Sri Lanka is able to obtain and assist all these pressured to flee the nation throughout the civil conflict and now residing as refugees in Tamil Nadu, Cupboard Minister and Chief of the Home Bimal Rathnayake informed The Hindu, urging the Governments of India and Tamil Nadu to chorus from utilizing refugees as “a software for political propaganda”.
The Minister made the remarks when queried in regards to the authorities’s present place on refugee-returnees from Tamil Nadu, within the wake of Chief Minister M.Ok. Stalin’s letter — dated February 15, 2026 — to Prime Minister Modi searching for the Union authorities’s intervention on points regarding Sri Lankan Tamils residing in India for over 4 a long time. Aside from requesting New Delhi to rescind administrative directions barring consideration of citizenship functions from Sri Lankan Tamils, Mr. Stalin sought an govt clarification waiving passport and visa necessities, the place applicable, for citizenship or long-term visa functions primarily based on verified id documentation issued by the Tamil Nadu authorities. Based on Mr. Stalin’s letter, round 89,000 people reside in and outdoors camps throughout Tamil Nadu. Practically 40% of them had been born there.
Stating that 18,542 individuals returned from Tamil Nadu to Sri Lanka within the 16-year interval from January 2009 — the civil conflict led to Could that 12 months — to June 2025, Minister Rathnayake stated: “We’re definitely able to welcome those that want to return. Nonetheless, if a few of them, born in India, or who’ve lived, studied, and labored there for many years, or married an Indian, resolve to hunt Indian citizenship, we can’t argue with that place. It’s their actuality and their proper to hunt citizenship there.” Additional, in a message to political actors in India, he stated: “My humble request to the Authorities of India and Authorities of Tamil Nadu is that please don’t use the refugees as a software for political propaganda round elections. They’ve endured huge struggling already; we should deal with their request with care and sensitivity.”
A outstanding voice within the ruling Anura Kumara Dissanayake administration, Mr. Rathnayake, who’s a polit bureau member of the leftist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) or Folks’s Liberation Entrance, had visited refugee camps in Tamil Nadu in 2007, and pushed the Sri Lankan authorities to go a legislation granting citizenship to twenty-eight,500 individuals residing within the camps. In Could 2025, when former Jaffna MP and senior lawyer M.A. Sumanthiran highlighted the arrest of a 75-year-old Sri Lankan Tamil refugee getting back from India, on costs of leaving the island with no legitimate passport, Mr. Rathnayake stated the federal government would tackle the matter. “The federal government instantly instructed the Immigration Division and police to not detain these returning, citing their departure from a so-called unlawful port a long time in the past,” he stated.
Mr. Stalin’s letter to PM Modi drew huge consideration in Sri Lankan media and amongst politicians. Mano Ganesan, Opposition MP and chief of the Tamil Progressive Alliance — representing the Malaiyaha Tamils — known as for a “everlasting, humane answer”. “Sri Lankan refugees residing inside and outdoors settlements in India want readability, not a long time of uncertainty. Give them a dignified selection… a era born, educated and built-in in India deserves justice. Others deserve freedom of selection,” he stated in a social media submit.
Additionally learn: Sri Lankan refugees | The lengthy look forward to Indian citizenship
Final week, talking in New Delhi at a screening of Frontline journalist R.Ok. Radhakrishnan’s documentary on refugees, Mr. Sumanthiran, basic secretary of the Ilankai Tamil Arasu Katchi (ITAK), stated that whereas the diminishing variety of Tamils in Sri Lanka could not favour the Tamil polity making an attempt to strengthen its constituency, “that is an distinctive state of affairs.” Those that want to stay in India should have the choice, he stated, including that “in worldwide legislation, no one must be a stateless individual.” He additionally urged the Sri Lankan authorities to make sure the sleek return of those that want to come again, the place there is no such thing as a concern of arrest.
Authorities stated a complete of 246 individuals from 46 households returned from India to Sri Lanka between July 2025 and February 2026, with no arrests reported throughout the time. S. Sooriyakumari, president of OfERR (Organisation for Eelam Refugees’ Rehabilitation) Ceylon, a non-profit organisation working with Sri Lankan refugee communities, stated the Sri Lankan authorities should clear administrative hurdles, facilitate simple paperwork, and guarantee clean reintegration of these returning. “It is extremely essential that the governments of India and Sri Lanka focus on this matter and develop a structured programme to look into the way forward for the refugees; it should not stay ambiguous,” she stated. The UN Refugee company, which stepped again following arrests of some returnees final 12 months, has now agreed to facilitate their return, sources accustomed to the method stated.
In the meantime, some like Antan Roshanthiny — born in a refugee camp in Tamil Nadu — are glad to be again. “My mother and father fled throughout the conflict and had been refugees in Tamil Nadu. I used to be born there. After the conflict, my household returned in phases. I got here again in 2014,” she stated. Ms. Roshanthiny’s early years within the northern Kilinochchi district weren’t simple. Her household needed to rebuild a house, type out land contestations, navigate delays in paperwork, and address unkind native reactions to a distinct Tamil accent. “Over time, issues obtained higher and I began feeling extra at dwelling. Seeing administrative faults and widespread corruption round me, I made a decision to work on individuals’s points,” stated the 29-year-old, now a full-time political activist with the ruling Nationwide Folks’s Energy coalition.
Revealed – March 18, 2026 09:40 pm IST