Have you ever pondered over this question? Don¡¯t be in haste to answer. You should look into your past and present before jumping forward to answer.
¨Africa Addio or Farewell Africa is an Italian documentary film shot in 1964 and released in 1966. The film, by famous Italian documentary film directors Gualtiero Jacopetti and Franco E. Prosperi, is about the decolonization of Africa. Jacopetti and Prosperi were both liberal and progressive men, but that the directors blamed colonialism for creating the conditions that led too much of the violence depicted in the film.
Decolonization in Africa was brutal, horrid, stupid and genocidal. Immediately after decolonization, there were horrible tribal wars; there were horrible massacres of men, women and children of opposing tribes. Arabs, up to 30,000 of them, were singled out and massacred in Zanzibar. Rebellion in Congo, the Simbas committed mass cannibalism on the opposing forces. Hutus slaughtered 18,000 Tutsis. There are scenes all through the movie of scores or hundreds of bodies lying all over beaches, towns and jungles, or piled in mass graves. We watch the killers as they do their dirty work.
¨¨¨ ¡°Jahaji Bhai¡± is a documentary film with an Urdu title, which means brothers of the ship. These are not sailors of the same boat as the English idiom indicates but literally are slaves taken away in the same ship. These are bonded labour taken 167 years ago in ships to erstwhile colonies of the Caribbean region. Suresh Kumar Pillai had tried to capture their miseries in this documentary on a totally forgotten peoples. Why did people from India go to Caribbean¡¯s? The historical necessity arrives with the abolition of slavery in the nation ruled by white colored people. After the black race got reprieve from slavery, to work in the sugar plantations Indians from Chota Nagpur areas, mostly tribal people were lured into. The first ship left Calcutta in February 1838 and reached Guyana on May 5 th 1838. There were 420 hill coolies, as they were called; out of which 50 are women and 10 children. Many succumbed to diseases in mid way and those who reached there had either to perish under stress and strain within the 5-year contract period or to be killed for so called violations. In fact many ships went missing and no one was there to shed a single drop of tear. If an Indian coolie absented for 7 days he was fined $24 dollars, which is equivalent to 6 months wages. These Indians lost their roots and culture. While liberated Negro slaves climbed in the social ladder, Indians filled that vacuum at the rock bottom of society. They were induced to become addicts to alcoholism. With few women around polyandry became the order of the day. Africans joined Europeans to suppress the brown race. Picturing their everyday lives and showing lot of documentary proof with regard to their plight from various sources, Suresh Kumar Pillai in this documentary records an unknown chapter on Indian migration. Ravi Dev, Leader of the Roar Guyana Movement speaks for his fellow brethren and a 103 old man tries hard to recollect his fellow passengers of the ship that carried them from India, all shown in the documentary. While British India stopped labour supply due to awareness and campaigns, French India provided a fertile ground for hunting neo-slaves. Suresh Kumar Pillai had shot another documentary on these pathetic brethren. ¡°Songs of Malabaris¡± is a film on coolie migration from Pondicherry and its enclaves towards Caribbean sugar plantations. All South Indians are called as Malabaris or Madrasis it must be remembered. The French recruited the labourers mainly from Pondicherry, Karaikal, Chandranagore and Mahe and between 1854 and 1920 around 50,000 Indian labourers were taken to Guadeloupe and Martinique to work as coolies. It should be stressed that only Mahakavi Bharathiar immortalized the woes of the sugar plantation labourers in his poem¡±karumbu thottathile¡±. No one else bothered about our unfortunate kinsmen.
¡°The Song of Malabaries¡± for Nederland based OHM media network was telecast on Nederland National Television Channel in June 2004. Jahaji Bhai on the Indian communities in Guyana and Trinidad was widely circulated and telecast in several TV stations in Caribbean and India 2003]
¨¨ I had written in New Indian Express and ezine Voice of Voiceless about the Slaves, Tamils taken to colonies, but the necessity to update arose after Mr.Nagarathinam Krishna met me few days back. He hails from Pondicherry and settled in France. His novel Neelakkadal [Blue Seas] won Tamilnadu Government award won best Tamil novel written by a Non-Resident Indian for the year 2007. It was a novel with more history in it. I do not believe in reincarnation and other superstitions which are the pillars of the novel but he had brought history to light, the history of Puducherry Tamils taken as slaves to build the economy of Mauritius. He provides statistics for the year 1735. There were 648 slaves in 835 hutments, but in next five years it rose to 2612 slaves living in 2981 hutments. Out of this one third were slaves of the French rulers of Mauritius, rest under plantation owners. These Tamils started festivals for Mariamman, Kaliamman and Draupathiamman in the year 1772 especially fire walk, and kavadi attam from 1852 writes Ramoo Sooriamoorthy in page 157-158 of les tamouls a lie Maurice. Gods did not come to their rescue. There were illegal gangs operating in Puducherry to kidnap children, women and men to sell them as slaves. The novel contains wealth of information, and history must be extracted from the novel. One incident where a French man wants to urinate, the Tamil slave married woman had to help him ease in a pot and clean his system, just for few addition quantity of ration which can feed her husband and children. People live under the illusion that British treated Indians as subjects whereas French treated them as citizens. The dirty past of the Company rule, Role of Governors, their Tamil accomplices who turned blind eye to their own kinsmen¡¯s slavery and misery have to be brought out to public light.
¨ I read last night a book on Ho Chi Minh written by Yevgeny Kobelev. In that book few passages I would like to quote. ¡°What civilization are you talking about? Have you not heard about colonialists¡¯ cruelty? More prisons than schools and all of them crowded. Vietnamese have been stripped of elementary rights. We are oppressed but what is worse is that colonialists ply us with opium and drink. in order to make idiots out of us. You call that civilization.¡± The book narrates about peasant revolutions in Vietnam, and their struggles. But the point is the country of these colonialists of yesterday also gave Liberty, Equality and Fraternity as cardinal principles. Yet they plundered the colonies.
Now what we see in Tamil Eelam has no comparison in history. Whole Tamil race is forced to become slaves before our own eyes. Every minute think of the plight of Tamil women in detention camps of Rakapakshe, the living Satan on Earth, the reincarnation of Hitler who forgot Jews and opted to persecute Tamils.
Yesterday I told my friends that I intend to write a book ALWAYS SLAVES: TAMILS. We cannot remain silent or should not remain silent. We cannot wait for reincarnation or resurrection of Prabakaran. Redeeming fellow Tamils is neither the sole responsibility of LTTE. World waits for resurrection of LTTE or dreams for them to descend from skies to end Tamil misery. Are we not made out of flesh, brain and willpower? Are we inferior slaves who cannot take up the humanitarian issues before global forums? Are we impotent Indians who cannot awaken the conscience of India, are we not men with conscience to tell the world, Punish Rajapakshe for Tamil Genocide. This demand is not terrorist demand. This demand is not for homeland. This demand is not to infringe India¡¯s geo-political ambitions, blunders or dreams. As humans we want world to stop Sinhalese colonialism. If the world is civilized, it its leaders are proud to proclaim that days of colonialism are over, come on stand up and say to Rajapakhse, Free Tamils from Colonization. Free Tamil Women from Torture, Rape and Murder by Sinhalese Security Forces. If that could not be voiced, we have to think that we are not living in civilized world. If you allow cannibals to eliminate Tamils, if the world watches Tamils of Eelam forced into slavery, future history will curse you and me.Men of conscience across continents and countries, unite to redeem Tamils. Forget about any other agenda, Justice for Slaves of Tamil Eelam and Punishment for Genocide, these two must occupy our minds and actions. Let a global movement of all human beings voice these demands.
N.Nandhivarman
General Secretary Dravida Peravai
[62 nd birthday message]
