A former LTTE rebel, now a sustainability guru

One of the oldest associates of Sri Lanka's Tamil Tigers leader Velupillai Prabhakaran is visiting India after two long decades in a new avatar - sustainability guru.

AR Arular is headed to Chennai to open the India office of his Britain-based Global Sustainability Initiative (GSI), after attending an international meet here, where he spoke about the many inventions he says he has to his credit.

These inventions, covering a wide canvas ranging from the humble bicycle to nuclear power reactors, are geared to contribute to "sustainable development", Arular said in an interview.

His concept of a more environment-friendly bicycle involves 16 sweeping changes covering everything from the handle bar to the seat and has been contracted to a leading British firm for mass production, he said.

Arular, 60, hopes to work on the bicycle concept out of the Tamil Nadu capital, which was his home from 1978 to 1986 when he was a keen participant in the Sri Lankan Tamil militancy when its tentacles expanded rapidly.

Born in Jaffna, Arular graduated as a mechanical engineer from Moscow's People's Friendship University - the cradle of many revolutionaries - and was among the Tamils who got military training from Palestinian groups in Syria and Lebanon in the 1970s.

He returned to Sri Lanka and met Prabhakaran, then an unknown entity who had just given birth to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Although Arular was not an LTTE member, his close association with Prabhakaran lasted many years.

Once India began to patronise various Tamil militant groups, the LTTE included, after vicious anti-Tamil riots in Sri Lanka in 1983, Arular tried repeatedly to bring about unity in the ranks of the divided guerrillas but failed.

Eventually, Arular left India for good in 1986, the year the LTTE virtually decimated its biggest rival group. He returned to Tamil Nadu, only as a transit passenger, on his way to Sri Lanka's northeast in 1989 when Indian troops were deployed there.

Later, Arular threw his lot with the LTTE for some time but this did not last long. In 1997, he set up an Institute of Sustainability Development at Trincomalee in Sri Lanka's east coast. The same year, he wrote a seminal book on Tamil history.

But the conditions there did not let the institute progress very far, and Arular left for Britain where he aggressively developed his passion for "appropriate technology" into "sustainable development" that led to the birth of his company, GSI.

Staying on in Britain, Arular said he began to work on many inventions, including a redesigned bullock cart, a motorised wheelbarrow and a car that consumes less petrol.

"GSI's mission is to develop a programme with a global perspective," Arular explained. "My products promote sustainable development."

Green environment may be his first love but like Tamils the world over, Arular despairs over the fate of his community in Sri Lanka, where escalating violence has left thousands dead in the past two years and where international efforts have failed to bring peace.
Asked what the Tamils have gained after a quarter century of war, Arular says with a sigh: "Nothing! We have only destroyed ourselves." As he speaks, it appears the man still nurtures a soft corner for his old friend Prabhakaran.

Source: http://www.deccanherald.com