Why do Tamils hate Sinhala ?

 Part II

The Sinhala even before the Independence had a very cordial relationship with the Tamils. Even in the small towns in the South, the barbers, the small boutique keepers selling cigars, and Saaivar Restaurants were run by Tamils, mostly Jaffna Tamils.

These Jaffna Tamil traders were so well accepted by the Sinhala they were even  invited for their weddings and funerals. Most of these Jaffna Tamil traders came alone to the South without their families, except some of them who came with their  male children who were sent to local Schools and studied with the Sinhala  children.

I the writer, had been travelling alone in whole of Jaffna, but never did I have an unpleasant  word directed at me by any one from three wheel drivers to those I met in the town or outside. I was always given a seat in crowded buses, by someone leaving one to me with a smile. I was received in their homes. I ate their meals together with them.

The Tamils were never rejected by the Sinhala  because they were Tamils. How then can we explain this phenomena of hatred, the anti Sinhala bias?

It appears to be a politically motivated  later development by the upper class Tamils. Even today we see it amoung the politicians, but not amoung the ordinary Tamil people.

Unfortunately the voice of the ordinary Tamil people is not heard. We hear only the Tamil politicians, and those of the Tamil diaspora who are the ones who show their hatred most towards the Sinhala, and sow the seeds of hatred amoung the ordinary Tamils.

The ordinary Tamil people  old men, women and children who were herded like cattle from place to place by the terrorists to keep them as a human shield, who suffered without clothes to wear, food to eat, water to wash or drink  rescued by the Sinhala soldiers cannot surely hate those Sinhala soldiers who took them away from which was  hell on earth for them !!

The worst hatred seem to spring from Wigneswaran who was born in the south , grew up amoung the Sinhala, went to school with Sinhala children  and became a Judge, and got his sons married to Sinhala women.

The other whose hatred towards Sinhala  is not understood come from the UNP State Minister for Child Affairs Vijayakala Maheswaran, whose husband was assassinated by the terrorists.

She pines for the terrorist Prabhakaran. She states that the Tamil Community wouldn’t have lost their leader Velupillai Prabhakaran if they had voted for the UNP candidate Ranil Wickramasinghe at 2005 Presidential election.

Has she a secretly kept love for the terrorist leader Prabhakaran, perhaps like UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillai, who it was said that  when she was a young student had a photo of Prabhakaran pasted on the wall  in her room

Could it be some thing endemic, meaning  “ a disease that is constantly present to a greater or lesser degree in people of a certain class or in people living in a particular location”  ?

Is it jealousy towards the Sinhala by the Tamil politicians who try hard but cannot stand  up to the Sinhala politicians ?  If it is that  it may be an extreme inferiority complex ?

Inferiority complex has several definitions, that which may be close to that from which the Tamils suffer may be , “ a persistent sense of inadequacy or the tendency to diminish oneself, sometimes resulting in excessively aggressive behaviour through over compensation.”

That would explain why Venupillai  Prabhakaran became a terrorist. Prabhakaran was not educated and came from a caste considered low by the upper class Tamils-the fisher caste. He kidnapped a high caste girl Mathivathani Erambu and married her.

Prabhakaran as a young man who had formed a group of  young activists around him, assassinated the Governor of Jaffna. He was taken notice of by India which wanted to make him their cat’s paw to make inroads in to Sri Lanka to divide it territorially;  which obsession of India continue to date. Prabhakaran and his young companions were taken away by the Indian RAW to India  and set up a camp for them in the jungle of South India to train this  group of youngsters to be terrorists.

Prabhakaran was therefore the outward  projection of the inferiority complex of the Tamil political mentality which includes the local Tamil politicians and the Tamils living in foreign countries.

To be Continued