THE QUEEN OF JAFFNA TRAIN RIDES AGAIN

THE QUEEN OF JAFFNA TRAIN RIDES AGAIN

24 വര്‍ഷങ്ങള്‍ക്കുശേഷം 

' ക്വീന്‍ ഓഫ് ജാഫ്‌ന' ഓടിത്തുടങ്ങി

The Queen of Jaffna train rides again along 250-mile route 24 years after it was suspended during Sri Lankan civil war

Cheered by tens of thousands of people, a train decorated with banana trees and colorful flower garlands arrived in Jaffna, the capital of Sri Lanka's northern Tamil heartland, 24 years after the 'Queen of Jaffna' was suspended due to a bloody civil war.'Yarl Devi,' as it is known in Tamil, was once a popular mode of transport between the ethnic Tamil-majority north and the Sinhala-majority south. It was scaled back in 1990 because of the heightening of the war between the government and the Tamil Tigers, who were fighting to create an independent state for the country's ethnic minority Tamils. The service runs along a 250-mile route between Jaffna and Columbo, Sri Lanka's capital.

Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa boarded the train for the last 27 miles of the journey and opened several railroad stations along the way.Like the old version, the new 'Queen of Jaffna' is not a luxury train, although some of its coaches will have air conditioning, internet access and televisions.The new track will make for a faster, smoother ride, allowing the trip to take about six hours.'This is not just a train journey but a bridge between north and south,' Mr Rajapaksa said on board the train.'Today what is left to us is to win over hearts and minds, healing of minds. I think this train journey today will help connect hearts and minds once again.'The Sri Lankan civil war that raged since 1983 ended in 2009 when, according to a UN report,  as many as 40,000 Tamil civilians were massacred in the last months of fighting. 

Government troops were accused of deliberately shelling civilians, hospitals and blocking food and medical aid to hundreds of thousands of people boxed inside a tiny strip of land as the Tamil Tigers mounted their last stand.  Restoring the link is an important step, physically and symbolically, in rebuilding the country, the government says.'In the past, it was not only a mode of transport, but it was also a cultural bridge between the Sinhalese people here and the Tamils there,' presidential spokesman Mohan Samaranayake said, adding that the project was an 'incentive to enhance communal harmony and friendship.'But the railroad's resumption shows that the government, dominated by the majority Sinhalese, is stamping its authority on the north. Deep wounds have been left by the war, which took at least 100,000 lives on both sides over more than 25 years, according to conservative estimates by the UN, though the death toll is suspected to be much higher.

Mr Rajapaksa's government has resisted intense pressure from abroad to investigate war crimes allegedly committed during the civil war.It has also been accused of resettling Sinhalese civilians and soldiers in the north to break up the ethnic Tamil dominance of the area, and some believe resuming the rail line will speed up that process.The train holds significant symbolic importance. Before the war, it not only was the most convenient way to travel between the two important cities, but also was a symbol of unity between the Sinhalese majority and Tamil minority. At the time, Tamils dominated bureaucratic and state service posts, and many civil servants based in Colombo used it to visit friends and family in the north.We took the train to Jaffna for weekends and came back by the same on Sunday evenings,' said Karuna Navaratnam, a 69-year-old retired teacher, who travelled on the route frequently in the 1970s.Now settled in Colombo, Navaratnam wistfully recalled the train traveling through the rice paddies and farms on its way to Jaffna, which was once the seat of a Tamil kingdom before it was colonised in turn by the Portuguese, Dutch and British. 

Navaratnam remembered people from her village standing on the station platform each weekend to welcome home relatives and loved ones.When the war erupted in 1983, the train was a main artery in Sri Lanka's commerce, transporting fish from the north to the capital, and connecting the islanders regardless of ethnic identity. In January 1985, rebels blew up the train, killing 22 soldiers and 11 civilians and wounding 44 other people, in the single-biggest attack on the military at the time.The train was shut down in 1990 as rebels stepped up attacks in the north to push for their own independent state.During the war, both sides attached immense strategic and symbolic importance to capturing and holding key access roads to Jaffna, including the railroad and the parallel A9 highway, dubbed 'the highway of death' for the many lives lost in battles over its control. That highway has since been restored.Since the service stopped, Jaffna has had no trains, meaning many of the city's children have never seen one in real life. 'Some younger people here do not know what a train is. I know its value,' said 50-year-old R. Thiyagarajah, who hopes the train will help boost Jaffna's economy through tourism and cargo shipments.

However, many Tamils feel such infrastructure projects won't bring true national unity. 'The people welcome this because they have transport difficulties, but they also think it is the military that will benefit from this more,' said Shanmuganathan Sajeevan, an activist campaigning for the return of private property seized from Tamils by the military during the war.'Despite lingering issues, the railroad may well move the country toward greater unity,' said Pakiasothy Saravanamuttu, an analyst with the independent Center for Policy Alternatives in Colombo.

നീണ്ട 24 വര്‍ഷങ്ങള്‍ക്കുശേഷം ജാഫ്‌നയില്‍ നിന്നും കൊളമ്പോയിലേക്ക് ' ക്വീന്‍ ഓഫ് ജാഫ്‌ന' ഓടിത്തുടങ്ങി. തമിഴ് വിഘടനവാദികളും ലങ്കന്‍ സര്‍ക്കാരുമായി നടന്ന രക്തരൂക്ഷിതമായ പോരാട്ടങ്ങളെതുടര്‍ന്നാണ് ശ്രീലങ്കയുടെ തെക്ക് വടക്ക് മേഖലകളെ തമ്മില്‍ ബന്ധിപ്പിച്ചിരുന്ന ഈ ട്രെയിന്‍ സര്‍വീസും റെയില്‍വേ ലൈനും മറവിയിലാണ്ടത്. സാമ്പത്തികമായും സാമൂഹികമായും പിന്നാക്കാവസ്ഥയിലായിരുന്ന ദക്ഷിണ ലങ്കയിലെ ആയിരക്കണക്കിന് ജനങ്ങള്‍ തൊഴിലിനായും മറ്റും ആശ്രയിച്ചിരുന്ന ട്രെയിന്‍ സര്‍വീസ് കൂടിയായിരുന്നു ഇത്.

സമാധാനകാലത്തെ ഓര്‍മ്മകളുണര്‍ത്തി ക്വീന്‍ ഓഫ് ജാഫ്‌ന ട്രെയിന്‍ സര്‍വീസ് ലങ്കന്‍ പ്രസിഡന്റ് മഹീന്ദ രാജപക്‌സെ ഫ്‌ലാഗ് ഓഫ് ചെയ്തു. ജാഫ്‌നയില്‍ നിന്നും കൊളമ്പോയിലേക്കുള്ള 402 കിലോമീറ്റര്‍ റെയില്‍പാതയും ഇതിനായി പുതുക്കി പണിതിരുന്നു. ഫ്‌ലാഗ് ഓഫ് ചെയ്തശേഷം 47 കിലോമീറ്ററോളം രാജപക്‌സെ ഈ ട്രെയിനില്‍ തന്നെ യാത്ര ചെയ്യുകയും ചെയ്തു. 1985 ജനുവരിയില്‍ തമിഴ് വിഘടനവാദികള്‍ ഈ ട്രെയിനില്‍ നടത്തിയ സ്‌ഫോടത്തില്‍ 22 സൈനികരും 11 നാട്ടുകാരും കൊല്ലപ്പെട്ടിരുന്നു. 44 പേര്‍ക്ക് ഗുരുതരമായി പരിക്കേല്‍ക്കുകയും ചെയ്തിരുന്നു. തുടര്‍ന്ന് ദക്ഷിണ ലങ്കയില്‍ തമിഴ് വിഘടനവാദികള്‍ സ്വന്തം രാജ്യം പ്രഖ്യാപിച്ചതോടെ 1990ല്‍ ട്രെയിന്‍ സര്‍വീസ് നിര്‍ത്തി വെക്കുകയായിരുന്നു. 1983 മുതല്‍ 2009 വരെ നീണ്ടുനിന്ന ആഭ്യന്തരയുദ്ധത്തില്‍ ലങ്കയില്‍ 70,000 പേരാണ് മരിച്ചുവീണത്.

                  Prof. John Kurakar