CM Stalin Urges PM Modi to Intervene on Sri Lanka’s New Constitution to Protect Tamils

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, expressing serious concern over Sri Lanka’s proposed new Constitution and urging India to intervene decisively to protect the rights of Tamils in the island nation. In the letter sent on Sunday, Stalin warned that the ongoing constitutional reforms, if not based on equality and meaningful devolution of power, could perpetuate injustice, deepen ethnic divisions, and risk fresh conflict and humanitarian crises.

Stalin highlighted that the Sri Lankan government, led by President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, is fast-tracking reforms under the pretext of resolving ethnic issues, yet the emerging framework appears to reinforce the unitary ‘Ekkiyarajya’ model. He cautioned that such a structure would continue to marginalise the Tamil community by disregarding their long-standing demand for political autonomy and equal rights within the country.

The Chief Minister underscored the continued relevance of the Thimpu Principles, agreed upon during the 1985 peace negotiations in Bhutan. These principles include recognition of Tamils as a distinct people, acceptance of the Northern and Eastern Provinces as their traditional homeland, affirmation of the right to self-determination, and the establishment of a federal system that guarantees equality and non-discrimination for all citizens, including hill-country Tamils.

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Stalin recalled the history of systematic discrimination faced by Sri Lankan Tamils since independence, pointing out that the Constitutions of 1947, 1972, and 1978 entrenched a unitary state that facilitated ethnic violence, structural oppression, and denial of fundamental rights. Even sixteen years after the end of the civil war, he noted that the unitary framework continues to enable demographic alterations, land appropriation, and erosion of Tamil cultural identity in their ancestral regions.

The Tamil Nadu leader called upon the Government of India to engage Sri Lanka at the highest diplomatic level to ensure that constitutional changes genuinely address Tamil grievances through federal power-sharing, protection of minority rights, and commitment to pluralism. He stressed that such an approach would uphold India’s historical role as a guarantor of peace in the region, reflect its own federal values, and prevent adverse consequences for bilateral ties and broader South Asian stability.

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