Sunday, 8 September 2013

Book review: Unknown Tigers

War Journey: Diary of a Tamil Tiger
Author: Malaravan
Publisher: Penguin, Rs 250

A simple narrative style makes it easy to read this book on the lives of Tamil Tigers, says R Hariharan

Velupillai Prabhakaran occupies a large space in the history of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) — popularly known as the Tamil Tigers — in Sri Lanka. The outfit owed its growth into the world’s most dreaded insurgent group to his leadership and commitment to the idea of an independent Tamil Eelam. On the flip side, it was his ruthless leadership style of eliminating other Tamil leaders that created a leadership vacuum after he, along with other LTTE leaders, was decimated in the final episode of Eelam War in May 2009.

But the lore of the Tamil Tigers will not be complete without the saga of youthful cadre who sacrificed their lives to fulfil their leader’s will. Their sacrifices with sweat and blood have earned them a unique place in the collective memory of Tamil-speaking people; and, this includes Tamils who neither believed in Prabhakaran nor his cause. In this process, they have left an indelible mark on Sri Lankan peoples’ psyche that would continue to condition their response to ethnic relations for a long time to come.
LTTE had a fetish for documentation of its actions (I remember recovering meticulous Nazi-style documentation of 102 men and women of Jaffna who were tried by LTTE courts and “dumped” — LTTE euphemism for killing — for a wide range of offences from drug trafficking to soliciting Sri Lankan soldiers for prostitution). It always encouraged cadre with an aptitude for writing to record the battles and acts of bravery, although its debacles were not so meticulously done. Television coverage was there on every occasion involving LTTE both in peace and war. These were published in both electronic and print media run by LTTE’s well-organised propaganda machine.

Booklets and newsletters were also published for Tamil audience everywhere. These include a few memoirs of pulihal(Tigers in Tamil referring to LTTE’s armed cadre). The book under review, War Journey: Diary of a Tamil Tiger, originally written in Tamil by Malaravan, barely 20-year-old puli who fought and died for LTTE, is one such memoir. The slim volume of a little over 100 pages is a translation of Por Ulaa (War Journey), the Tamil original. It covers 19 days in the life of Malaravan when he, along with his comrades, moved from Manalaaru to join in the LTTE assault on Mankulam in November 1990.

By November 1990, Prabhakaran’s collusion with Sri Lanka President Ranasinghe Premadasa to “throw” the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) out of Sri Lanka had ended. After the IPKF left Sri Lankan shores in June 1990 all the cooing and wooing between the two sides ended in cacophony and battle lines were redrawn.

Mankulam is a key road junction astride the Kandy-Jaffna A-9 Highway; it gained strategic importance during the war as it provided road access to the west coast as well as to Mullaitivu on the east in the Tiger heartland. Although Malaravan was a seasoned soldier and an inveterate scribe from a family of writers, his random notes contain few references to military operations beyond generalities spiced with a bit of LTTE propaganda. The “spontaneous love of the people” for LTTE he speaks of was there probably in 1990, but it became subsumed in the air of despair after the outfit failed to use the peace process for the benefit of the people and opted for war.

But that does not diminish the value of Malaravan’s diary. His ideas and perceptions on a number of issues ranging from Tamil-Sinhala relations, to the destructive Sri Lanka operations to the Tamil Tigers struggle for independence and the sacrifices ordinary people provide a peep into life as Malaravan saw it. The mindset of youngsters who left their families behind to respond to the call of war brought out in the book will touch a sympathetic chord in every soldier.

Their simplistic beliefs on war and narrow focus on Tamil Eelam, shorn of a deeper analysis of the situation, reflect the attitude of professional soldiers of a regular army. This is what made them obey Prabhakaran’s commands rather than question them. It speaks volumes of LTTE’s highly evolved conditioning techniques that turned ordinary youth to act like committed professional soldiers.

Although both Malaravan and Niromi de Soyza, former LTTE cadre and author of a more popular English memoir Tamil Tigress (Mehta Publishing House, Pune 2011) hailed from educated middle class, they offer totally different perspectives on LTTE and the Eelam war. Presumably, the socio-political environments in which they grew up conditioned their perceptions as much as their stint in LTTE.

The translator N Malathy, a diaspora Tamil from New Zealand, who came to Vanni as a volunteer during the ceasefire period has a simple narrative style that makes easy reading. However, the book is too brief to satisfy the reader as it only provokes interest.

The reviewer, a retired MI officer, served as the Head of Intelligence of the IPKF in Sri Lanka
Courtesy: The Pioneer, August 8, 2013                                              http://www.dailypioneer.com/book-reviews/unknown-tigers.html

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