Ms Rajes Bala (Rajeswari Balasubramaniam)

By Arul Nadarajah

multifaceted personality with various caps in her mantle and doing things in an excellent manner is her forte. She was able to be ease as a poet, singer, author, novelist, campaigner for the deprived human rights and serious speaker on Women’s rights.

She has been consistently inspired by her late father Kulandaivelu who was also endowed with multi-variegated skills and was a specialist in folklore, koothu, and a compiler of the hoary Tamil tradition and serious campaigner for women’s rights, which was a lasting inspiration for Ms Rajes Bala to move in this direction and excel in her chosen field.

Her family had fostered in the right manner as her father a true Gandhi a follower and an ardent member of Tamil cultural setting in their area, had inspired Rajes deeply and she was the first Tamil girl to pass out GCSE in her village and had developed her innate writing skills at her age of seven and during her college days she was inspired by her love turned scholarly husband Balasubramaniam to kindle her to read western novels which had inspired her to move with him to UK way back in 1970.

Her Short story was Sitthirathil pennezuthi which was against casteism and triggered her progressive writings incessantly.
In London in the early part of 1971, during the JVP’s arm struggle to over throw the government Sinhala villages were bombed and Ms Rajes along with the human rights activists campaigned together protesting the uncivilized manner of the sinhala government and that was the root of her human rights spirit in the coming years.
In 1972, Ceylon changed its name to Srilanka and standardization of education was introduced against the interests of Tamil students thus depriving the educational rights and Rajes Bala was up again in that movement against Sinhala government, with these backlashes in her background she penned her another noteworthy novel Thames Nathikkariyil in 1976 and themed on the deprivation of Tamil students in the academic world and stirred the formation of GUES (GENERAL UNION OF EELAM STIDENTS)
In 1976, there was a big conclave in UK for the formation of Eelam and in this mass meeting the decision adopted was sinhala govt to opt for federalism, for which sinhala government condemned the action of Tamils in UK.
In 1977, 99% of Tamils opted for Eelam and the Sinhala government was against this move and massacred the Tamils and many Tamil girls raped leading to gruesome ethnic arson in the coming years.

Simultaneously, Rajes Bala was grooming herself with leftist thoughts and naturally understanding about the factions within the various Tamil groups and penned her novel Ulagamellam viyaparigal (‘World full businessmen’)in 1978.
In 1980 she penned her magnum opus Oru kodai vidumurai stressing Tamil soul and created ripples in the Indian literary map which was recommended in various varsities and thus this novel become the first Tamil novel about the operation of Eelam Tamils on a historicist perspective.
In 1982, Rajes Bala formed Tamil women’s movement in UK vociferously protesting against the arrest of the well-known feminist Ms Nirmala Nityanandan and other university professors and through this movement she knew more nuances of women’s rights and this formed her gateway to the access of various parliamentarians and others in UK.

With the great carnage against the Tamils in 1983 of 30,000 people killed and 300,000 exiled Rajes Bala documented a video capsule stating ‘Escape of genocide’ which created political waves and to create this documentary she graduated from the illustrious visual communication program in UK and thus becoming the first Asian women to come out successfully in the course. One picture is equal to thousand words and this film stirred the English friends of her to help her in the coming years.

As the entry of Tamils to UK was a painful exercise and many were homeless and aimless and meantime in May 1985 there was a law to be promulgated against the Tamils stay in Uk, Rajes with her colleagues and other black and white MPs campaigned together and joined in the public gallery of the English parliament to see the law rippled and thus ensuring Tamils to live equally in UK from then on is a noteworthy contribution.
She immediately sprung with an idea and mustered support to form a group to render support and create jobs, provide shelter formed Tamil refugee Action Group(TRAG) which evinced the longevity of Tamils survival in UK and she had the privilege of various MPs who had taken special interest and helped her to draft the TRAG constitution and provided stationery at the initial days with no expectations, which was a great impetus for Eelam Tamils as she had copious information on funding methodologies, she was ably supported and thus Labour party made this formation of TRAG and internally and externally ministries helped and supported.

She thus become an angel to the ethnic Tamils and she travelled widely to Europe lecturing about the Tamils welfare and protested against the women tortured politically, socially and in domestic circle, and she was tremendously supported by Spare Rib (Women’s magazine) and Outright (American women’s magazine) and her protests were well noted on the eve of arrest of Nirmala Nityanandans arrest and decline of medicines to her in the jail and Tamil women and estate women rights deprivation and she was even known for raising her voice against the Indian emergency and thus women from Angola to Mongolia were behind her in her path.

With the wonderful group TRAG she was able to do lot of humanity work for the afflicted Tamils and she was supported by the splendid British system and the compassionate British who provided all the less to make Tamils live equally amidst them.

Amongst her busy schedule she was capable to author seventeen books to prove her right spirit of learning and she has been adoringly called as Rajes Akka and apart the Tamils, even the English affectionately address Akka!

She had been assisted by various Tamil hearts with clean and good spirit and men who believed equality, liberty in the formation of TRAG which has grown manifold in these thirty years and has turned into a beacon to empower the asylum seekers to stand independently in this part of the world.
Amidst working with various political groups, Rajes Bala has managed to be apolitical and feels the gods gift to help people has been her spirit.

Reading, Writing, Speaking, Making friends, Forming TRAG, European Tamil women’s group has been her continuous path of progress.
Rajes Bala, an unflinching Tamil by blood, Emotionally a Srilankan and intellectually a British is proud to be the citizen of the world!
The younger generation of Eelam Tamils have plenty to learn from her and get inspired.