By

Shamindra Ferdinando

President of Sri Lanka-India Friendship Society, attorney-at-law Kandiah Neelakandan has called for Indian intervention to save the civil society here.

The top lawyer was making an unscheduled speech at the annual gathering at the rooftop of the Taj Samudra on Saturday night to celebrate India’s Independence Day. Indian High Commissioner Y. S. Sinha was the chief guest on the occasion.

Neelakandan’s remarks came close on the heels of editor-in-chief of the Indian Express Shekar Gupta making what some of those present at the annual dinner described as a disparaging comment on the judiciary.

Gupta delivered the guest speech at the invitation of the Sri Lanka and India Friendship Society.

Presidential advisor Sunimal Fernando said that the majority of those who had been present on the occasion were surprised by Gupta’s remarks.

Gupta, who was responsible for exposing Indian-run terrorist camps in Tamil Nadu in the 1980s, discussed the circumstances leading to Karunanidhi giving up his long standing call for a separate state in Tamil Nadu. He quoted Karunanidhi as having told him that the break-up of India would pave the way for foreign intervention, hence his decision to drop the demand for separation. Karunanidhi changed his position in the wake of the Chinese invasion of India in the early 1960s, and war with Pakistan, according to Gupta.

According to Gupta, those fighting for a separate state in Nagaland, too, had given up their battle having realised what was going on in the Chinese ruled Tibet. Gupta quoted a top separatist leader turned Congress political figure as having told him some time back that they only wanted to protect Christianity and the ‘Nagar way of life.’ Once Nagar fighters realised that their objectives couldn’t be met by having a separate state, they had given up violence, Gupta said.Gupta alleged that Nagar separatists were the first to use automatic weapons obtained from China. He asserted that Nagar separatists could have overwhelmed the poorly equipped police deployed in the region, but they had up the armed struggle when they realised it was not in their interest.

At the end of the function, Fernando expressed his displeasure to Indian HNC Sivan and Neelakandan at remarks at a meeting of Sri Lanka- India Friendship Society. Fernando asserted that it couldn’t be the venue for such criticism. The annual event shouldn’t have been turned into a political platform, he said.

University Grants Commission Chairperson Kshanika Hirimburegama told The Island that she was hurt by the sentiments expressed by Neelakandan, who was speaking on behalf of the society. He shouldn’t have politicised the event by calling for foreign intervention, Hirimburegama said. The Sri Lanka-India friendship association, like any other grouping was meant to promote goodwill as well as relations between the two countries. Recollecting the death and destruction caused by Indian intervention in Sri Lanka in the early 1980s, Prof. Hirimburegama said that nothing could have been as bad as calling for Indian intervention four years after the conclusion of the war.

The UGC chief said that foreign intervention couldn’t be accepted under any circumstances, and the President of the society had obviously transgressed his mandate. His duty was to heal wounds caused by a three-decade long war and certainly not to cause fresh friction. None of those who had been critical of post-war developments, didn’t dare voice concern when children were used as cannon fodder and women thrown into the battlefield, Hirimburegama said.

S. Muthuswammy, Chairman, Lanka Organics Pvt Limited and an office bearer of the Sri Lanka-India Friendship Society, too, expressed regret over the incident. Muthuswammy said that he never expected the President of the association to call for Indian intervention.

All our efforts to contact Neelakandan were in vain as his telephone was not answered.
COURTESY:The Island