Our giant neighbor’s omnipresence is hard to ignore. Yet incredibly, we are extremely ignorant of Indian matters. It is pardonable when we are equally ignorant of our own matters. The terror days of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam – from its inception to its annihilation – were during our living years. Still, crucial facts such as the key players and their reasons have escaped us. Thus, it has been very easy for our enemies to twist facts and propagate half truths and pin the blame of been terrorized on us!

First, we are told that we discriminated Tamils by making Sinhala the official language in 1956. The complete story is, at the time when English was the official language less than five percent of the entire population knew the language. Conversely, over 95 percent were fluent with Sinhala. Yet, Sinhalese only comprised about 75 percent of the population. Thus, Sinhala becoming the official language discriminated none.

Furthermore, Tamils were a scattered population comprising around 12 percent. If they learnt and functioned only Tamil, then they would have become an isolated society. If, for argument sake, Sinhala as the official language was discriminatory, then the problem should have been resolved in 1987 when Tamil too became recognized as an official language. This did not happen.

The 1983 riots is the second mistruth. Tamils did not face the situation alone as many Sinhalese stepped out to protect them. Professor Gerard Peiris was one. He explains, more than two communities on ethnic lines, it was more on economic lines that clashed. Those in the slums attacked the other neighborhoods whilst protecting Tamils in their own ghettoes.

The third mistruth is that Indira Gandhi trained, armed and financed the terrorists to counter Sri Lanka’s then administration’s gravitation towards the U.S. The truth is, JR Jayewardena sought to strengthen Sri Lankan relations with the U.S. to safeguard from the terrorism India was creating.

JN Dixit writes in Negotiating Peace in Sri Lanka, “having positive political equations with MG Ramachandran was important to Mrs. Indira Gandhi. The fact that the first constituent state of India which threatened to secede in 1956 was Tamil Nadu. The AIADMK had threatened secession when Hindi was sought to be imposed as the national language as well as the official language in all states of India in the mid-sixties. There was a perception that if India did not support the Tamil cause in Sri Lanka and if the government of India tried to question the political and emotional feelings of Sri Lankan Tamils, there would be a resurgence of Tamil separatism in India.”

In the same book, Bernard Tilakaratne who served 14 years of his foreign service in India gives a better explanation. “The other important yet unpublicized reason was that India’s general elections was due in 1984 and Mrs. Gandhi has lost her electoral support in several parts of India, including some of her traditional strongholds in the South and it was very important for her to retain the support of Tamil Nadu and also maintain the strength of her Congress (I) bases there.”

This was the very same reason in the mid 70s that Gandhi decided to support terrorism in Sri Lanka. By 1975, she was fast losing control and her defeat seemed imminent. Even after declaring Emergency and postponing elections for the next two years, she could not prevent the inevitable. It was during this very period that Prabhakaran et el received State support after nearly a decade of been ignored. Therefore, it is pertinent to visit Gandhi’s 1966-1977 premiership to understand her desperate need to appease the Tamil Nadu politicians.

Gandhi became the Indian PM in 1966 as “Goongi goodiya” – dumb doll. She soon proved the opposition and her own party wrong. By the time she was ousted in 1977, none could differentiate India from Indira. Such was her dominance.

Unlike Modi’s Bharatiya Janatha Party, Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira of the Congress Party are perceived as anti-Hindu. This is especially so for their stand on the ban on cow slaughter, which Nehru perceived as, “unimportant and reactionary”. In her 11th month in office, citing Article 48, Hindus numbering around 10,000 protested against cow slaughter. Indira brutally suppressed this protest, which was a prelude to her legacy.

She ruthlessly outmaneuvered her rivals and broke the party’s robust traditions of internal democracy. Instead, sycophants who were loyal to her and her family were openly favored. Thus by 1969, the Congress Party had split into the the old-guard known as Congress (O) and her Congress (R).

The poor, low-castes, women and minorities adored her as against Congress (O) and other opponents, she came across as the champion of the poor, developer of the nation, socialist in economics and secularist in matters of religion. Her Garibi Hatao! (get rid of poverty!) slogan in the 1971 general elections was hugely successful and won her 352 seats out of 518.

Yet, discerning political observers were alarmed by her radicalism that saw a number of major banks nationalized in 1969 and the abolition of the privy purse in 1970, done suddenly via ordinance. However, her popularity continued unabated especially when India’s arch enemy, Pakistan, was defeated in war to which she gave leadership in 1971. Even the Opposition began to refer to her as Durga – a Hindu Goddess.

However, criticism against her began to mount when Gandhi tried to assert her near-absolute dominance in the judiciary as she had with the government and her party. She brought the 24th Amendment to counter the famous Supreme Court judgement that was in favor of the Golaknath family. Their 500 acre farmland was taken by the Punjab Security and Land Tenures Act, allowing the brothers only 30 acres each. Likewise, she brought the 26th Amendment to nullify SC’s judgement when the government lost for withdrawing the privy purse.

When the 24th Amendment was called into question in the landmark Kesavananda Bharati case, the Supreme Court restricted Parliament’s amendment power, on the basis the Parliament cannot alter the “basic structure” of the Constitution. In response, Gandhi made AN Ray the Chief Justice of India. He was the senior most judge amongst the six who were against the Kesavananda case. She bypassed three judges senior to Ray, for they ruled in favor of the Kesavananda case.

However, it was Raj Narain’s case that became the catalyst. Narain contested against Gnadhi in the 1971 general elections. After his defeat, he filed a petition alleging that Gandhi resorted to bribery and used government machinery and resources to gain an unfair advantage. Using government employees as election agents and organizing campaign activities in the constituency while still on government’s payroll were the more serious charges.

Narain persisted and after four years, in 1975, the Allahabad High Court found her guilty of the lesser charges of misusing government machinery and using the services of government officers who were still in government services. Even after the serious charges of bribing voters and other election malpractices were dropped, the courts declared her election null and void, and she was unseated from Lok Sabha and barred from contesting any election for the next six years. As she was found guilty on the lesser charges, The Times reported it as “firing the Prime Minister for a traffic ticket”.

She challenged the verdict in SC. Though the SC upheld the High Court order to revoke all her privileges as an MP and her ban on contesting stayed, she was allowed to continue as the PM. This erupted the political unrest that was building across India since 1973.

National hero Jayaprakash Narayan, who played a pivotal role in the Indian independence movement, particularly the ‘Quit India’ movement, returned to the political arena. Though he too is from the Congress Party, he led a peaceful agitation in 1974 against the high inflation, unemployment and lack of supplies and essential commodities. After Gandhi was found guilty, he called for her resignation. Reminding of Mahatma Gandhi’s freedom struggle, he called upon the police to reject any government order that is immoral or unethical.

Using this, West Bengal’s Chief Minister Siddhartha Shankar Ray advised Gandhi to impose an “internal emergency” and drafted a letter for the President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed to the effect that PM had received information that the country’s security is threatened by internal disturbances. Gandhi’s loyalists, including her younger son, Sanjay who had become an “extra-constitutional authority” advocated the move.

Within hours, electricity to all major newspapers was disconnected and political opponents were arrested. JP, who was 72 was one. In the massive crackdown of political opposition, the Tamil Nadu government was dissolved and the DMK’s leaders, including M Karunanidhi’s son were arrested. CJ Ray overruled all High Court pronouncements that ruled even after declaring Emergency, one may challenge his detention. This gave rise to an underground movement to restore democracy over dictatorship.

Gandhi invoked article 352 and granted herself extraordinary powers. Using her two-third majority in Parliament, she amended the Constitution to exonerate herself from her election-fraud case, and imposed President’s Rule in Gujarat and Tamil Nadu, where anti-Indira parties ruled. She also postponed elections for the next two years.

When elections were finally called in 1977, many of her loyalists deserted her. She lost and her party was reduced to just 153 seats without winning a single seat from Uttar Pradesh, a traditional Congress stronghold. Interestingly, 92 seats were from four of the southern states.

Gandhi’s role in creating and supporting terrorism in Sri Lanka must be viewed from this perspective, when everything was stacking up against her politically. It is little wonder JR Jayewardena turned to the U.S. and the American allies of the Cold War when Indira Gandhi became PM again in 1980.