Majority of Sri Lankan Tamil Refugees in India reluctant to return home
by R.K. Radhakrishnan
A majority of the Sri Lankan Tamil refugees, who have been in India for a decade or more, are reluctant to go back to their nation, according to M. Mutia Kalaivanan, Director of Rehabilitation.
Talking to TheHindu here on Wednesday on the sidelines of a national seminar on ‘Refugee situation in India today,' he said that many of the refugees had become part of the local community and some even married locals. They had taken up jobs as masons or carpenters.
The government was providing them all facilities available to voters in the State, including subsidised rice and other material. Even free television sets were given to them (20,039 sets have already been distributed). As many as 52,373 individual identity cards had been issued to refugees aged above 12 years to ensure their welfare and security.
Enrolment of refugees in schools and colleges had gone up compared to the previous year. In 2008-09, the total number of students enrolled in schools and colleges was 21,023. In 2009-10, this rose to 21,742. But the nursery level enrolment dropped from 3452 (2008-09) to 3076 in 2009-10.
A Rs.55-crore housing scheme would be implemented for their benefit. The Rural Development Department would be in charge of the scheme. Land identification process was on. Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi had written to the Centre asking it to consider conferring citizenship on refugees who had lived here for long.
In all, the Rehabilitation department had spent Rs.74.56 crore in 2009-10 on the welfare of Tamil refugees (excluding the Rs.100 crore announced by the Chief Minister for infrastructure development in camps) as against Rs.0.21 crore spent in 1983-84 (before the influx of Sri Lankan Tamils). However, some of the refugees wanted to go back because of the limited job prospects here, he said.
The seminar was organised by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the Centre for Asia Studies.
There are 70,325 persons (20,251 families) staying in camps, besides 32,365 persons (11,933 families) staying as non-camp refugees in the State. There are 112 camps across 25 districts and two special camps. While a special camp at Ramanathapuram (Mandapam) houses 2,837 persons, the one at Tiruchi (Kottapattu) has 1,559 persons.
Of the total Sri Lankan refugees who arrived in India since early eighties, (3.03 lakh from July 24, 1983 to July 21, 2010), about one lakh refugees were sent back in two phases (1987-89 and 1992-95). Another one lakh had left India for Sri Lanka or third countries on their own with valid travel documents.
The refugees who were willing to go back to Sri Lanka or to any other country of their choice at their own cost were issued “exit permits” by Collectors. Up to 2010 May, a total of 7041 persons, who were interviewed by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and signed the returnee forms had been sent back voluntarily to Sri Lanka with the assistance of the UNHCR. Of this, 687 persons, belonging to 215 families left India this year. ~ Courtesy: The Hindu ~
9 Comments
This is GREAT NEWS! Finally some Tamils are Happy to be in their TAMIL ONLY HOMELAND of Tamil Nadu. There is no need for them to come to Sri Lanka. They should be very happy there, and should also encourage others to Migrate back to Tamil Nadu and enjoy the TAMIL ONLY experience they have been fighting so hard for in the past 25 years.
@ Devinda Fernando,
it would be great if you could leave for your orginal homeland Portugal! Thank you very much.
It is no wonder that Tamils are reluctant to leave for Sri Lanka. Tamil Nadu should know what Sinhala Government would do to this Tamil people. What would be their future in Sri Lanka? A barbed wired camp which is being controlled by the Sinhala army?
Dear Devinda Fernando
When do you plan to go BACK to your ancestoral land (if you have one) and leave us Sri Lankan to live in peace and equality?
I look forward to that day.
Thanks
Selvan
But then wherever you are forced to flee, the thoughts of your own little plot of land, your home where you and your children grew in, that humble home where your mother suckled you and where your father held you securely when you were ill, the sights and sounds of what has always been your real home cannot be erased away from your mind or your psyche. They will remain - as we see with 2nd generation Tamils in North America, in the UK, in Australia, the EU, Malaysia and India. It is so with 4-5th generation Irish and Italian Americans; those Russians from the "Republics" who were forced by Stalin from their small countries and eventually returned home - after Gorbachev. The divine link between man's inner self and the topography of his "own land and country" is something divine that cannot be stolen or wished away. Wherever they are, however comfortable they are now than before in their new homes their thoughts to return emotionally - if not physically - was that described by Bertolt Brecht when he described the mind of the immigrant. Brecht, after fleeing and years of comfortable living in Europe and the US, went back to Communist East Berlin to satisfy the inner battle within him. To understand this phenomena is required a clear, humane mind free of rancour and racial prejudice.
ISS
#Devinda Fido
If there are no Tamils in the island then how will you survive without spurting anti hate venom which is the oxygen you survive on. So be assured there will always be enough of them who will stay put just to plague the likes of you till Thy Kingdom Come.HARD LUCK.
How can Tamils in Sri Lanka expect a fair and reasonable settlement to their problems as long as people like Devinda Fernando are around? Devinda, people like you are the cause for Prabakaran to take guns to fight for the rights of the Tamil. You want to still continue to throw fuel to fire for the future generation to continue what LTTE stated. One thing you have to remember Tamils have inhabited this island as long as you Sinhalese did. They have every right to claim ownership to the island. Not you or thousands of Devinda cannot get rid of the Tamils from their motherland.
Hitler killed many thousand of Jews now they are a very powerful country in that region. Your President and his bothers have killed thousands of Tamils one day they would rise up from the ashes. History repeats dont forget.
All the murders (mass and individual), rapes, white van operations, colonizations, militory oocupations and tortures have begin to produce the desired results for the Sinhala Supremists. When there is no one to protect the Tamil interests in SL and out side against a terrorist state, this is the only expected outcome.
Alleluia, alleluia wails Devinda who himself is in cuckoo land wont go back to his motherland and one who encourages us Tamils to migrate.
He and the likes of him conveniently forget that there are tons and of Sinhalese who have sought, seek and will seek refugee status at the rate that the mahadana mutta dictatorship is progressing.
If only Devinda and his mob go back to Sorry Lanka, the rest of the planet would be rid of these parasites, SL [ Sorry Lanka's loss ], will be the world's gain because he can join hands with the other SL the chauvinist lawyer [ S.L. Gunasekera ] who finds solace in the bosom of his catholic wife from Kandana way. a j.
The Sri Lankan Tamil refugees in India are the forgotten ones by the Tamils in the West as well as the Sri Lankan government.
There is no point of talking on this matter because those people are still supported by the Indian Government which was always blamed by the Tiger Tamils in the West for the defeat of the LTTE.
Anti- Tamil is not the same as anti-LTTE. Fernandos of the coastal Sri Lanka are not Sinhalese by history or by DNA. They are the desendants of the people from Thoothukudy and other coastal Tamil Nadu.
Converted "Sinhalese" now spew more "racist" venom than the original Sinhalese. Think about the history of JRJ or Banda.