A senior judge of the Madras High Court has said the ‘Hindu Tamils in Sri Lanka are victims of the racial strife’.
Justice G R Swaminathan wrote this in his judgement while directing the authorities to forward the application of a woman born to Sri Lankan immigrant parents for consideration of granting Indian citizenship.
The 29-year-old women was born in a refugee in the Tiruchirappalli district in central Tamil Nadu.
Correlating the recently amended Citizenship Act in India, Justice Swaminathan made the above comment.
“The Parliament has recently amended the Citizenship Act. The persecuted minorities from the immediate neighbourhood such as Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh now have an opportunity of getting Indian Citizenship. Though Sri Lanka does not fall within the said amendment, the very same principle is equally applicable. One can take judicial notice of the fact that the Hindu Tamils of Sri Lanka were the primary victims of racial strife. Though the Central Government has to take a call in the matter, there cannot be any impediment for considering the writ petitioner’s request.”
In his judgement he further pointed out the woman Abirami was born in India and has lived in the country all her life. Also, she did not hold Sri Lankan citizenship, and if she was denied Indian citizenship, she will be rendered stateless it added.
The court observed that Abirami’s parents had come to India in the 1990s as they could not continue living in Sri Lanka “on account of the ethnic strife”.
The judge said if her request was not adhered to, she would be rendered stateless.
“In the case in hand, though the petitioner is a descendant of migrant parents, she was born in India. She has never been a Sri Lankan citizen and therefore the question of renouncing the same does not arise. If the petitioner’s request is not granted, that would lead to her statelessness. That is the situation which has to be avoided,”
The authorities too came in for some criticism from the judge, who said the State government and the district authorities should have forwarded her application for citizenship to the Federal government to take a final decision.
Accepting her petition for the issuance of an Indian passport the judge gave the state and the Federal government sixteen weeks’ time to decide on the matter.
While delivering his judgement Justice Swaminathan said he also relied on one of his earlier judgments in 2019 and quoted from it.
“The petitioners have amply demonstrated that they have formed the intention of making India their permanent home. The Government of India had given an undertaking that they will not be compulsorily sent back to Sri Lanka. Therefore, the case on hand presents a rather unique situation. In mythology, there is a region called “Thirisangu Sorgam” (loosely meaning neither here nor there) The petitioners are in a similar situation. They have come away from Sri Lanka, but they have not been absorbed here. But the camps in which they have been housed are far from being a Sorgam (heaven). The camp conditions are hellish”.
Justice Swaminathan in the said earlier judgment of his has also spoken about the life of those who arrived from Sri Lanka and living in camps. His judgement in a related case in 2019 pointed out that the petitioners, in that case, have been living in camps for close to 35 years.
“The petitioners have been in camps for close to 35 years. Keeping them under surveillance and severely restricted conditions and in a state of statelessness for such a long period certainly offends their right under Article 21 of the Constitution of India”.
He also strongly criticised the state and the federal governments for not approaching the issue in a humane and pragmatic way and rather going by the strict edicts of the law. Stating those who came to India faced a grave threat to their lives and had to seek asylum in India.
“A person who is running for his life cannot obviously be expected to wait for a visa. Therefore, viewing the petitioners’ case through the prism of the technical
requirements of law does not appear to be a humanitarian approach.”
Human Rights activists and a batch of attorneys from Tamil Nadu recently met the India’s junior minister for external affairs V Muraleedharan, who according to them assured that the case relating to Sri Lankan Tamils living in refugee camps in Tamil Nadu would be sympathetically considered by the Federal Government.
However, attorneys are cautiously optimistic that granting of Indian citizenship to those arrived from Sri Lanka would be on a case-to-case basis and will not apply uniformly based on this judgement.
