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A fine JVP initiative

The readiness shown by the Sri Lanka government to amend the Grant of Citizenship to Persons of Indian Origin Act, 2003 to enable an estimated 28,500 `Ceylon Tamil refugees' living in various camps across Tamil Nadu to get Sri Lankan citizenship is commendable. These poorest of the poor among the refugees, who fled the north-east of the island in 1990 on account of the ethnic conflict, could not become Sri Lankan citizens because of an anomaly in the Citizenship Act as amended in 2003. The legislation stipulates continuous stay in Sri Lanka from 1964 as a condition for the grant of citizenship; and does not provide for those who had to leave the country for reasons beyond their control. The official willingness to rectify the anomaly in the Act came in response to an adjournment motion tabled by a senior Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna MP, Ramalingam Chandrasekeran, who along with fellow JVP parliamentarian, Bimal Ratnayake, deserves special praise. During their recent visit to Tamil Nadu, they joined hands with OfERR, an organisation led by S.C. Chandrahasan that has been doing sterling work for the welfare of Sri Lankan refugees in India; and studied the situation of the refugees. In Sri Lanka, the JVP MPs lost no time in talking to various political parties before clinching the matter with the Prime Minister.

Since 1948, when Ceylon became independent, the citizenship rights of persons of Indian origin (brought in by the British mostly to work in tea plantations) and their descendants have been a highly contentious issue. In one callous stroke, the Citizenship Act of 1948 rendered nearly 90 per cent of a million-strong population of people of recent Indian origin, overwhelmingly `plantation Tamils,' stateless. The Government of India, which unfortunately compromised on this issue after taking a firm stand initially, must share responsibility with the Sri Lankan state for the long-term injustice done to these hapless people. S. Thondaman's Ceylon Workers' Congress waged many struggles over the years to end this situation. The real breakthrough came with the Indo-Sri Lanka Agreement of July 1987, when Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi persuaded President J.R. Jayewardene to agree to confer citizenship on those `stateless' people who remained in Sri Lanka. But bureaucratic resistance to the implementation of what was agreed on as well as some residual legal issues remained. The JVP's progressive initiative to win for the 28,500 `Ceylon Tamil refugees' (possibly a slight underestimate) the citizenship rights they are entitled to should bring to a close an unsavoury historical chapter in the India-Sri Lanka relationship.

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