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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