Son of father Chelvanaya​gam return home after 27 years

Except for a small group of people who may be extremists, the vast majority of the people in the country wanted to move ahead and that there was scope for reconciliation and meaningful democracy, S.C. Chandrahasan son of S.J.V. Chelvanayagam says.

Ever since he arrived in Chennai in August 1983 after violence broke out against Tamils in Sri Lanka, S.C. Chandrahasan and his family lived with the hope that in three months they would be back in their motherland.  History proved otherwise and his status was reduced to what he called “a person with no permanent address”. His three children received their education in Chennai and got married. Finally, when he landed in his hometown Tellipallai in the Jaffna peninsula in February 2011, 27 years had elapsed. Son of S.J.V. Chelvanayagam, leader of the Federal Party in Sri Lanka and known to his followers as Thanthai Selva (Father Selva), 69-year-old Chandrahasan is now preparing for permanent return and has started renovating his ancestral house.  The house at Chelvanayagapuram was a nerve centre of political activity between 1947 and 1977, when his father was alive. “The house itself had been shelled. There were no doors. The teak windows and doors had been pilfered. Half the roof is not there. I have restored part of the house. I am delaying the process of my return because I have to accompany my people with whom I have been working for the last 28 years,” said Mr. Chandrahasan, founder of the Organisation for Eelam Refugees Rehabilitation (OFERR). Mr. Chandrahasan, a lawyer by profession, came to India after there were three attempts on his life. His wife Nirmala Chandrahasan was the head of the Law Faculty in Colombo University.