Towards citizenship in Thāmilīlam: Sri Lanka's Tamil people of the north, 1983–2010

Abstract

In establishing the de facto state of Thāmilīlam from 1990 onwards, the LTTE eliminated most of its Tamil rivals and mobilised the Tamil people for war in demanding ways. Despite its fascist character the Tiger state received the support of its subjects because it was understood to be a bulwark against Sinhala domination and the repository of sturdy Tamil nationalism, while the LTTE’s propaganda cultivated a devotional aura around its māvīrar (heroic dead). This article highlights the strength of Tamil nationalism by interweaving this dimension within empirical details that outline Tamil political shifts and processes of migration from the 1970s to the 2000s. The centre of gravity in Tamil politics shifted first in the 1970s from a Colombo–Jaffna axis to a Jaffna-centric one and then from the Jaffna Peninsula to the Kilinochchi–Mullaitivu locality in 1995–96. The second spatial shift underpins the argument that the people under the LTTE were citizens of Thāmilīlam. In technical terms they were dual citizens because they were also citizens of Sri Lanka. Where the latter claim was pressed—as it was, from different perspectives, by both the government of Sri Lanka and human rights advocates—one encountered a hegemonic imposition that denied the subjective feelings of those living within the de facto LTTE state. They were citizens of Thāmilīlam. As such, they were enemies of Sri Lanka.