What was said at Dr. Swamy’s closed door lecture

During his brief visit to the island this week, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and Member of Indian Parliament Dr Subramanian Swamy had many engagements during his tight schedule. Dr Swamy, who is a familiar face to political leaders here met high dignitaries starting from the President and small local Hindutva minions who are inspired by his party back home.

Back in India, Dr Swamy is a controversial figure for his anti-minority rhetoric, particularly against Muslims that forced the prestigious Harvard University, where once he taught economics to drop his courses. On Wednesday, Dr Swamy gave a ‘closed door’ lecture as the guest speaker at the Security Salon organised by the Institute of National Security Studies (INSS) that comes under the purview of the Defence Ministry.

He shared his views on “National Security in the 21st Century” with the select audience consisting of service chiefs, defence officials and members of the diplomatic corps.

At the outset of his speech, he made it clear, that it is evident now that China is heading towards a full-blown war with India, citing recent boarder tensions between the two nuclear-armed countries and a power outage in Mumbai with Chinese hackers issuing a warning; “Don’t push us too hard, or the lights will go out again.”

Responding to a question from the audience, he explained how Indian Intelligence authorities cracked the case of Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi's assassination. He claimed that it was S.C. Chandrahasan, son of late Tamil leader S.J.V. Chelvanayakam who gave the ‘ big tip-off ’. Until then, Indian Intelligence authorities, including Indian’s external intelligence agency, Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) did not have a clue despite funding and arming those Tamil militant groups, including the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) against the Sri Lankan state.

According to Dr Swamy, Mr Chandrahasan informed Indian authorities of an event held in Jaffna shortly after the assassination where LTTE leader V. Prabhakaran gave a medal to a poet named Rajarathinam. Later, it turned out that it was his daughter Thenmozhi Rajarathinam alias Dhanu who triggered her suicide bomb vest as she greeted the former Indian Premier with a garland while he was on the campaign trail in Tamil Nadu. Currently, Mr Chandrahasan runs an organisation called Organization for Eelam Refugees Rehabilitation (OfERR) in Tamil Nadu, dedicated to the wellbeing of Sri Lankan refugees in India.