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India's Seeman contradicts Wigneswaran
Leader of the Naam Thamizhar Katchi in Tamil Nadu and film director Senthamizhan Seeman has condemned the comment made by TNA’s chief ministerial candidate for the Northern Provincial Council election C.V. Wigneswaran, that Tamil Nadu politicians used the Sri Lankan Tamils’ issue for their own gains, much to the detriment of the Tamils in Sri Lanka.
Commenting on the remarks Wigneswaran made last week, that Tamil Nadu politicians were hitting the ball from one side to the other and it was the Sri Lankan Tamils who got hit as a result, Mr. Seeman said in an interview with the BBC’s Tamil service “Tamilosai” that it was due to the pressure exerted by the Tamils in Tamil Nadu and the Tamil Diaspora that the Sri Lankan government was compelled to hold the Northern Provincial Council Elections where Wigneswaran was able to come forward as a candidate.
During an interview with the Chennai based ‘The Hindu’ Wigneswaran had compared the Sri Lankan situation to a home where the husband and wife were having an argument. He had said: “We will fight, but maybe sometimes we might come together. The next door neighbour must not come and say ‘you must divorce, you must divorce, you must divorce’. That is not your business.”
Seeman retorted “If Tamil Nadu that voices for you is your next door neighbour what is the relationship that you have with the Indian Central Government which you had praised in the same interview you had with The Hindu?” Answering the TNA chief candidate’s statement that the next door neighbour must not come and say ‘you must divorce, you must divorce, you must divorce’ and that was not his business, Seeman said it was not the Tamil Nadu politicians but Thanthai Chelva (the founder leader of the Thamil Arasu Katchi, S.J.V. Chelvanayakam) who had decided that Tamil Eelam was the only option for Sri Lankan Tamils to achieve equal rights.
Mr. Wigneswaran had further said in his interview last week that when politicians in Tamil Nadu said separation was the only solution, the Sinhalese masses – many sections of whom fear that Tamils would
Seeman retorted “If Tamil Nadu that voices for you is your next door neighbour what is the relationship that you have with the Indian Central Government which you had praised in the same interview you had with The Hindu?” collaborate with India and form a separate State – got very annoyed.
“We get affected by what is being said there,” he said emphasising that the emotional rhetoric only made Tamils here more vulnerable. Tamil Nadu’s efforts, he said, must be to see that there was greater response on the part of different communities in Sri Lanka rather than promoting antipathy towards each other. He had however added that the TNA was very impressed with the support and touched by the sympathy articulated from those in Tamil Nadu.
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