The LTTE were recognized international actors and official representatives of the Tamil people from Tamil Eelam. In 2001, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) voluntarily entered peace talks to seek a legitimate political solution at the request of international democracies such as Norway. The failure of the ahimsa and democratic movement further induced Tamils to reject the racism of the Sri Lankan state, leading to the rise of Tamil armed resistance movements in the 1970s designed to defend the very existence of the Eelam nation.
For 30 years, the Sri Lankan state’s response to these methods was one of sheer brutality and repression. Sri Lankan state violence, persecution and discrimination from the 1940s to 70s pushed Eelam Tamil leadership to answer the Tamil national question, manoeuvring through a maze of democratic and diplomatic methods in an attempt to achieve only a basic level of autonomy for the Tamil people. Sri Lankan state violence and Tamil nationalism The Eelam Tamil community must reconcile with their proletarian roots, and build solidarity with other self-determination struggles, to envision a way forward. However, today, the Tamil working class exists in a vacuum consumed by reactionary politics. From the first wave of Tamil refugees who fled Sri Lanka, working-class issues have shaped their political identity. Understanding the two dimensions of national liberation clarifies that the fight for Tamil Eelam is inherently leftist and socialist this also applies to the Eelam Tamil diaspora.
The struggle for Tamil national liberation is two-fold: liberation from Sri Lankan Sinhala-state oppression, and internal liberation of the Tamil people from the deep-rooted issues that plague the Tamil culture and its values. Throughout history there have been many revolutionary socialist movements, but often left out of discussion is the Tamil Eelam national liberation movement.