The Tamil Progressive Alliance (TPA) hopes to raise the matter of the marginalization of the Hill Country Tamils in Sri Lanka with the visiting Royal Highness Princess Anne, the sister of Britain’s King Charles III.
Speaking to NewsWire, TPA Leader MP Mano Ganesan said the matter will be raised through the British High Commissioner to Sri Lanka Andrew Patrick.
MP Ganesan, who is currently in India to raise awareness on the matter with the Tamil Nadu Government, said he will be missing the visit of Princess Anne, due to which the matter has been raised with the British High Commissioner to be conveyed to the visiting Princess.
He further said that steps will also be taken to obtain the signatures of all nine (09) Tamil MPs in Parliament for a Memorandum on the matter, which will also be handed over to the British Government.
Emphasizing that they do not intend to lay blame on any nation for the marginalization of the Hill Country Tamils in Sri Lanka, MP Ganesan said these attempts are being taken to create awareness of the plight of the community, which is directly linked to the past decisions of the British and Indian governments.
Upon the arrival of Princess Anne in Sri Lanka to mark 75 years of diplomatic relations between Sri Lanka and Britain, MP Mano Ganesan released the following statement on the matter related to the marginalization of the Hill Country Tamils in Sri Lanka.
The full statement of TPA Leader MP Mano Ganesan:
We demand Princess Anne accept historical responsibility towards the most marginalized group of people in Sri Lanka, the Tamil plantation residents who register lower measures on education, health, land, housing rights, employment indices and almost all human development indices compared to every other community in Sri Lanka.
Princes Anne is here in Sri Lanka to celebrate the 75th Anniversary of diplomatic relations between Sri Lanka and the UK. I find no better time to raise this issue. Marginalization of our community is the dark segment of this 75-year history. We don’t want to submit a list of blame. But, I submit a reminder of the dark history to Princess Anne.
The Malaiyaha Tamil community as they are ethnically called, were brought to Sri Lanka, then Ceylon, from India since 1823 by the companies under the British Crown. They were controversially deprived of citizenship immediately after independence in 1948, though plantation workers provided the second-highest foreign reserve in Asia, to the treasury of Ceylon. This ungrateful activity happened over-riding the protection for minorities found in article 29(2) of the then British-given constitution. Thereafter many were subjected to involuntary repatriation to India in 1964. All these occurred while Ceylon was very much under dominion status headed by the British Crown.
Our worker people are tied to and dependent on their plantation employers and are not full-fledged citizens of Sri Lanka even today after the British left us high and dry in the hands of the local brown Raj that replaced the British white Raj. Her Majesty’s government failed to do what French rulers did to the people of Pondicherry in India.
As the leader of the largest elected political entity of the Malaiyaha Tamil community, the TPA, I request the British to support our people, the most underprivileged and marginalized Sri Lankans with affirmative action to catch up lost ground towards becoming full-fledged citizens of SriLanka. (NewsWire)