At a time when the country is burning with the protests against the recently enacted Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the proposed National Registry of Citizens (NRC), a group of Sri Lankan-Tamils settled in Gavi of Kerala's Pathanamthitta district is anxious about their future.
Tamils, who had migrated to Sri Lanka, were brought back to India first as part of an agreement signed between the India and Sri Lanka governments in 1964. As per the pact, 5,25,000 people were to be repatriated to India. People were brought to Gavi in the late 1970s.
Around 150 families of Lankan-Tamils live in the scenic forest area now. Most of them work in the cardamom plantation of the Kerala Forest Development Coropration (KFDC) or the Gavi eco-tourism project. They have documents such as voters' ID, Aadhaar card and ration card, but they don't know what's in store, if the NRC is implemented nationwide.
“Our forefathers went to Sri Lanka for jobs. We didn't have voting rights there. We were around 5.25 lakh people there. Of them, around 3.25 lakh came back to India. Since then, we have been living in Gavi. Earlier, there were some problems to get our caste certificates. Now, it has been sorted out. We are anxious. But we are Indians. We have voting rights and all. We came here as part of a 1954 agreement [actual year is 1964] . This is our country,” Rajendran Karuppayya, a supervisor at the KFDC plantation, said.
Many of the settlers in Gavi lost their documents as a fire engulfed eight sheds in 1984.
The CAA is meant to give citizenship to the religious minorities in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan who have sought refuge in India due to their persecution in their own land. Those opposing the bill had asked, among many other criticisms, why Tamils in Sri Lanka were not included in the law. However, they can still get citizenship either through refugee route or the naturalisation process.