How a tone deaf New Delhi botched it in Jaffna

On January 18, the Indian High Commission announced on X the renaming of the Jaffna Cultural Center as ‘Thiruvalluvar Cultural Center’, “in honour of the great Tamil poet-philosopher Thiruvalluvar”. High Commissioner Santosh Jha and Sri Lanka’s Minister of Buddhasasana, Religious and Cultural Affairs Hiniduma Sunil Senevi jointly unveiled the new name at a special event held in Jaffna. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Minister of External Affairs S Jaishankar, retweeted the Indian High Commission's tweet praising the renaming. Tamil Nadu Governor R N Ravi also lauded it.

Thus began a saga that showed once again how New Delhi has become so tone deaf to the sensitivities of the people in the neighbourhood, and its foreign policy vision so clouded by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)'s domestic agenda that it is losing long-time friends and influence undoing its good work in the region.

The Jaffna Cultural Centre was a thoughtful $12 million gift from India to the war-ravaged northern Sri Lanka. Conceived in 2011, construction on the 11-storey building with a modern auditorium, the only high rise structure in the peninsula, was completed in 2021. As the municipal council did not have the funds to run it, India agreed to fund the centre for five years. The building was formally handed over to ‘the people of Jaffna’ in 2023 by then Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe.

So where does Thiruvalluvar come in? The Sangam era Tamil saint-poet-philosopher is revered by Tamils everywhere. In Tamil Nadu, the BJP has been trying to saffronise Thiruvalluvar as it seeks to make inroads in the state.

The BJP manifesto for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, in which the party hoped to win big in the southern state, included the promise of “Establishing Thiruvalluvar Cultural Centres Globally” “to showcase Bharat’s rich culture” and “to promote Bharat’s rich democratic traditions going back millennia as the Mother of Democracy”.

In September, during a visit to Singapore, Modi promised the Tamil diaspora that India would establish the first Thiruvalluvar Centre there. Tamil Nadu BJP president K Annamalai was among the first to praise the announcement. The plan changed, perhaps due to the financial implications and the timeline. The Tamil Nadu Assembly elections are due in May 2026. Setting up a centre from scratch within that timeframe was not going to be possible. But a readymade one was available.

That is how Jaffna in Sri Lanka became the first place where a Thiruvalluvar Centre met this promise. Sri Lankan journalist D B S Jeyaraj described it as an “instant Thiruvalluvar Centre like instant noodles”. The decision to rename the Jaffna Cultural Centre was conveyed to the Indian High Commission by the Prime Minister's Office.

When the backlash started, it took New Delhi by surprise. The original name was a deliberate choice. Sri Lanka's Tamil minority see Jaffna as the historic and cultural heart of the Tamil North and East. It was all but destroyed in the 30-year-long ethnic conflict. Right at the start of the conflict in 1983, Sinhala mobs torched the Jaffna Public Library, sending up in flames its collection of Tamil books and manuscripts.

Even though a vast number of Tamils fled the conflict and took refuge abroad, Jaffna has remained central to Tamil politics and identity. The cultural centre, soaring high against the skyline, is symbolic of the one time heights of Tamil culture in Sri Lanka, and the community's determination to overcome the devastation and trauma of the conflict and reclaim those heights.

The arbitrary change angered people, more so because no Jaffna representative was consulted – none of the members of parliament, and not even the fisheries minister, who is the lone Tamil member of the Anura Kumara Dissanayake Cabinet. The minister, Ramalingam Chandrashekhar, who was present at the renaming function, is reported to have said that he had no prior information. Adding insult to injury, the Tamil translation of the name came last, after English and Sinhala.

Former fisheries minister Douglas Devananda was the first political heavyweight to issue an angry statement, stressing the importance of Jaffna to Tamil identity.

As public resentment grew, the second oldest Tamil political party, Ilankai Tamil Arasu Katchi (ITAK), wrote to the Indian consul general in Jaffna expressing “anguish” over the name change. ITAK's representation stressed that while their opposition was not to Thiruvalluvar, Jaffna as a symbol of Sri Lankan Tamil identity was precious and must be restored in the name.

In New Delhi the penny finally dropped. Still, it did not wish to give in entirely. Indian diplomats in Colombo first suggested the compromise ‘Thiruvalluvar Cultural Centre, Jaffna’. The Tamil side protested that this made Jaffna sound like a mere address. They settled on ‘Jaffna Thiruvalluvar Cultural Centre’, but the Tamils are still chafing at India's ‘big brother’ attitude.

The controversy comes at a time when China has been making efforts to court the Tamil people, who have been historically close to India due to the shared ethnic and cultural links with Tamil Nadu. India backed the Sri Lankan Tamil struggle for its political aspirations including a misjudged decision to support Tamil militancy, and its intervention led to a constitutional amendment for devolution.

The relationship has not been smooth, however, and in recent years, the Tamils have been disappointed with New Delhi downplaying the Tamil issue to forge closer ties with Colombo due to concerns about Chinese influence on the Sinhala polity. The large-scale poaching by Tamil Nadu fishermen in Sri Lankan waters is another issue on which emotions run high against India in Jaffna.

This Republic Day, the Indian consul general at Jaffna said in a public address that India was the friend on “whose door the Tamil people of Sri Lanka could knock any time”. He said India had gone beyond its bilateral relationship to stand with the Tamil people, and asked the community to “understand who your friends are and who are against you”. Even if some decisions had created differences, the Jaffna consulate would keep the interests and welfare of the people in mind, he assured.

Sure, differences can be overcome. But the altered name board of what was once the Jaffna Cultural Centre is one of those ‘differences’ that is bound to stare the Tamils of Jaffna in the face every day. 

Nirupama Subramanian is an independent journalist. X: @tallstories.

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.