War for Tamil hearts

Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa may have pledged to strive for a settlement acceptable to all Tamils in Lanka, but that does not seem to have silenced his detractors in India and back home in Sri Lanka. This is the first official visit of the Lankan president after cleaning up the three-decade-old LTTE and the killing its chief V Prabhakaran last year. Prabhakaran could not garner much support from India due to his anti-India policy, but his cause still seems to strike a chord here, and is still alive in the hearts of many Indians. At least the big divide in the Indian entertainment industry over organising a cine award function – the International Indian Film Academy awards — in the island makes us believe so. Bollywood stars, including IIFA brand ambassador and superstar Amitabh Bachchan, chose to miss the show. Various Tamil groups urged the senior Bachchan to boycott the Colombo awards ceremony as they marched from his Pratiksha bungalow to his Jalsa residence in Mumbai last month.This is the first time in 11 years that Big B kept himself away from the annual award function. Bachchan wasn’t the only to give the show a miss. The event was insipid as Bollywood biggies like Shahrukh Khan, Aishwarya Rai and many others kept away from the show after the South Indian Film Chamber of Commerce threatened to boycott films of Bollywood stars attending the event. The event has already drawn the ire of the Tamil film fraternity, with popular figures like Rajnikanth, Kamal Hassan, Vijay, Ajith and Surya refusing to be associated in anyway with the IIFA. This displeasure and divide over the issue also propelled the Lankan president to keep away from the event after Bollywood stars did not make an appearance at a brunch hosted by him at Temple Trees (his official residence). Rajapaksa may have salvaged his nation from decades-old militancy, but is still found stumbling in the ruins of Tamil legacy. May be this is the time to wage another “war” to win Tamil hearts.