Berlin wall

A few weeks back, I was in Berlin for an official trip and had a chance to visit 'the wall'. While history has not always been my stronghold, it has succeeded in gaining my interest recently. 

Berlin was celebrating its 25 years of the downfall of the Berlin which clearly marked the end of Cold War. Being the center of cold war between the then USSR and USA, Berlin suffered from the difference in ideologies of East and West while reviving after Hitler's impact. This is one of those cities which is not ashamed to embrace the shame of the past which has helped the city greatly to rise like a phoenix after every defeat of mankind's important wars (WW1, WW2, cold war). 

I was reading an article in Mashable with pictures depicting the rise and fall of the wall. Sharing the entire content here.

BTW, here are some of my tour pics if you are interested - https://www.flickr.com/photos/8878828@N08/

Sources:

http://mashable.com/2014/11/09/berlin-wall-construction/?utm_cid=mash-com-fb-main-link

http://mashable.com/2014/11/06/berlin-wall-fence/?utm_cid=lf-toc

1961

The men who built 

the Berlin Wall

Constructing the Cold War barrier brick by brick

The 140-kilometer Berlin Wall was in fact two barriers. The first was constructed rapidly in August 1961.  The second, parallel barrier, 100 meters into the Eastern zone, was erected in June 1962.  

The area in between the two barriers was known as the Death Strip. 

The wall was initially constructed as a wire fence. By its demise in 1989, it consisted of 45,000 sections of reinforced concrete.  At key points, the wall was deliberately made weaker so Soviet military vehicles could swiftly break through in a time of war. 

IMAGE: PATRICE HABANS/PARIS MATCH/GETTY IMAGES

No one has the intention of erecting a wall!

WALTER ULBRICHT

EAST GERMAN HEAD OF STATE, JUNE 1961.

IMAGE: KEYSTONE FRANCE

IMAGE: POPPERFOTO/GETTY IMAGES

IMAGE: ROBERT LACKENBACH/THE LIFE IMAGES COLLECTION/GETTY IMAGES

East Berlin border guards adding barbed wire to the newly built Berlin Wall.

IMAGE: POPPERFOTO/GETTY IMAGES

July 5, 1962

On Berlin's Bernauer Street, the Volkspolice built a larger wall next to the old one.

IMAGE: KEYSTONE-FRANCE

East German workmen reinforce the Berlin Wall by putting glass fragments on top of the brickets.

IMAGE: GETTY IMAGES

West Berlin children building a play wall.

Berlin is the testicle of the West. When I want the West to scream, I squeeze on Berlin

NIKITA KHRUSHCHEV, LEADER OF THE SOVIET UNION

IMAGE: PATRICE HABANS/PARISMATCH/SCOOP/GETTY IMAGES

After World War II, the Potsdam Conference had divided Germany into four occupied zones, each under the control of one of the allies: France, Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union. Berlin, the capital, lay in the eastern section controlled by Russia and was itself divided into sectors.

The Soviets had already erected a heavily fortified barrier between East and West Germany, which made West Berlin a small capitalist island in the middle of a Communist state. 

In the beginning, subway trains ran between the two territories. New passport rules proved ineffectual at stemming the flow of dissatisfied East Germans to the west, a flow which bled Soviet East Germany of economic power.

IMGE: PATRICE HABANS/PARISMATCH/SCOOP/GETTY IMAGES

Between 1948 and 1961, 3 million people had fled the Communist state, representing one-sixth of East Germany's population. By August 1961, an average 2,000 people made the one-way journey from East to West Berlin each and every day. 

IMAGE: PATRICE HABANS/PARISMATCH/SCOOP/GETTY IMAGES

Before the wire barrier, it was still possible to move between East and West Berlin. The barbed wire rendered that close to impossible. But, as these pictures show, even the wire was not strong enough to contain desperate people.

IMAGE: PATRICE HABANS/PARISMATCH/SCOOP/GETTY IMAGES

IMAGE: PATRICE HABANS/PARISMATCH/SCOOP/GETTY IMAGES

So began the creation of what was officially dubbed the "Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart." Checkpoints between the two sides were shut down, and the wire became the wall. 

For almost three decades, the wall cut Berlin in two. More than 100 people would die trying to make it across.

IMAGE: PATRICE HABANS/PARISMATCH/SCOOP/GETTY IMAGES

IMAGE: PATRICE HABANS/PARISMATCH/SCOOP/GETTY IMAGES

IMAGE: PATRICE HABANS/PARISMATCH/SCOOP/GETTY IMAGES

IMAGE: PATRICE HABANS/PARISMATCH/SCOOP/GETTY IMAGES

Sources:

http://mashable.com/2014/11/09/berlin-wall-construction/?utm_cid=mash-com-fb-main-link

http://mashable.com/2014/11/06/berlin-wall-fence/?utm_cid=lf-toc

Kamal.. Oh கமல் !

Kamal Hassan's instincts..

1) In 1978, his tamil movie “Sivappu Rojakal” got released. He played the role of a Psychopath killer (femicide).One year later, a guy called
Psycho Raman was caught for brutally murdering people especially women.

2) In 1988, kamal played the role of a unemployed youth in the movie “Sathya”. In 89-90’s our country faced lot of problems due to unemployment.

3) In 1992, his blockbuster movie “Devar Magan” got released. Its a village based subject. There will be some scenes portraying communal clashes. Exactly a year later in 1993, there were many communal clashes in southern districts.

4) We all know in 1996 many people in our country was cheated by finance companies. Our Kamal Hasan has clearly depicted this in his movie “mahanadhi” which got released in 1994 itself.

5) In “heyram”(2000), there are some scenes relating to Hindu Muslim clashes . We all know 2 years later, godhra(Gujarat riots) incident happened.

6) He used a word called ‘tsunami’ in his movie “Anbesivam”(2003).The word ‘tsunami’ was not known to many people before. In 2004, ‘tsunami’ stuck the east coast of our country and many people lost their lives.

7) In ”Vettaiyadu Vilayadu ”(2006) there are two characters called ila & amudhan who played the roles of psychopath killers. After 3 months of release of the movie, the noida serial killing came to light (moninder/sathish)

8) The world is talking about the Ebola virus now, but the star actor has once again made heads turn, as he had mentioned about in his film 'Dasavatharam' in 2008. In the scene where he tries to get back the parcel which contains the bio weapon, Kamal says "It's a synthetic bio weapon, It's a Ebola -Marburg combination. It's very lethal."

கமல் respect !

Reasons to travel

I have been travelling quite a bit lately - Toronto, Luxembourg, Amsterdam, Brussels, Paris, parts of Turkey etc. While I am elated at this new experience, I also feel humbled and surprised on how things could be so different and similar from what I thought I know. In short, I am learning !

Pondering about all this, I stumbled upon this short excellent article - http://thoughtcatalog.com/scott-percelay/2013/10/10-reasons-why-traveling-makes-you-a-better-person/

DST explained

And finally, there is a proper and convincing explanation for the offset in time.

Visualize the countries

Lankan Tamil civil war

Read this post below from Quora that very well briefs about the conflict of Tamils in Lanka. More posts here:
http://www.quora.com/India/What-is-Indias-involvement-in-LTTE-movement

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The Sri Lankan Civil war has a complex dynamics. As a kid I lived in a region where Sri Lankan TV & Jaffna Radio was the only signal we got as Doordarshan often had poor reception. Many of the people there had very emotional relationships with Lanka. One of my 1st grade friends had a name Ravanan (his father's name was Indrajeet) and he used to say he will revenge for IPKF (happened during my kindergarten). Even as a kid he used to make small clay pellets to use with catapults that he said will use for Tamil freedom. I never understood then why he was such a lunatic. 
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Part 1: Demographics
There are three main groups here:

1. Sinhalese - who are predominantly Buddhist or Christian. 74% of Srilankans are Sinhalese. These people are believed to have migrated from Bengal, 2500 years ago. Prince Vijaya. 
   
   
2. Srilankan Tamils - who are predominantly Hindu. These people are there in the island, since antiquity. According to some people in TN, the Hindu character of Ravan was a Tamil. They form about 15% of the population.
3. Indian Tamils - These are people who migrated from India during the British era to work in the plantations. They are also predominantly Hindu, although there are also sizable muslims and christians here. These are the people worst affected in the war. They form about 11% of the population.

Part 2: India and Sri Lanka in Ancient History
In 3rd century BC, Sinhalese were converted to Ashoka's Buddhism (that originated around the Bihar/Bengal region), while the Tamils have always maintained close ties with kingdoms of Tamilnadu and hence Hinduism was their main religion.

Tamil kingdoms of the south India, especially the Cholas, have always fought the Lankans and have even invaded a few times. However, Lankans were also allied with another Tamil kingdom Pandyas (the arch rivals of Cholas). Since these native Tamil kingdoms fell in about 13rd century, Tamilnadu started having less of influence over Sri Lanka. Both the Tamils and Sinhalese had a lot of genetic influence from the Indian Tamils.

Part 3: Lankan-Tamil relationships
Things were normal for centuries. When Britain took over the island in  1815 they started their own "divide-and-rule" there. They brought  communal representations for each community. 

Since the 19th century, the Srilankan Tamils became the most progressive community among three and quickly climbed the ladders of civil service and governance. Even the highest job in the colonial rule was held by a Tamil -Ponnambalam Arunachalam. By  1948, when Sri Lanka got its independence, 60% of all government jobs  were held by the Lankan Tamils who constituted less than 15% of the  population. This brought plenty of resentment among the Sinhalese who felt disenfranchised and in that year two controversial acts were passed:

1. Ceylon Citizenship Act - Stripped the Tamils of Indian origin (who were there for generations) of their citizenship rights.
2. Policy of standardization - Instituted policy minimums that significantly reduced the Tamil involvement in education and civil service.

Since 1950s, Sri Lankan government pushed an active form of ethnic cleansing through the Sri Lankan state sponsored colonisation schemes which effectively meant Sinhalese have to distributed in those areas that were Tamil strongholds.

Part 4: Violence grips Tamils
In 1956, Sri Lanka passed the Sinhala Only Act that effectively made Sinhalese as the official language stripping Tamil of official recognition. This was followed by a massive riot against the Tamils in 1958 when Ceylon changed its official name to the Sanskritized Sri Lanka (from Ramayana): 1958 riots in Ceylon. The riots left 200 Tamils dead.

In 1974, during the International Tamil conference at Jaffna (capital of Tamil Eelam), Sri Lankan soliders used brutal force and led to the loss of 9 lives. 1974 Tamil conference incident 

 In 1970s, Sri Lanka banned the import of magazines and periodicals from Tamilnadu. In 1981, the precious Jaffna Tamil library (one of the biggest in Asia) was burnt: Burning of Jaffna library 1981. This broke the camel's back.


Part 5: Demand for Separate Tamil Land
By 1970s, the Tamils had thrown their towel due to the events above. Two separate groups of separatists emerged:

Tamil United Liberation Front: who wanted to achieve through peaceful means.

wikipedia.org

Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam: had no hesitation to use violence and force.

They started demanding a separate nation for them - Tamil Eelam (the native name for that region with the green areas below. 

In 1983 the worst of anti-Tamil pogroms happened: Black July. This was reported provoked when LTTE did its first ambush, killing 13 SL soldiers. Four Four Bravo 

Part 6: Indian involvement. Training the Tigers.
As things started to get out of hand in Lanka, India was worried. There was huge pressure from Tamilnadu parties for an intervention. Meanwhile, Sri lanka started moving towards US and Pakistan, giving Indira Gandhi hard thing to worry about national security. 

For India, these were the following considerations:

1. Sri Lanka was aligned with the US and Pakistan. India was at that time aligned with USSR (and it is rumored at USSR's KGB had a high level of control over Indian bureaucracy: 'KGB moles infiltrated Indira's PMO'). It was at the height of cold war (early 1980s) and India had to break the US-SL nexus. LTTE proved an ideal folly for India. 
2. The brutality of pogroms in Sri Lanka was forcing droves of refugees into India. Historically, Sri Lankan Tamils had a high level of support in Tamil Nadu and politicians including MG Ramachandran & Karunananidhi put enormous pressure on the centre. Indira Gandhi needed one of these to shore up her politics.

Thus,  India started involving herself. All over TN there were camps in 1970s  & 80s, that started training the tigers. It is rumored that these  were trained in the Arcot districts of TN where there are plenty of  forests. Indira Gandhi helped train Tamil rebels, and reaped whirlwind. India trained 5 extremist organizations using RAW:Jain Commission: Growth of Tamil militancy 

1. PLOTE
2. EPRLF
3. TELO
4. EROS
5. LTTE

Each was given its own camps across Tamil Nadu and some even went to Libya, Syria and Lebanon to get trained. They learned the deadly tactics of suicide bombing (LTTE was the world's most advanced in this deadly skill).

In a short time, severe in-fighting among these groups emerged. In 1982, LTTE supremo Prabhakaran had a shootout his rival Uma Maheswaran in broad daylight in the middle of Chennai (Pondy Bazar). Although the police arrested him, he was released immediately on bail (presumably due to the intervention of RAW). Chennai court closes criminal charge against slain LTTE chief 

Eventually, the other organizations either got merged or got destroyed by LTTE. 

Part 7: India about-turn. IPKF
At the peak of the civil war in 1987, India dropped supplies in Jaffna: Operation Poomalai and foiled an attempt by SL army to win over the rebels.  And then on May 1987, Rajiv made an inexplicable move to cozy up with the lankans through theIndo-Sri Lanka Accord. Under the terms of that accord, India was to deploy a peace keeping mission. As though to warn that SL government is untrustworthy, an SL solider attempts assassination on Rajiv when we was in Colombo as an official guest. He is a successful politician in SL now: Vijitha Rohana 

   
That blind trust over Sri Lankans, cost India and Rajiv too dear. Just like his grandfather he labored some grand visions of neighborhood friendship only to appear foolish eventually. India was bruttally bruised in Ceylon by both the Lankans and Tamils. Indian Peace Keeping Force 

Part 8: Frankenstein turns its head
LTTE was furious at this about turn by Rajiv. But, the monster had already been set loose. Close to 10K Tamils and 1200 Indian soldiers died unnecessarily. Prabharakan was in a blind rage and ordered assassins to kill Rajiv. 

I was a kid during that time and we were spending our vacation in the island of Rameswaram (stone's throw from Lanka) when the assassination happened. It immediately set off panic throughout India. It was really scary time back then. That was the time I started reading newspapers, though too young to understand much. There were raids as India made a massive offensive against the Tigers. 
Also see: Sri Lanka profile - Timeline

Since then, the public support for the Lankan Tamils have dwindled and given that the cold war ended in late 80s, India had no need for LTTE. Indian army provided increasingly strong support to the SL army that led to the eventually destruction of Tigers in 2010.

#Tamil #LTTE #SriLanka #Rajiv #Jaffna