The rise and fall of a delusional warlord

M.R. Narayan Swamy is no stranger to the Tamil insurgency in Sri Lanka. His earlier work, Inside an Elusive Mind, included in this volume, remains one of the most definitive accounts of Velupillai Prabhakaran, the founder of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). In The Rout of Prabhakaran, he turns his attention to the final years of the Tamil Tigers, methodically dissecting how an organisation that once struck terror into the hearts of its enemies was wiped off the face of the earth.

- A.J. PHILIP

This is not just a war story. It is an autopsy of a man and a movement that overestimated its strength, underestimated its enemies, and ultimately condemned an entire people to suffering.

For many, Prabhakaran was an enigma. He was a man who inspired fanatical loyalty among his followers, a ruthless commander who demanded absolute discipline, and a zealot who believed in his own invincibility. Yet, he was also a paradox, a man who doted on his own children while sending thousands of Tamil boys and girls to die in battle. He forbade his cadres from falling in love, punishing violators with death, while he himself married the woman of his choice. He claimed to be fighting for the Tamil people but did not hesitate to execute fellow Tamils who questioned his authority.

The author dismantles the romanticized image of Prabhakaran with clinical precision. Through extensive interviews and meticulous research, he presents a man who ruled through fear and deception, convinced that he alone knew what was best for the Tamil people.

One of the biggest turning points in the Sri Lankan conflict was India's intervention and its disastrous deployment of the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF). The book provides a detailed account of how the Indian military, unprepared for guerrilla warfare, was drawn into a brutal conflict against the LTTE, an enemy that fought by its own rules.