In the present, Sri Lanka is working feverishly to push its hegemonic programmes of colonisation and occupation to their logical conclusion as soon as possible. For far too long, SL has been seeking its own definition of success through oppressing the other ethnic groups of the island. Although SL's political structure is the cause for this vicious cycle, the reality of this enduring pattern is more apparent with each passing day. The armed conflict that ended in May 2009 has resulted in the subjugation of the Tamil population of the island after eliminating any protective barriers that existed. The Sinhala-Buddhist anti-"minority" identity agenda has now moved on to oppressing the Muslim ethnic group, their religion (Islam), and with yet slightly less frequency, Christianity and Hinduism.
Hand-in-hand with the genocide of the ethnic groups for whom the Northeast is their historical homeland is the seizure of their land's resources. Perhaps more valuable than the silicon in the beach sands and areas of rice, onions, and pearls, is the geostrategic importance of ship travel. India, China, and the US all want access to Trincomalee harbour, the 2nd or 3rd best natural harbour in the world. Consider India out of the running for reasons that are self-inflicted, as will be elaborated below. In the contest between the US and China, SL is a highly self-aware pawn. SL's game of awarding the spoils of Tamil subjugation to the highest bidder has ended in SL preferring China in all arenas. This positional solidification complements China's strategy of no-questions high-dollar investment in exchange for unrestricted access to resources valued at many orders of magnitude higher. President Rajapakse has been accusing the West of a conspiracy with Tamils to undermine the Sri Lankan government, but he is just exaggerating an overlap of interests. Tamils want freedom and prosperity, while the West want world stability and Indian Ocean security. To allow a government in the world order to commit genocide on its own people using chemical weapons and cluster bombs would set a dangerous precedent for global peace. If the West does not yet realise the futility of achieving peace in Sri Lanka through a strongly-centralised unitary or federal political framework, it will discover so very quickly as it deals with Sri Lanka more.
Clearly, in addition to a favourable chance of access to Trincomalee harbour, there are more important ideals at stake regarding the plight of Tamils as far as the West is concerned. A yet-unrealised genuine post-conflict reconciliation in the island depends on those ideals. However, there is one important asset in the geopolitical equations of Indian Ocean control that is yet often overlooked: Tamil(s).
History of Tamils in the Indian Ocean
When it comes to the Indian Ocean, many have sailed through these waters and held sway, but perhaps none have done so for longer, and have done it earlier, than Tamils themselves. Since before the advent of the Common Era, much of South India and Ceylon spoke Tamil. As well, so did the earliest settlers of Ceylon from the Indian subcontinent.
From one of the earliest Tamil words used to describe the island -- Chaiy-a'lam ('red tract of land') -- we get the words chingkalam (in Tamil, 1. a name for the island; 2. the Singalese language), Serendib (via Arabic via Greek) and Ceylon (via British, Dutch, Portugese, via Marco Polo, via Greek). By extension, it turns out, the name "Singalam" for the Sinhalese has nothing to do with the word lion ("singam"), although the coincidence of the 2 words was incorporated into the 5th century C.E. Mahavamsa to retro-actively create an origins mythology for the newly-coalesced Singalese identity. The prevailing, accepted theory among scholars for the origin of the Singalese as a separate identity speaking a separate language from the Tamils has its roots in religion. The Tamils who inhabited the island spread to all parts of the island. At some point around the 3rd century BCE, Buddhism became popular throughout the Indian subcontinent, moving southward to the Tamil-speaking South India, and from there, on to Ceylon. Converts to Buddhism among Tamils came largely from Saivites (and converts to Jainism came largely from Vainavites, worshippers of Vishnu). The Tamils of the isolated southwest portion of Ceylon started to develop Buddhist culture, read Buddhist writings in Pali, and mix Pali into their language (Tamil), and what resulted is what we know know as the Singalese language. In 2-3 centuries, they formed a separate identity that they referred to as 'Singalam' (Singalese), denoting that they are of the island called 'Singalam'. A revival movement subsequently occurred among Saivite and Vainavite Tamils in the mainland (India) that caused a conversion of Buddhists and Jains back to Saivam and Vainavam, respectively. This change affected the Tamils in India and, due to the proximity, the people of the North and East Ceylon, since they were the ones who still continued to speak Tamil. This completed the separation of the North and East of the island into Tamil-speaking Saivites, and the Southwest of the island into Singalese-speaking Buddhists. (Fun fact: The origin language of the world "Lanka" is unknown, but it originally referred to any island, and seemingly only in the latter half of its existence has come to mean another name for the island of Ceylon. Among the words Lanka, Singalam/Ceylon and Eelam/Elu/Hela, the oldest word for the island is Eelam.)
Tamil influence around the Indian Ocean from early Tamil kingdoms is evidenced in different aspects. The languages still spoken in the archipelagoes in the Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal are creoles of Tamil and Pali, the 2 lingua francas of the merchants of the region for centuries after these atoll islands may have come into existence, 2500 years ago. The alphabets of the languages in southern Ceylon (Singalese) and South East Asia (Thai, Burmese, Khmer, Javanese) come from the Grantha alphabet that the Pallava kingdom created to transcribe Pali and Sanskrit. The Pallavas spread this alphabet to all of these areas around the Indian Ocean. If you've ever thought that Sinhalese and Southeast Asian languages look similar, this is why. The cultural "Indian" influences in Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, and surrounding areas is the result of Tamil influence that lasted perhaps a millennium or more, starting almost 2 millennia ago, for example, the splendid architecture of Angkor Wat. This is due to the exploration of Tamil kingdoms like the Pallavas and the Cholas. Tamil maritime trading's history may have a history even longer than 2000 years, however, if we consider that moringa oil, from the moringa trees native to India and grown mostly in Southern India, was used to make perfumes and lotions that were used in ancient Egypt and Etruria. The striking similarities in cuisines between Southern Indian Subcontinent and Southeast Asia is another obvious marker of Tamil cross-pollination. More research needs to go into understanding the true antiquity and extent of Tamil history and maritime trade links. For example, what of the links between ancient South India and ancient Japan and Korea? (Could this explain the origins of the 'mysterious' ushering in of the dramatic progress of the Yayoi period that led to modern Japanese culture?) Given the long-standing historical links in the Indian Ocean, Tamils fleeing SL govt atrocities since 1948 have chosen places like Malaysia to take refuge in, while the British brought Tamils as forced migrants to many of its former southern hemisphere colonies, ultimately leaving Tamil diaspora populations in areas where Tamils have a natural affinity. Among Tamils worldwide, none are so maritime-oriented as the Tamil-speaking people of Tamil Eelam.
(UPDATE 31.10.12 The news of potsherds engraved with ancient Tamil writing found in Oman, dating to the 1st century CE, was reported in TamilNet today as Tamil went to Oman 20 centuries ago. It turns out that similar Tamil potsherd findings were made in Thailand in the 2nd century CE and in Egypt in the 1st century BCE.)
(UPDATE 2013-03-11 The Economist reports that South Indians migrated en masse to Australia 4,000 years, bringing along advanced technology and the dingo dog, and intermingled with the local population. The connection between Tamil and the Indus Valley Civilisation is obvious but lacks physical artifacts whose locations are known but remain unearthed and unresearched. This also implies Tamils were clearly the original inhabitants of Ceylon, even if accept the hyperbolic Mahavamsa as a credible, historical document.)
India's Loss of Control Over SL
In some ways, India is merely an empire aspirant that inherited the reins of power from the British colonialists after independence in 1947. Many of the ethnic groups within the country, on the periphery literally and figuratively, might say so. In the context of an empire, India has overstretched itself before it could really get going, and breakup might seem inevitable in the future. India never allowed Jammu and Kashmir a referendum to determine its autonomy, and that has perhaps given a foothold in the region to Pakistan and China moreso than would have happened otherwise. Obviously, the same has happened with the Tamils in Ceylon. As the big country in the region, India might have previously been able to enact a UK-style arrangement with all of its small neighbours that were also a part of the British Empire's India -- Bangladesh, Nepal, Kashmir, and Maldives. And if India could have been able to share (or subsume) the defense responsibilities of the region with those neighbours, if not like the UK then at least like a sort of South Asian NATO, it would have been able to influence the course of military matters in the region as if it were a Ouija board. All this speculation is moot, for what we saw instead was India's strategy of sending in troops to India's Northeast, to Kashmir, and to Sri Lanka and subdue resistance through brutal force, unsuccessfully. If India has any such 'Ramayanam Mindset' as the Singhalese 'Mahavamsa Mindset', then they will find it fraught with historical errors and contradictions, and it will continue to take them further backwards, not forwards. India's inability and lack of interest to mould an inclusive identity within the country, let alone regionally, has opened itself and its neighbours to being targets of internal unrest fomented by its external threats, especially from China.
So what is the 'grand strategy' in India's mind? The same story of China heavily investing in SL much more than India is repeating itself in the rest of the region, and if the story were just that, India's strategy might be feasible. It is argued that China's means of empire expansion are purely economic with no apparent signs of military strategic planning. But SL is a good example of how economics is enough for China to engineer changes in the global military balance without firing a shot. As we continue to watch China rise from a superpower into an empire over the next few decades, the competition between the US and China will be played out economically. Thus Indian Ocean will be an important theatre of activity, perhaps economically and politically, but hopefully just not militarily. But India cannot realistically consider itself on par with the US and China in this battle. And if India attempts to demand its pound of flesh, economically or politically, by getting in the way (ex: not getting the memo on where it stands, tarrying on assisting the US) it will only hasten an irrevocable, inevitable breakup of India into its constituent nations.
Shifting Power in the Indian Ocean
Historically, India has considered Tamils (in Tamil Nadu or Northeast Ceylon), at best, a nuisance. For at least the past 3 years, if not the past 10 years, India should've had the foresight to adopt the strategy of teaming up with Tamils on both sides of the Palk Strait. It should have realised that it is better to have a stable, friendly Tamil power as an ally than to share its southern shore with a lawless Southern Lankan government that has colonised all the way to Jaffna and Mannar and will play host to China and its allies (or any other power that suits it). Jaffna will be used for naval surveillance (including sonar to detect submarines), while Palaly field makes a convenient launchpad to launch aerial operations against India from the south. China will develop and control Trinco harbour, might destroy the coral reef ecosystem in Mannar in order to search for oil, and might dig up the entire Northeast beaches for silicon. First and foremost, such oil exploration and beach sand extraction, done with reckless abandon no doubt, would be irreparably damaging to the environment. It would prevent the residents of the Northeast from living safely in their own homeland, and Tamils would be less likely to serve as a counterbalance to this situation. For any eventuality that plays out remotely similarly to this scenario, it should behoove everyone to consider China's modus operandi. China waves enormous amounts of money at its "newfound friends" in exchange for rights to natural resources (or related infrastructure / access). But China will likely lose interest in these countries -- and the people therein -- once the resources are fully depleted, and it would do so just as fast as these friendly alliances were formed. Which country needs to learn this lesson the most? Yes, India is busy clearing sites domestically for mining operations, despite the militant unrest that it breeds. The result is India's 'red corridor', a contiguous chain of areas in India, from China to the Naxalites of northern Andhra Pradesh, where Maoist military groups are successfully challenging state power. And with all the fervour that India puts into extracting these natural resources to sell for a profit, despite the internal consequences, who is the main buyer of those resources? Yes, China, who uses them to create refined products and sells them at a higher price to large foreign markets, including India.
The only actor in South Asia or the Indian Ocean that seems to be acting based on long-term strategy, if nothing else, is the US. The US recognises that "Tamil Nadu is a gateway state ... because it is connected to the east and west". Tamil Nadu's connection to the East is no doubt a reference to the fact that Tamil is a key link to the Indian Ocean. As for why Tamil Nadu is connected to the West, we should look to Tamil Nadu's industrial economy and embrace of Western factory branches. Many Tamils work in the IT industry, either in Tamil Nadu or neighbouring states in South India, doing outsourcing work for Western tech companies. And Tamils had a head start in the outsourcing game because Tamil Nadu singularly and 'notoriously' opposed the imposition of Hindi over Tamil, instead choosing English as the exclusive link-language to the rest of India. (After all, if Tamil is related to the proto-Dravidian spoken in the ancient Indus Valley Civlisation, then Tamil certainly has the longest lineage of any language in the Indian subcontinent, at the least.) Not only Tamil Nadu, but all 4 states of South India (Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu) have a higher-than-average standard of living. If we add to this mix the fact that the Eelam Wars have created a large Tamil diaspora in all of the Western countries, then Tamil Nadu and Tamil Eelam are both truly gateways connecting East and West.
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