Sri Lanka is ready to accept and support all those who were forced to flee the country during the civil war and are now living as refugees in Tamil Nadu, Cabinet Minister and Leader of the House Bimal Rathnayake told The Hindu, urging the governments of India and Tamil Nadu to refrain from using refugees as “tools of political propaganda”.
The minister said this when asked about the government’s current stance on the Tamil Nadu refugee-returnees following Chief Minister MK Stalin’s letter — dated February 15, 2026 — to Prime Minister Modi seeking the Union government’s intervention on issues involving Sri Lankan Tamils living in India for over four decades. In addition to asking New Delhi to withdraw administrative instructions preventing the consideration of citizenship applications from Sri Lankan Tamils, Mr. Stalin sought executive clarification on the waiver of passport and visa requirements, where applicable, for applications for citizenship or long-term visas based on verified identity documents issued by the Tamil Nadu government. According to Mr. Stalin’s letter, about 89,000 individuals live in and outside the camps across Tamil Nadu. Almost 40% of them were born there.
Minister Rathnayake pointed out that 18,542 persons returned from Tamil Nadu to Sri Lanka in the 16-year period from January 2009 – the civil war ended in May of that year – to June 2025: “We are certainly ready to welcome those who want to return. However, if some of them, born in India or who lived there, studied or worked for Indian citizens, lived, studied or after decades they could not come to terms with this position, it is their reality and their right to seek citizenship there. He further said in a message to political actors in India: “My humble request to the Government of India and the Government of Tamil Nadu is that we do not use the refugees as a tool for political propaganda around the elections. They have already endured enormous suffering; we must handle their request with care and sensitivity.”
A prominent voice in the ruling Anura Kumar Dissanayake administration, Mr. Rathnayake, who is a member of the politburo of the left-wing Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), or People’s Liberation Front, visited refugee camps in Tamil Nadu in 2007 and forced the Sri Lankan government to pass a law granting citizenship to 28,500 camp residents. In May 2025, when former Jaffna MP and senior lawyer MA Sumanthiran highlighted the arrest of a 75-year-old Sri Lankan Tamil refugee returning from India on charges of leaving the island without a valid passport, Mr Rathnayake said the government would look into the matter. “The government immediately ordered the immigration department and the police not to detain the returnees, citing their departure from the so-called illegal port decades ago,” he said.
Mr. Stalin’s letter to Prime Minister Modi attracted wide attention in the Sri Lankan media and among politicians. Mano Ganesan, an opposition MP and leader of the Tamil Progressive Alliance – representing Malayah Tamils – called for a “permanent, humane solution”. “Sri Lankan refugees living inside and outside settlements in India need clarity, not decades of uncertainty. Give them a dignified choice… a generation born, educated and integrated in India deserves justice. Others deserve freedom of choice,” he said in a post on social media.
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Mr Sumanthiran, general secretary of the Ilankai Tamil Arasu Katchi (ITAK), said in New Delhi last week at a screening of journalist RK Radhakrishnan’s Frontline documentary on the refugees that while the declining number of Tamils in Sri Lanka may not favor the Tamil community trying to strengthen its constituency, “this is an exceptional situation.” Those who want to stay in India must be given the option, he said, adding that “in international law, no one should be stateless”. He also urged the Sri Lankan government to ensure the smooth return of those who wish to return, where there is no fear of arrest.
Authorities said a total of 246 people from 46 families returned from India to Sri Lanka between July 2025 and February 2026, with no arrests reported during that time. S. Sooriyakumari, president of OfERR (Organisation for Eelam Refugees’ Rehabilitation) Ceylon, a non-profit organization working with Sri Lankan refugee communities, said the Sri Lankan government must remove administrative barriers, facilitate easy paperwork and ensure smooth reintegration of those returning. “It is very important that the governments of India and Sri Lanka discuss this matter and create a structured program to address the future of refugees; it must not remain ambiguous,” she said. The UN refugee agency, which backed down after arresting some returnees last year, has now agreed to facilitate their return, sources familiar with the process said.
Meanwhile, some like Antan Roshanthiny — born in a refugee camp in Tamil Nadu — are glad to be back. “My parents fled during the war and were refugees in Tamil Nadu. I was born there. After the war, my family gradually returned. I returned in 2014,” she said. Ms. Roshanthiny’s early years in the northern district of Kilinochchi were not easy. Her family had to rebuild their house, resolve land disputes, overcome delays in paperwork and deal with unkind reactions from locals to a different Tamil accent. “Over time, things got better and I started to feel more at home. Seeing the administrative errors and widespread corruption around me, I decided to work on the people’s problems,” said the 29-year-old, now a full-time political activist in the ruling National People’s Power coalition.
Published – 18 March 2026 21:40 IST
