‘Political controversy stops World Tamil Conference’

The Tamil Nadu government has decided to postpone the Ninth World Tamil Conference, it planned to hold in Coimbatore in January 2010, following a political controversy with opposition parties questioning the locus standi of the government to organise such an event as well as its timing.

A committee headed by Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi, which reviewed the progress of the meet, took the decision to enable participation of more Tamil scholars from across the world as they needed time to plan their travel, an official release said.

Parties, including the AIADMK and the BJP, have said that the ruling DMK should first ensure the return of Internally Displaced Persons lodged in various camps in Sri Lanka to their homes as they are presently “languishing behind barbed wires”.

Jayalalithaa Jayaram, the leader of AIADMK, attacked Karunanidhi for organising the World Tamil Conference, when Tamils in Sri Lanka and other parts were in a state of distress.

In a statement released in Chennai, Jayalalithaa said the conference 'is nothing but a farcical charade for self-aggrandisement' and 'like all utterances of Mr Karunanidhi, this one too smacks of vested interest and has nothing to do with his self-proclaimed love for Tamil language'.

She questioned the DMK government’s locus standi to host the conference and its timing, saying Tamils were in a “state of distress” all over the world, particularly in Sri Lanka and Malaysia.

Malaysian Tamils, who hosted the first International Tamil Conference in 1966, feel that they are relegated to the status of secondary citizens in that country.

The Tamils of Sri Lanka, who hosted the fourth International Conference in Jaffna in 1974, were living in refugee camps in their own country.

Their struggle for self-determination was ruthlessly snuffed out by the Sri Lankan Government with military aid and logistical support from an Indian Government, of which Karunanidhi’s DMK party is a key constituent. However, Mr Karunanidhi never raised his voice, let alone his little finger, when the massacre of the Sri Lankan Tamils was on, she alleged.

The autonomous International Association of Tamil Research (IATR) alone could conduct such World Tamil Conferences and Chief Minister Karunanidhi’s announcement on the next meet “makes no mention whatsoever of the IATR,”  Jayalalithaa said.

“The DMK government has no locus standi to organise IATR’s series of International Tamil Conferences. If the January 2010 conference is being organised by Karunanidhi, independent of IATR, then it cannot qualify to be the ninth International Tamil Conference as it is being made out,” she said.