If Prabhakaran’s father had his way….

NEW DELHI - If the doting father could have had his way, Velupillai Prabhakaran would have never founded the Tamil Tigers or died so brutally along with his family and dreams. Thiruvendran Velupillai, who died in Sri Lankan military custody last week, tried his utmost to persuade his youngest child, Prabhakaran, to concentrate on studies and not be swayed by Tamil nationalism.

Velupillai, who fathered four children, had more than one reason to worry.

In the 1960s when Prabhakaran was in his teens, Tamil-Sinhalese relations were worsening. His own house was located in Velvettiturai, or VVT, in Sri Lanka’s northern tip where smuggling was a way of life.

The man was a government employee who rose from being a clerk to a District Land Officer, a job that involved setting up human settlements in forest areas. Velupillai loved his job and he did not want his younger son to do anything that could harm his career.

Seeing that a distracted Prabhakaran was faring poorly in school, he arranged for private teachers. He also turned a strict disciplinarian. Along with his wife, he hardly let Prabhakaran out of sight. The father also did not take kindly to friends of the shy boy dropping in at their house.

Years later, as Prabhakaran became a household name in Sri Lanka and beyond, he recalled: “My father set an example through his own personal conduct. He would not even chew betel leaves. I modelled my conduct on his… He was strict, yes, but also soft and persuasive.”

But in those days in Jaffna, no amount of persuasion could stop Prabhakaran from veering towards Tamil militancy. A day came, in the early 1970s, when the teenager fled from his home, never to return again. There was nothing Velupillai could do.

With Prabhakaran plunging into a world of violence and gore, and his Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) ballooning in notoriety, father Velupillai could only watch silently. As Sri Lanka plunged into a full blown civil war, the now retired Velupillai and his wife moved to Tamil Nadu in India where Prabhakaran had started to live and where the LTTE enjoyed secure bases.

The Velupillais led a quiet life in the temple town of Madurai. Not many neighbours knew them because they maintained a low profile.

In a 1998 meeting with this writer in Chennai, Velupillai recalled Prabhakaran’s younger days and indicated that he was proud of what the boy had achieved.

However, once Prabhakaran became a persona non grata in India following the 1991 killing of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, the Velupillais shifted to Sri Lanka.

By then, their son had become the de facto lord and master of Sri Lanka’s north and east. Although dubbed a terrorist by India and others, it was clear that subduing Prabhakaran militarily would be near impossible.

But the unthinkable happened in May 2009 when the Sri Lankan military overran the LTTE’s last base, killing Prabhakaran, his wife and two sons and wiping out the group’s entire leadership.

A broken Velupillai and his wife gave themselves up to the military. It was clear that their future now lay in the hands of an administration their son had wanted to destroy.

It was in military custody that the father, 82, died on the night of Jan 7, 2010. He was a diabetic and had a weak heart.

In one of the worst ironies of Sri Lanka’s twisted Tamil politics, his body was handed over to Tamil politician M.K. Shivaji Lingam, who Prabhakaran had wanted killed in 1986.

It was sheer luck that Shivaji Lingam survived that day.