Abstract
Set within the context of the Sri Lankan Tamils' liberation war dominated by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), this article examines the series of events that followed Pirapāharan's (Prabhākaran) decision to eliminate Rajiv Gandhi in 1991 in order to pre-empt his election as Prime Minister. The details of the LTTE's intricate killing operation under operational commander Sivarāsan set the scene for a focus on facets of the attire adopted by suicide bomber Dhanu. Saffron-green outfit, kanagambaram in hair and sandalwood-pellet garland may have been directed by pragmatic reasoning. But circumstantial contentions also point towards cosmic reasoning. Taken together with the kill team's preceding supplications to the god Ganapathi at a temple in Chennai, these indications suggest that Dhanu's explosive transformation into ash was geared towards a transvaluation of self in the cycle of rebirth. Information on Hindu practices taken from the researches of Mines, Fuller and Tanaka amplify the significance of the details deployed during this operation as supplements to plastic explosives, ball bearings and suicide vest.
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