Indian grant to be used for education, health sectors in Sri Lanka’s estate areas, says Minister Jeevan Thondaman

Jeevan Thondaman, Minister of Water Supply and Estate Infrastructure Development, Sri Lanka. Photo: Special Arrangement

The recently announced Indian grant of ₹75 crore, for development projects targeting Sri Lanka’s Malaiyaha [hill country] Tamils, will be used primarily for the education and health sectors in the island’s long-neglected tea estate region, according to Jeevan Thondaman, Minister of Water Supply and Estate Infrastructure Development.

“We want to use this grant for transformative change rather than aesthetic change in the lives of the Indian-origin Tamil community here. It is important that we create conditions for long-term impact,” said the 28-year-old Cabinet Minister, who is also the General Secretary of the Ceylon Workers’ Congress, the party of his late great grandfather Savumiamoorthy Thondaman, the iconic plantation Tamil leader and trade unionist.

Also read: Malaiyaha Tamils | Two hundred years of struggle

Speaking to The Hindu at his Colombo office on Tuesday, Minister Thondaman outlined the government’s plan for upgrading old creches in the estates into early childhood development centres, converting virtually defunct medical dispensaries into cluster hospitals to provide better healthcare for workers, and setting up a university.

The grant, amounting to roughly $9 million, was among the announcements made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s visit to New Delhi on July 21. It adds to India’s relatively recent engagement in Sri Lanka’s hill country. The Indian-origin Tamils or Malaiyaha Tamils, as some in the community prefer to identify, has a population of over a million, out of which about 1.5 lakh continue to work and reside in the tea estates, two centuries after their south Indian ancestors were brought down by the British as labourers.

Enduring deprivation

Highlighting the acute economic deprivation in the estate areas, Mr. Thondaman said: “If you look at malnutrition or stunted growth, it is the highest among the children in the estates.  That is why I say we need to transform their reality, and that means focusing on crucial sectors like education and health.” The Ministry will consult all stakeholders, voices from the opposition and civil society, to decide on the course of developmental initiatives, he said.  

The proposed, Indian grant-backed projects will be in addition to India’s ongoing housing programme in the hill country, aimed at building 14,000 homes — apart from the 50,000 houses built in the war-affected north and east — for families residing on the estates.

While appreciating the need for housing, the Minister expressed his reservations about any scheme building homes for people, seeing it as limited in its scope to create broader livelihood opportunities for families. “Personally, I think it is more important to ensure land rights for the people.” All the same, with nearly 4,000 units having been completed in the estates, the Ministry will focus on launching phase one of building the remaining 10,000 homes, whose construction has been delayed due to a host of factors, including the plantation companies’ refusal to provide the required land.

Also read | The long journey of a forgotten people

‘Duty of care’

Mr. Thondaman, who was part of President Wickremesinghe’s delegation to New Delhi, subsequently met Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin in Chennai, and discussed prospects for investment and collaboration, especially in education. “I conveyed to the Chief Minister our commemoration of the 200^th year of Indian Origin Tamils’ arrival in Sri Lanka.  As much as the Sri Lankan government has a responsibility towards our community, the governments of India and Tamil Nadu, too, owe a duty of care to us,” he said, referring to the Sirima–Shastri Pact of 1964. The “significant population of the community” residing in Tamil Nadu, he said, was “living proof” of the past injustices faced by the community.

Meanwhile, commenting on power devolution and the 13^th Amendment that India unfailingly flags in talks with the Sri Lankan side, Mr. Thondaman said: “It is really the failure of our [southern Sinhalese] leadership to pitch the 13^th Amendment as something that devolves powers to all provinces, and not as something that gives greater power to only Tamils. That is the reason that the Sinhalese see it as India-imposed, when what India really did [around the Indo-Lanka Accord of 1987] was facilitate democracy.”  

In his view, the political developments of the last 50 years have strained the historically close ties shared by the neighbours. “No two countries on this planet have ties as close as India and Sri Lanka spanning centuries,” he remarked. There is, however, a shift in perception more recently, he said. “The humanitarian help that India provided us during the economic crisis has made it amply clear to all Sri Lankans that India is a true friend. Moreover, the foreign policy of PM Modi and Mr. Jaishankar, batting for the Global South, is setting a precedent in the region,” he said.