Unheard Voices: Atrocities against Eastern Hindu Tamils during the IPKF Era and the Politics of Selective Memory in Sri Lanka

President Nila
20 hours ago
5 min read

Author:

Balananthini Balasubramaniam

Freelance Journalist | Human Rights Analyst | Founder, Small Drops NGO

Abstract

This article re-examines overlooked dimensions of Sri Lanka’s civil conflict, specifically the atrocities committed against Eastern Hindu Tamils during the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) occupation (1987–1990). While global discourse often focuses on the LTTE’s 1990 expulsion of Northern Moors, little attention is paid to the systematic violence, displacement, and cultural erosion suffered by Tamil Hindus in Batticaloa and Ampara. These atrocities were enabled by a complex matrix involving Sri Lankan state intelligence, local home guards, and a critical alliance with Eastern Sri Lankan Moors. This period marks a turning point in demographic and economic restructuring in the East, where Tamil Hindu vulnerabilities were exploited as the LTTE fought for survival. The article also highlights how misinformation provided by exiled Tamil factions to Indian agencies obscured this reality, thereby shaping a one-sided international narrative that persists to this day.

Keywords:

Sri Lanka, IPKF, Eastern Tamils, Sri Lankan Moors, EPRLF, ENDLF, Batticaloa, Hindu Atrocities, Land Grabs, Intelligence Collaboration, Ethnic Politics

1. Introduction

Sri Lanka’s civil war has generated immense international attention, but several critical dimensions remain underexplored. Chief among them is the suffering of Eastern Hindu Tamils during the IPKF era (1987–1990), when the Tamil militant landscape was fractured, and the Indian military’s presence created space for paramilitary proxies and state-backed actors to execute targeted campaigns. This article investigates how this period allowed Sri Lankan state intelligence—operating in coordination with select segments of the Eastern Sri Lankan Moor community—to marginalize and displace Tamil Hindus from their traditional homelands.

2. Misplaced Spotlight: Northern Moors vs. Eastern Hindu Realities

The expulsion of approximately 75,000 Northern Moors by the LTTE in 1990 remains a dominant reference point in both Sri Lankan and global discourse. While undeniably tragic and unjustifiable, this event has eclipsed a broader spectrum of violence. Eastern Hindu Tamils, particularly in Batticaloa and Ampara, experienced sustained attacks, displacements, and erasure of their socio-cultural institutions during the same period—a narrative conveniently omitted from reconciliation dialogues.

3. The IPKF Period (1987–1990): A Landscape of Fragmentation and Violence

With the arrival of the Indian Peace Keeping Force in 1987 under the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord, Tamil militant factions splintered. The LTTE rejected Indian oversight and fought back, engaging in brutal guerrilla warfare against IPKF troops. Amid this chaos, groups like the EPRLF and ENDLF emerged as India's favored allies and occupied political space left by the LTTE. With Indian and Sri Lankan backing, they worked to suppress Tamil nationalist resistance—often targeting Hindu civilians in the process.

According to Mouna Puthakalikalkal, a Tamil-language compendium of field testimonies compiled by Manalaaru Viyajan, over 2,500 unarmed Hindu civilians were massacred in more than a dozen villages across Batticaloa and Ampara during this time. The violence was not spontaneous; it followed clear patterns of temple desecration, land appropriation, and targeted assassinations—all under the gaze or with the support of state intelligence units.

4. J.R. Jayewardene’s Strategy: Weaponizing Chaos

President J.R. Jayewardene is infamously quoted as saying: “Let the LTTE and the IPKF fight each other; we will watch.” This statement encapsulates Colombo’s strategy—using the civil war and India’s involvement as a smokescreen for internal power plays. This passive-aggressive posture enabled intelligence agencies and local actors to manipulate the vacuum of accountability for their own ends. The primary casualties were Hindu civilians in the East, caught between warring factions and increasingly vulnerable to targeted attacks.

5. Eastern Moors and Intelligence Collaboration: A Tactical Alliance

One of the most underreported dynamics of this era is the strategic alliance between segments of the Eastern Sri Lankan Moor community and state intelligence agencies. While the LTTE was stretched thin, battling both IPKF and rival Tamil factions, Eastern Moors—especially those with ties to state security—assumed roles as informants, paramilitary collaborators, and intermediaries in land and economic redistribution.

This collaboration took multiple forms:

Intelligence sharing: Identifying LTTE strongholds or Hindu nationalist communities.

Home guard participation: Acting as armed village defense units under the protection of state forces.

Demographic manipulation: Engaging in land encroachment and appropriation, often after Hindu families were displaced.

These actions set in motion a silent yet effective campaign of ethno-religious restructuring in Eastern Sri Lanka.

6. Paramilitary Enforcement: EPRLF, ENDLF, and Misinformation Warfare

The EPRLF and ENDLF became tools of both Indian and Sri Lankan interests. Their Marxist ideologies clashed with LTTE's ethno-nationalist vision, and their operations often targeted traditional Hindu leaders, priests, and educators. These groups acted as enforcers for state intelligence goals—arresting, assassinating, and terrorizing communities seen as sympathetic to the LTTE.

Meanwhile, misinformation campaigns by exiled TELO and PLOTE factions in Tamil Nadu distorted the Indian policy response. Masquerading under the identities of EPRLF and ENDLF, these groups provided false or incomplete intelligence to Indian agencies, ensuring that Eastern Tamil suffering remained invisible in Indian policy circles.

7. Engineered Displacement and Cultural Erosion (1987–1990)

Beyond killings, Eastern Hindus faced cultural annihilation. Land was seized or sold under coercion. Sacred temple spaces were desecrated or converted. In many cases, Hindu women were pressured into marriage arrangements that further diluted communal identity and broke traditional kinship ties.

Businesses once owned by Hindus were overtaken by Sri Lankan Moors with state protection. Agricultural lands were redistributed or occupied, often formalized through manipulated state land registry systems. This marked not just a conflict, but a planned appropriation of identity and future.

8. Strategic Gains and the Post-War Moor Ascendancy

By the 1990s, when the LTTE reasserted control in the East, the demographic and economic landscape had already changed. Eastern Moors, having used the IPKF period to entrench themselves economically and politically, now held sway in local governance, business, and land ownership.

Today:

They dominate commercial zones that were once Hindu-majority.
Religious institutions once central to Tamil Hindu culture have diminished or disappeared.
Demographic statistics reveal a shift that can be traced directly to displacements from 1987–1990.

This transformation was neither organic nor coincidental—it was engineered.

9. Conclusion: Toward Honest Reconciliation

The path to reconciliation cannot be built on selective memory. While the 1990 expulsion of Northern Moors remains rightly condemned, it must not be used to overshadow the systemic displacement, violence, and erasure experienced by Eastern Hindu Tamils. These atrocities were committed during a moment when Tamil nationalist forces were weakest—embroiled in survival struggles against foreign occupation and internal betrayal.

For reconciliation to be just, it must include all narratives. Eastern Hindus—displaced, silenced, and misrepresented—deserve not only acknowledgment but redress. Only by illuminating these shadows can Sri Lanka move toward an inclusive and truthful post-conflict future.

References

Manalaaru Viyajan. Mouna Puthakalikalkal. [Tamil testimony collection]
University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna) reports
Small Drops NGO field interviews and oral histories
Indian and Sri Lankan news archives, 1987–1992
Testimonies from displaced Eastern Hindu families

United Kingdom | 28 May 2025 | 11:44 AM

(Disclaimer: Few images are AI generated and are used for representational purposes only)

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