Sarala (name changed), 22, says she has a dream that she's back in Jaffna. A Jaffna different from the one she left behind in 2006: Without the serrated din of gunfire, the whoosh of exploding mortar shells, and the smell of death in the alleys. Absently fingering the fading hem of her salwar, Sarala admits it's just a dream. She knows it will be years, if ever, before she gets to walk the streets of Jaffna again. A political solution needs to win over political posturing to make it happen, and she has been through enough in her young life to know that scenario is a long way off.The government doesn't want pesky reporters and photographers inside the camp, so we have to pass off as relatives of a local. Sarala mutters that she's scared to speak to us. She doesn't want to lose the roof she has over her head after a crowded ferry got her, and hundreds of others fleeing Lankan shores, to Mandapam camp, the largest of the refugee settlements in Tamil Nadu.
Fear is a part of life here-as palpable as the waves lapping the seashore a little distance away. Men of the police's Q Branch closely watch and control the camp, many of them mingling with the inmates in civilian clothes. The inmates are afraid to even talk about how much better the camp has become from a year ago, when the roofs leaked and the roads were potholed.
Regular creature comforts don't really worry them. For the 80,000-odd refugees scattered over 113 such camps in Tamil Nadu, the concern is the uncertainty of an interminable rootlessness. "I came here seven years ago. All my relatives are still in Sri Lanka. I don't know when I would ever be able to go back to them," Sarala says. It's a thought shared in whispers almost every waking moment in the camp.
Now that the nightmare back home is slowly fading from memory, children yearn to go out and play, youngsters want to seek jobs and build careers, and the elderly want to get back some semblance of a normal life. The closely monitored camps don't give them room to do any of that. Refugees are allowed to leave for work at 6 a.m. but have to report back before 6 p.m. Every morning, government vans take children to schools and then bring them back in the evening. Social life at the camp revolves around the local church. The inmates eagerly plunge into organising events at the church which is the only place where outsiders are allowed.
"There are too many restrictions. If we want to visit our relatives in far-flung refugee camps, we get only three days' 'leave'. A day-and-a-half of that is just spent in travelling," says Mariappan (name changed), a refugee in Mandapam for eight years.
Seven months ago, a few of the refugees paid the last of their savings to board a fishing boat, hoping to reach international waters and hail a cargo ship heading for Australia, where they'd heard they might get asylum. They were caught by a marine patrol within hours. A few more tried it again three months earlier, and many more are plotting to attempt an escape in the future. One of the men on that boat, now back in the camp, says it was poverty that had driven them. "We have no money. Not even enough ration rice to eat. We cannot hope to go back home to Sri Lanka. So we decided to take the risk," he says.
Apart from a ration of rice and essential items, the refugees get a monthly pension of Rs.1,000. Some have been at the camp for as long as 25 years, have got married, and raised children who don't know what a normal home is. One proud father in the camp is Ramesh (name changed). He has toiled to ensure that his daughter can enrol for an engineering degree. But Ramesh says he's worried if she will ever find a good job. "We are ostracised outside these walls. Some private companies employ us, but never the government. Some 2,500 youth have completed their graduation while in the camp, but the future is a question mark for many," he says. Since ration cards and voter id cards are often a must to get a job, several graduates are forced to work as daily-wage labourers. "That's why many are demanding permanent residency. We can't go back home but we need at least permanent residency status in India to live on," says Ramesh.
Living in the tiny spaces is a problem when families grow. Since India is not a signatory to the United Nations convention for refugees, there is no central monitoring of conditions such as size of dwelling and availability of basic amenities. The refugees feel lost on the wrong side of a blue-grey stretch of choppy sea. But at least they have a place to live in and a chance to dream of better days.
- The writer is a Special Correspondent with Headlines Today