modi because he has to depend on Tamil Nadi support in the Rajya Sabha, will not entirely be able to stop her antics; so the best way in which we can help Modi also is to settle our issue to the furthest possible extent bearing in mind that our sovereignty and territorial integrity, are, at all times, our principal national interests.

What Sri Lanka can do

This Government has been reaching out to the Tamil people in a meaningful manner and we need to continue on the same street, we can set about implementing the LLRC Report and ensure that the people of the north feel that this is also their country and that they are indeed empowered. Further, whichever political coalition rules the country, at least three Tamil legislators should sit at the head table as Cabinet Ministers to decide on national policy along with two Muslim legislators.

We should also seek to establish Jaffna as an educational hub and invite foreign universities to establish there and give them attractive incentives to do so. The north can be a hub for the knowledge Industry. We must bring them in as much as possible and seek to socially integrate the north with the rest of the country; but under no circumstances should Police powers be conceded to Provincial Councils and land must be under an all island Independent Commission.

If only we do the above, we would take the wind out of the sails of that wretched woman – at an international level we must not only enter into a new Treaty of Peace Friendship and Cooperation with India and get them to agree to our establishing Consulates in all the States of South India. These would be far more important for our security than some of the missions we have today.

" How do we prepare to head off this woman, which we must? Delhi, or rather the Government of Prime Minister Modi because he has to depend on Tamil Nadi support in the Rajya Sabha, will not entirely be able to stop her antics; so the best way in which we can help Modi also is to settle our issue to the furthest possible extent bearing in mind that our sovereignty and territorial integrity, are, at all times, our principal national interests"

Fishermen’s issue

Jayalalitha’s immediate attention would of course be the fishermen’s issue, it is reported that there were huge demonstrations over the alleged sentencing of some of their fishermen to death (which never happened).

Our poor fishermen in the north, she must be told, are also Tamils and that they are being pauperised by their fishermen and their trawlers, she should take action to ensure that their fishermen do not enter our waters to fish and thereby deny our fishermen and their families their livelihoods. We must tell her that she cannot both have the cake and eat it.

Jayalalitha may also seek to revive the Kachchativu issue but she has a whole host of other problems including corruption (she should write a book on how to get away with corruption), labour unrest, the problems of the scheduled castes and their living in poverty, the attacks on Christians and last but not least the issues with the Muslims of Tamil Nadu and the infiltration of Jihadists.

Let us now live in the hope that she would leave us alone and allow us to solve ours without foreign interference; we for our part should put our house in order and not leave room for external interference on any excuse. Let us hope that the Supreme Court will soon decide on the Appeal and send her to where she belongs.