Agilan Thadchanamoorthy ( Tamil Abstract): The Changes Diaspora has made in Sri Lankan Tamils’ Life in India
In the Diasporic Sri Lankan Tamils’ life, economically much impoverished and refugee life’s very worst survival struggles are faced by the Sri Lankan Tamil refugees in India. This research paper is about the changes that the ‘diaspora’ status and wandering around have made in their lives.
Diaspora and wandering as nomads have become big challenges when it comes to keeping the Eelam Tamil identities or cultural structures. More specifically, the destruction in Eelam Tamil colloquial dialect occurs in Diaspora. When in fact, that is an identity of Eelam Tamils.
Identity is not always one-sided in nature. It contains shades of different colors inside. Tamils have been told as an identity of one ethnic group. However, one cannot approach that identity plainly. Inside itself, it [the particular Tamil speaking identity] includes many different national, territorial and religious factors. In the [Western] Diaspora there is no outside environment where you can speak Tamil. The main outcome of this is that it has changed a generation’s nature of thinking. In this environment, they have to translate the foreign country’s language into Tamil inside their minds, and have to conduct a conversation after, understanding the words in Tamil. In this process Tamil language is slowly eliminated from their minds. Today, Diaspora’s second generation’s language, in which their thoughts are processed, have changed. Mostly as, of the language of whatever the country they live in.
The way refugee lifestyle in Tamil Naadu eats away our language is different. Even though, in the outside it appears as Tamil language functions as one identity, the reality is far way from it. Here also, all the above mentioned national, territorial and religious differences function. But there are subtle differences between the destruction of language in an European refugee life setting and in the Tamil Naadu Eelam Tamil refugee life setting. Though the language in which you think or your thoughts are processed is Tamil [in both Eelam & Tamil Naadu], the dialect and the ancient words of Eelam and their meanings are losing their colours in Tamil Naadu. Tamil as a Big Identity digests the self-identity (or individuality) of Eelam dialect. The word ‘Oom’ for example, which in colloquial Eelam Tamil is an agreement, becomes fully alien in Tamil Naadu setting and is substituted with the word ‘Aama’ of Tamil Naadu dialect. Like this, all the work-plans of daily life is filled with alternative/substitute words of Tamil Naadu.
Losing words do not only end with losing dialect. The words and the language are the factors that represent an ethnic group’s culture. In the refugee life of Eelam Tamils in Tamil Naadu, the first step in losining their identity is: to fully change their way of pronouncing their unique Eelam Tamil dialect to Tamil Naadu way. If the pronunciation of the language gives me the identity of an “Eelam Tamil”, I have to abandon it.
Why do I have to abandon words? Because they betray me. When my mouth speaks the Eelam slang, here i am seen as a terrorist. Seeing Eelam Tamils as Tigers or representatives of Tigers and calling them secondarily as ‘Ceylonese’ are common in Tamil Naadu. The very dialect frightens, pushing them into dangerous grounds, and alienating them from their Tamil Naadu social setting, where they happened to live.This results in abandoning of their dialect. Apart from this, to assimilate with the social environment they live in, they also tend to forcefully adapt the Tamil Naadu dialect into their conversations because of the social compulsion to conform.
This research paper tries to examine how for the past 3 decades, losing their lands to the war and violence and living in Tamil Naadu, has affected the second generation of Eelam Tamil refugee community, and whether or not they would be able to keep their identities.The Changes Diaspora has made in Sri Lankan Tamils’ Life in India.
Biographical Statement
Agilan Thadchanamoorthy was born in 1983 in war torn Northern Part of Sri Lanka and lived in Kilinochchi until his departure to India in 2006. In Kilinochchi, he was a journalist, photographer and blogged occasionally. Agilan’s interests in arts and visual media has drawn him towards world cinema and making of cinema, which allows him work as an assistant director in Chennai. Furthermore, his interests in writing and publishing has made him the publishing, distributing and online marketing personnel of Vadaly Publishers [http://vadaly.com/shop/?page_id=252]. His published works include: thanimaiyin nilal kudai [poetry collection, published in 2007] & auto-fiction Maranaththin vaasanai [The Smell of Death, 2008]. The Blog he maintains from early 2006 is: agiilankanavu.blogspot.com and his current website is: http://www.agiilan.com/. His contact info: T.agiilan@gmail.com .
