RIFLE RANGE BOY: LTTE

The Family Man (Miniseries, Season 1,2; 2019-21)
Amazon Prime

I would not have given a damn to this web series if not for the adverse publicity it garnered after the release of its trailer for the second season. Many people and leaders from the ruling party from the state of Tamil Nadu were up in arms and wanted the show to be banned. But, as they say in showbiz lingo, any news is good news. All that hoopla just piqued the interest of even those remotely interested in the turmoil perpetrated on India by its neighbours. Suddenly everybody took an interest and have become experts on India's strategic defence. Its detractors, however, say that it is India's uninvited meddling of their affairs that is at fault. But, perhaps, it is not so straightforward.

India, much like Israel, is surrounded by neighbours who try to correct their cognitive dissonance by shoving down their narrow and destructive ideologies across their borders. However, practising passive resistance or turning the other cheeks will not this time, hence the preventive defensive measures.

TASC is a fictitious branch of India's National Investigation Agency (NIA). Its main objective is (like Minority Report) to whiff off any potential threats and nip it off at the bud. It does its work via its telecommunication intelligence and contacts. The protagonist of the story, Srikanth Tiwari, leads this highly sensitive and secretive agency. Even Srikanth's family thinks that he is just a paper-pushing civil servant who appears busier than he actually is. Srikanth has a wife, a teacher, and two teenage children. The stories of the two seasons comprise Srikanth's manoeuvering his roles of a high-level espionage and a family man without these two functions overlapping.

Season One narrates TASC's supervision of three captured ISIS terrorists. It reveals a twisted plan involving ISI of Pakistan and a grand scheme to cause significant damage to India. Srikanth has to handle his children's teenage angst, his wife's possible infidelity, and the demand for further affluence in life on his home front.

It is the second season that captured everybody hearts. After achieving only half success in trying to avert a major chemical poisoning of New Delhi where 80 over citizens perished (but 1 million over were saved), Tewari leaves the force to join the private sector. After a gruelling exercise trying to fit into the new age labour force, he is relieved when his boss calls him back. Apparently, the baddies from Season 1, an ex-Major from the Pakistani and an ISIS terrorist, have joined forces with the remnants of what sounds like LTTE to plan a major assassination attempt on Indian PM, which she is scheduled to meet the Sri Lankan PM for talks.

The storytellers took the liberty to take parts of what happened in history more than 30 years ago to retrofit it to the storyline. A clandestine Sri Lanka Tamil militant group in the Northern part of the island, akin to LTTE, is decimated by the Government Army led by General Rupatunga. The rebel leaders, however, escape; two to the UK and one to Tamil Nadu. Many years later, the rebel leaders in exile managed to get recognition for an independent Tamil country, within Sri Lanka, from many foreign countries.

India and Sri Lanka are at peace. The Prime Minister agrees to capture and return the rebel who is hiding in Chennai. Unfortunately, he is accidentally killed in the ambush. This angers the rebel leaders in the UK. One of them teams up with the ex-Pakistan army from Season 1 and an ISIS terrorist to assassinate the Indian PM, who has an uncanny resemblance to West Bengal CM, Mamta Banerjee, who will be meeting his Sri Lankan counterpart in Chennai for bilateral talk. The dormant rebels and sympathisers all rally up for this big event.

Chellam Sir

Twitter's favourite meme trigger.

This is where Tewari and his team come in with their expertise to avert the crime. They team up with the Tamil Nadu police for this mission. Unlike most Bollywood and Hindi productions, this show does not look at the Tamilians condescendingly or make fun of their accents or mannerism. If anything, it tries to avert stereotyping of the South of India into one homogenous piece of culture.

Meanwhile, Srikanth's domestic problems escalate. When the top is shaky, the bottom crumbles. His children go wayward. His 15 years girl befriends an older boy who is actually an ally of ISIS.

A lovable character worthy of mention is that of a retired NIA agent, Chellam. HE is Srikanth's contact in Chennai about the Sri Lankan Tamil rebels. He appears in disguises and camouflage and is described as the most paranoid person in the world. Fans are already talking about spin-offs based on his work experience, or possibly he could be a double-crosser! Srikanth's sidekick blended well into his role. His nemesis, the lean, mean fighting machine in Raji, is a shift from the usual larger-than-life portrayal of a female Indian actress.

Raji as the emotionally-drained rebel
Samatha Akkineni

So, what was all the controversy about the show? Nothing actually. After viewing the trailer, many thought it would be harping on the historical events that occurred during the 1990s when LTTE was hunted down by Sri Lankan Singhala Government. The State of Tamil Nadu, bonded with Northern Sri Lanka via a common language, Tamil, were sympathetic to the rebel cause. They provided asylum and a base for their activities. The Indian Central Government, however, were o the same page with the Lankan government for peace on the island. The rebels saw that as encouraging the Lankan army to basically carry out genocide. That culminated in Rajiv Gandhi's assassination by a suicide squad during a political rally.

As it always happens, people who know the least make the loudest noise. People demand a ban without viewing a performance or reading a book. In their simple minds, if everybody else says so, it must be right. In the eyes of the learned, it is the Kruger-Dunning effect in its full glory.

[P.S. The state powers in Tamil Nadu are getting hot under their collars about this series as the state is trying to get the seven people sentenced for life pardoned for Rajiv Gandhi's assassination commuted by the Indian President after spending 30 years behind bars. The powers that be are fearful that the public sentiment may be rekindled of a time when their leader was blown away with plastic-bomb impregnated garland.]

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Madras Café (Hindi, 2013)
Director: Shoojit Sircar

It all started with the British and the Christian missionaries. The colonial masters decided to modernise their colonies. The British evangelists took charge of the South of Ceylon while the Americans built schools in the northern half. The American preachers, who were assigned a predominantly Tamil population, emphasised Science and Mathematics teaching. The schism started there. The people from the North were more well prepared to meet the challenges of the new world. After independence, the ruling majority from the South imposed affirmative actions to balance the scale.

In came Solomon Bandaranaike, a Singhalese with an illustrious family background which even included a knighted father and a British godfather. Solomon, an Anglophile, an Oxford graduate, was more white than Snow White. He could not speak the local lingo and did not practice Buddhism. He served in the Ceylon legal administration after his return from the UK in the mid-1920s. Ceylon became independent Sri Lanka in 1947. In the early 1950s, he entered politics at a time when Singhalese consciousness was escalating. The push for the Singhalese language was at its heights.

Solomon started donning Buddhist robes and fought for the Singhalese course. He won the 1956 elections with a landslide and became Prime Minister. Now, as the head of the country, he tried to mend bridges with the Tamil minorities. Unfortunately, his supporters looked at it as a turncoat, and the Buddhist monks got him assassinated. The affirmative action, which was set up to improve the Singhalese representation in the Sri Lankan society, only created brain drain and loathing of the Tamils against the ruling majority. As a result, hundreds of thousands of Tamil professionals from the Jaffna district seek greener pastures elsewhere.

Those Jaffnese Tamil left behind had to fight for a place in the sun. Soon came militant resistance groups in the 70s and 80s to defend their homeland in the form of LTTE.

This movie, 'Madras Café', starts a few years before Rajiv Gandhi is assassinated during his election rally in Tamil Nadu. Indian intelligence had warned the entourage about attempts on the leader's life, but protocols were breached by both the local administration and the politicians. Perhaps, there was collaboration at the State levels, as alleged by certain quarters. The Tamil Tigers perfected the art of suicide bombing and RDX plastic bombs, which escape metal detectors during routine inspections.

At the outset, the filmmakers insist that the story is a work of fiction based on intense research. However, it is as clear as day that it clearly describes the intricacies surrounding the upheaval in Sri Lanka, the political ploy of the Sri Lankan leaders, the Tamil moles, and the double-crossings by Indian intel officers. Moreover, it narrates a close to reality the events behind the scene as espionage, power wrangling, and negotiations.

The Indian Government wants a peaceful distribution of power in Sri Lanka. They want to weaken the Tamil Tigers by instigating leaders within LTTE to fight each other. Tamil Nadu government and its people are sympathetic to the Jaffna Tamils because of their common language. Hence, there are attempts of sabotage at Delhi's efforts. On top of all that, there are foreign powers who benefit from the region's continued instability.

Thirty years have gone, and the seven convicted of planning Rajiv's assassination are pleading clemency to be released after time served. Their appeal is supported by the current CM of Tamil Nadu, Mr MK Stalin.

It is a bitter lesson for nations who opt for affirmative action to modulate social engineering. In the final, the intended target group will be too laid back. The already advantaged group will fly away, and the nation will be a basket case, ruled by despot and sycophants over a broken society.