Tiruchy: Following a court struggle, this Tamil Sri Lankan is now the first voter for the Kottapattu movement

“I am going to declare my Indian identity and cast my first ballot in the general election. “I feel like I belong here, after dreaming of this opportunity for decades,” said 38-year-old Nalini Kirubakaran of Kottapattu, a Tiruchy rehabilitation center for Sri Lankan Tamils.

In 1986, Nalini was born in the Mandapam camp, a Rameswaram refugee center. In 2021, when her application for an Indian passport was denied by a regional passport office, she sued the Madras High Court, beginning her path from being a stateless citizen to the first refugee of the Kottapattu camp to be granted voting rights.

Citing Nalini’s Mandapam birth certificate as evidence, the Madurai bench of the Madras High Court, presided over by Justice GR Swaminathan, ordered the issuance of an Indian passport for her on August 12, 2022.

Notably, Section 3 of the Citizenship Act, 1995 states that an individual born in India between January 26, 1950, and July 1, 1987, is a “citizen by birth.”

She eventually obtained her passport, but she still lives at the rehabilitation camp with her family since the district collector has granted her special permission to do so. As her supporter Romeo Roy pushed the candidates to run for office, Nalini said, “I have memorized the names of all the Tiruchy candidates.”

Nalini, who obtained her voter ID earlier this year, desires equal rights for all of the camp’s refugees.

It fulfills a desire of mine. Voting for the party that guarantees Indian citizenship to Tamils of Sri Lankan and Indian heritage who have been living in camps around the state for many decades is what I will do, the woman said.

She said, “I am currently fighting in court to get my two Indian-born children naturalized.”

Tamil woman of Indian descent Stella Mary (name changed), who is engaged in a similar court struggle to reject her classification as a “refugee,” asked Tamil Nadu lawmakers to advocate in parliament for their cause.

Though we are beneficiaries of state government projects, such as Magalir Urimai Thogai, Kala (name changed), who has been living in the camp for more than 20 years, had similar views when she stated, “I want to feel that I belong here by exercising my right to vote.” Members of a community that has been persecuted will get justice.

Ashik Bonofer, a Madras Christian College professor, reports that 58,457 refugees are housed in similar camps around the state. According to him, the political will of the next administration is required before Sri Lankan Tamils may be granted citizenship.

Romeo Roy, who represented Nalini before the high court and claimed that she was the first refugee in the Kottapattu camp to be granted the right to vote, says he is now on a mission to make sure all other refugees in the camp are able to participate in the next elections in their nation.