Tuesday, May 19, 2009

That is a long distance to travel Mr. Ram

From here


to here
.

Was your animosity towards Tamil Eelam rooted in any personal slight and having your hopes of playing Kissinger dashed?

14 comments:

Praveen said...

this indeed is new info

Anonymous said...

New, may be. But not supraising. People who show themselves as pro-left (ex Kamalashan) develop theories to substansiate their oppertunistic behaviour.

Ram ofcourse, realized that Prabhakaran, unlike stalin and others, was a "facist" in "Socialist" garb.

Anonymous said...

Dear Chenthil,

I regularly read ur posts.From ur writing i feel for u LTTE/ealam is synonymous which is a big mistake.I would like to know your opinion on LTTE's elimination of fellow tami leaders

Sri

Krishnan said...

A long way indeed !
Chenthil, a small favor. I will be traveling to Tirunelveli end of this month and would you like to know from you any good book shops I can check out in Nellai.

Chenthil said...

Praveen - The Hindu itself carried these photos and a detailed 3 page coverage after Prabhakaran's death.

Anon - true.

Sri - I am aware of the murder of fellow Tamils by LTTE from Sabarathinam to Amirthalingam. I am not equating LTTE to Tamils. There are Tamils who opposed LTTE vehemently, yet they didn't side with the Srilankan Govt like Ram did. In his efforts to black out LTTE Ram made sure that the recent humanitarian crisis wasn't given coverage in The Hindu. There was no mention of Cluster bombs and daily death toll of 300 or more.

Krishnan - I don't know much about Tirunelveli. There is a Higginbothams store is all I know.

Krishnan said...

Thanks Chenthil.

Anonymous said...

I think we can argue this endlessly about ltte/ealam.But i feel ur pic caption is misleading and it would have made more sense had it been pics of the tamils.Does ram has so much power so as to determine the political discourse in delhi reg ealam ? I am sure he has influence over the right people in the capital but there are more powerful chaps than him in TN to change the public opinion if they had/have the will to do so.Perhaps you should start writing about them as well

Sri

Anonymous said...

Just check this interview

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahy3AK8jczY&NR=1

m said...

Dear Chenthil, I am not sure about the first picture- was it taken during the interview that Mr.Ram took with Prabhakaran?! If so or even if it is not so, it does not say much!

I think, most people from TN were sympathetic with the plight of Srilankan tamils and were receptive of the LTTE at the very begining.. but once when they realised that the path the LTTE took leads nowhere most people felt sorry about that.

And I am really surprised by the way most people equate sirlankan tamils to LTTE. So it really ends up that if one does not agree with/accept LTTE, then they are anti-Srilankan tamils! And in my humble opinion, the LTTE chief has not achieved anything great with the 30 years of war except displacing and killing more people! A leader is the one who has the ability to lead people and does not allow his self-pride take over the power of judgement or welfare of the people!

I am sad that you are also doing this - attacking individual person/persons which is not going to change the life/plight of those poor, helpless people in Srilanka!

I hope that u will understand that my comment is not meant to offend u!

Anonymous said...

You probably responded to Ela offline,but I would have loved to read the response.

Considering that the picture is from The Hindu,it is not like you have unearthed something.

Changing your mind on something depending on how the issue plays out is called Maturity. It is just as simple as that.

Sri too raises a very interesting point: "Does ram has so much power so as to determine the political discourse in delhi reg ealam ? "

Anonymous said...

Is being a journalist with its implicit rules of neutrality and objectivity, accepting an award from one party in a war you're covering, and that one party guilty of war crimes you paper over, also "neutrality"?

I guess that's right under "pro-right people are never opportunistic" in the dictonnaire d'idees recus. :-/

It's funny how everyone above me is defending Ram by talking about Prabhakaran, as if there were only two positions available to take.

Saravanan said...

Sri, Anonymous, et al
Following article written by DBS Jeyaraj about Ram's involvement(in positive light) in Sri Lankan affairs,
http://www.uthayam.net/articles/dec1_2005html.htm

Anonymous said...

http://www.sangam.org/PIRABAKARAN/Part1.htm

AB

Chenthil said...

Ela - I think this photo was taken during Ram's interview of Prabhakaran in 1980s. I am not equating the LTTE to Srilankan tamils. What I am trying to say is just because Ram hated LTTE (due to whatever reasons) he sided completely with Srilankan govt and turned a blind eye to the atrocities committed by the govt. I am thick skinned, wont be offended by an opposing point of view.

Anon - I never claimed to have unearthed it. Ram himself printed it in his paper. The day after the death of Prabhakaran, The Hindu carried three pages of articles and photos related to him. In the previous days, hardly any mention of the continuous shelling and even then in a biased way. Any one with a basic knowledge of the Eelam struggle would have known this. I just juxtaposed the two pictures to put my message across. Changing your mind indeed is a sign of maturity, turning a blind eye to the crimes of whom you support is not.

Anon - exactly. DBS Jeyaraj is a good example of a journalist who fell out with the LTTE but did not go over to the other camp. Read his post on Prabakaran's death. At the end of it he says " The Government must also be held accountable for the massive scale of human rights violations and alleged war crimes perpetrated.

The Govt must reveal how many civilians were killed or died in ths cruel inhuman war and under what circumstances.".

Do you think you will ever read this in The Hindu? They did carry DBS's another article on their opinion page but I am sure that this will never make it.

There in lies the duplicity of Mr. Ram in this issue.