What do you think?
Rate this book
Inside an Elusive Mind: Prabhakaran: The First Profile of the World's Most Ruthless Guerrilla Leader
Biography of Velupillai Prabhakaran, b. 1954, Tamil political extremist and guerrilla leader and head of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam, subversive group from Sri Lanka.
- GenresNonfiction
275 pages, Hardcover
First published July 1, 2003
26 people are currently reading
379 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
November 22, 2008
Written by my uncle!
June 3, 2012
Prabhakaran's story told by someone who knew him the best as an outsider. A story of determination to bring justice to Tamils in srilanka And the resulting struggle that Prabhakaran had to go theough his entire life....... Salute to the man who brought pride and dignity to the life of a Tamil in Srilanka. His death will not be in vain and his dream of ELLAM (independence) will be achieved..... One day
February 28, 2018
Well organised account about V. Prabhakaran. I've known him as the LTTE head and frankly nothing more. Mr. Swamy helps knowing him as a person, self-taught guerilla and finally a diplomat. Since this was written before the war ended, Mr. Swamy ends it this way, "..the destiny of Sri Lanka with its 20 million people would still be in the hands of one man: Velupillai Prabhakaran.". This statement would have exhilarated more if I'd read this earlier before 2009.
Besides the depiction of the bloody war, Mr. Swamy at some points betrays his abhorrence for VP's blood-thirst and is successful at conducting the feeling to the reader, I feel. At the same time,one cannot help from feeling an awe for Prabhakaran's war- skills together with the author.
Besides the depiction of the bloody war, Mr. Swamy at some points betrays his abhorrence for VP's blood-thirst and is successful at conducting the feeling to the reader, I feel. At the same time,one cannot help from feeling an awe for Prabhakaran's war- skills together with the author.
February 1, 2008
One of the few biographies of the elusive head of the dreaded Tamil Tigers. Growing up in Madras in the 80's I was peripherally aware of the alphabet soup (LTTE, TULF, EPRLF, TELO, etc.) that was Sri Lankan Tamil groups fighting the Sinhala-dominated Sri Lankan government demanding nationhood for North and Eastern Sri Lanka (A country they called Eelam).
The demands of these groups and the turns that their struggles took was very much a part of the milieu I grew up in. At that time I did not fully grok the politics of what was happening around me.
When I came to the US I was, yet again, exposed to another aspect of the LTTE - on-line propaganda. I was amazed by the virulence of opinions about India and Indian tamils held by the Sri Lankan Tamils and their effectiveness in running an online propaganda war (in the newsgroup soc.culture.tamil) back in the mid-90's.
This book chronicles the life of V. Prabhakaran and the vicious LTTE that he founded. As with biographies of living people, it is a bit sparse about contemporary happenings (there was yet another suicide bombing in Sri Lanka yesterday).
The demands of these groups and the turns that their struggles took was very much a part of the milieu I grew up in. At that time I did not fully grok the politics of what was happening around me.
When I came to the US I was, yet again, exposed to another aspect of the LTTE - on-line propaganda. I was amazed by the virulence of opinions about India and Indian tamils held by the Sri Lankan Tamils and their effectiveness in running an online propaganda war (in the newsgroup soc.culture.tamil) back in the mid-90's.
This book chronicles the life of V. Prabhakaran and the vicious LTTE that he founded. As with biographies of living people, it is a bit sparse about contemporary happenings (there was yet another suicide bombing in Sri Lanka yesterday).
July 8, 2020
Not so much a biography of the man as the history of his rebel group.
June 8, 2020
On the 19th of May, 1982, the Tamil Nadu police arrested two Sri Lankan youth who had unsuccessfully made an attempt on each other's lives outside a cinema theatre in the bustling setting of Pondy Bazaar in the Metropolis of Chennai (then known as Madras). The arrest created immense flutters in both the nations of India and Sri Lanka. Back room machinations and complex negotiations emerged as there were bids to both release the arrested and also to deport them to Sri Lanka. Tirelessly goaded on by both the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, the charismatic M.G.Ramachandran ("MGR") and the former Chief of the Tamil Nadu unit in the ruling Congress Party, Nedumaran, it was prevailed upon the then Prime Minister of India, Indira Gandhi, to ensure a quick and dirty release of the captives (much to the chagrin of the Sri Lankan Government). In a Machiavellian twist of fate, one of the released youth, a decade later, turned out to be India's most hated human being and nemesis when he successfully plotted the brutal assassination of Indira Gandhi's own son and former Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi. The errant youth was named Velupillai Prabhakaran and he was the leader of one of the most globally feared and paradoxically admired insurgent groups operating in subterfuge - the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam ("LTTE").
In this remarkably revealing work, M.R.Narayana Swamy details the evolution, ideologies and workings of both the LTTE and its larger than life leader, Prabhakaran. Although it is now a few years since the LTTE Chief was murdered by the Sri Lankan Armed forces in a concerted ambush, the book still makes for some remarkable reading. The story of Prabhakaran is a story of courage, chicanery and cold blooded brutality. It is the story of a man who played two nations against each other before betraying them both. While his cadres received covert support from the Indian intelligence, Research and Analysis Wing ("RAW") in the form of a plethora of training camps spread across India, his terrorist outfit was awash with overt support in the form of benevolence shown by the politicians in Tamil Nadu, a support which included a whopping monetary grant of Rs.2 crores from MGR. Prabhakaran cunningly manipulated this support by turning against the country that acted as his benefactor by slaughtering 1200 Indian soldiers who were part of the controversial Indian Peace Keeping Force ("IPKF") that found itself albeit reluctantly in Sri Lanka to broker a peace between the two warring factions that were the Sri Lankan armed forces and the LTTE as part of an India-Sri Lanka peace accord signed by President Jayawardena and Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1987.
Ruthlessly eliminating rival Tamil outfits such as the PLOT and TELO, organisations which were also fighting for the same cause as the LTTE, Prabhakaran ruled roost over the Northern and Eastern parts of Sri Lanka in a brazen and blood curdling fashion. Brooking zero dissent he inhumanly tortured his own second in command Mahattaya under a suspicion that the latter was coveting the Prabhakaran's post and harbouring an intention of displacing him as numero uno of the LTTE. A Kangaroo Court convicted Mahattaya of all charges, and he was summarily executed.
Narayan Swamy has the appropriate credentials to pen this story after conducting extensive interviews with both the LTTE as well as its extensive network of global operatives. He was also the author of the first ever book to be written on the LTTE titled "The Tigers of Lanka" in 1994. Although purporting to provide an impartial account of the story of Prabhakaran, one can discern a tinge of reverence in the author for this killing machine, in describing his spine chilling exploits. Notwithstanding this element, the book makes for essential reading for all those interested in the Sri Lankan story where a misguided and arrogant Government found itself face to face with a formidable set of guerrillas thirsting not only for some deserving rights but also for some unjustifiable revenge.
"Inside an elusive mind" - A rapt tale of a tiger that ran amok!
In this remarkably revealing work, M.R.Narayana Swamy details the evolution, ideologies and workings of both the LTTE and its larger than life leader, Prabhakaran. Although it is now a few years since the LTTE Chief was murdered by the Sri Lankan Armed forces in a concerted ambush, the book still makes for some remarkable reading. The story of Prabhakaran is a story of courage, chicanery and cold blooded brutality. It is the story of a man who played two nations against each other before betraying them both. While his cadres received covert support from the Indian intelligence, Research and Analysis Wing ("RAW") in the form of a plethora of training camps spread across India, his terrorist outfit was awash with overt support in the form of benevolence shown by the politicians in Tamil Nadu, a support which included a whopping monetary grant of Rs.2 crores from MGR. Prabhakaran cunningly manipulated this support by turning against the country that acted as his benefactor by slaughtering 1200 Indian soldiers who were part of the controversial Indian Peace Keeping Force ("IPKF") that found itself albeit reluctantly in Sri Lanka to broker a peace between the two warring factions that were the Sri Lankan armed forces and the LTTE as part of an India-Sri Lanka peace accord signed by President Jayawardena and Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1987.
Ruthlessly eliminating rival Tamil outfits such as the PLOT and TELO, organisations which were also fighting for the same cause as the LTTE, Prabhakaran ruled roost over the Northern and Eastern parts of Sri Lanka in a brazen and blood curdling fashion. Brooking zero dissent he inhumanly tortured his own second in command Mahattaya under a suspicion that the latter was coveting the Prabhakaran's post and harbouring an intention of displacing him as numero uno of the LTTE. A Kangaroo Court convicted Mahattaya of all charges, and he was summarily executed.
Narayan Swamy has the appropriate credentials to pen this story after conducting extensive interviews with both the LTTE as well as its extensive network of global operatives. He was also the author of the first ever book to be written on the LTTE titled "The Tigers of Lanka" in 1994. Although purporting to provide an impartial account of the story of Prabhakaran, one can discern a tinge of reverence in the author for this killing machine, in describing his spine chilling exploits. Notwithstanding this element, the book makes for essential reading for all those interested in the Sri Lankan story where a misguided and arrogant Government found itself face to face with a formidable set of guerrillas thirsting not only for some deserving rights but also for some unjustifiable revenge.
"Inside an elusive mind" - A rapt tale of a tiger that ran amok!
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews