M.R. Stalin Gnanam

In Eelam Tamil politics, few words have caused as much damage—or claimed as many lives—as the word “traitor.” And it was S.J.V. Chelvanayakam, founder of the Ilankai Thamil Arasu Katchi (Federal Party) in 1949, who first slipped this venom into the bloodstream of Tamil political discourse. Until then, the Tamil Congress and its leader G.G. Ponnambalam had struggled to make in roads in the East. They remained a northern force—Jaffna-centric, both in character and reach. In the East, the man of