Courtesy:transcurrents.com
By Wilson Gnanadass
“The problem here is that leaders are imposed on a community. People are forced to elect someone who they do not have any confidence in. Then problems start. This is what has happened to the LTTE. When Pirabhakaran forced himself to be the leader, the people started to distance themselves further away from him,” - Anandasangaree
The military thrust against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and thereby weakening them, has certainly offered fresh options to the moderate Tamil political parties in Sri Lanka.
The Tamil parties have two options. Either join hands together or work separately but with a view to aiming at a common goal – to achieve a substantial political solution to the Tamil minority.
With the apparent defeat of the LTTE, it is no secret that even the Vaddukodai resolution of 1976 is laid to eternal rest.
The infamous Vaddukodai resolution called for a separate state for the Tamils of the North and the East and this prompted the young and the energetic youth to take up to arms. Thereafter, it was an arms struggle which the country has witnessed for the past three decades.
Large numbers of Tamil men, women and children have been massacred during this turmoil period. Besides, even an equal number of Sinhala soldiers and their loved ones had been killed or maimed.
The end result was carnage, divisions, fractions and more confusion and chaos. Today, the Tamil politics is in disarray. Tamil politicians wonder what to do next. Their destination is not clear and their path blurred.
The only hope they pin on at present is on the outcome of the All Party Representative Committee (APRC) report that is expected to surpass the present 13th Amendment. Some describe this as ‘13th amendment plus’.
With the APRC report on the verge of being finalised, confusion seems to be reigning again as many Tamil leaders wonder whether this would ever be made a law.
The APRC report as of now seems extremely attractive with the proposal to withdraw the concurrent list. If this is made a reality, then there is a probability of this overtaking the Indian constitution which still has the concurrent list enshrined in it. In India, many court cases demanding for the definition of certain powers devolved to the periphery through the concurrent list are still pending.
According to APRC Chairman and Science and Technology Minister Prof. Tissa Vitharana’s idea to do away with the concurrent list has been due to the Indian experience. He feels if the list is embedded in the Constitution, problems are bound to erupt on and off.
Tamil political party leaders who are carefully following the proceedings of the APRC sittings are anxiously waiting until the report is out to make any comment about their future.
They only know that the final report, may not be the 100 percent solution to the Tamil question that they expect, but something rather substantial.
Prof. Vitharana, with his political experience and knowledge is not leaving room for either the Tamil parties or the main opposition to point fingers at the APRC findings.
According to him the final report, after being submitted to the President for his perusal would be handed over to UNP’s constitutional expert and Former Minister K. N. Chocksy.
The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) which is the largest party representing the North and East Tamils in Parliament will also be given a chance to examine the report and submit its own proposals.
The party has already been critical of the decision by the members of the APRC to abolish the executive presidency. The executive presidency, the Tamil party representatives say is an additional strength to the ethnic minority.
They are also skeptical of the decision of the APRC to withdraw the concurrent list.
In 1993, the Mangala Munasinghe commission also suggested the removal of the concurrent list with both the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) and the UNP in unison giving their consent to it. But it never was implemented. So there is more confusion and doubts.
Reasons for doubts
Unfortunately, the manner in which successive governments have conducted affairs in the past, be it political or social, they have all led to doubts and confusion.
Even at present the impression that is given to the South by the politicians is that once the areas held by the Tigers are liberated, the problems faced by the Tamils would also be over. To many Tamil political party leaders, this is absurd
.
A recap of the history reveals that from the inception there have been hiccups between both the Sinhala and the Tamil communities.
The reasons are not due to racism as widely believed to be so, but political, to a great extent.
For political expediency, many political leaders in the past have interpreted not only the laws but even the Constitution according to their own whims and fancies that have ultimately ended up with clashes between the different communities.
Besides, various actions of the successive governments have also forced the ethnic minority to be suspicious of the majority community.
For instance the Indian-Pakistani Citizenship Act of 1949, that denied citizenship to over a million people in the hill country, was a cause for suspicion.
The 1956 Sinhala Only Act was another piece of legislation that became a matter for suspicion. Nobody dared to think that the Oxford-educated S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike, who is presumed to have even thought in English would have ever wanted to enact a piece of legislation of this nature. But in the back of his mind was political expediency and not racism.
Then came the Bandaranaike-Chelvanayagam Pact in 1957 that had features sufficient enough to placate the Tamil community that was clamouring for a change.
But again the UNP that was occupying the Opposition seat in Parliament protested against it. The late J. R. Jayewardene even initiated a protest march (Pada Yatra) to Kandy, in protest against the pact.
Ultimately the pact never was implemented. Again for parochial political convenience the pact was opposed. And no Tamil party leader wants to believe it is for a cause of racism.
Subsequently the Dudley-Chelvanayagam Pact in 1965 also did not materialize. The District Development Council (DDC) that was proposed under this pact never saw the light of the day.
The Tamils could definitely have been comfortable with the DDC but mounting pressure from the South, prevented Dudley Senanayake from implementing the Pact. Here again, the Sinhala leaders were careful not to lose their vote base and hence refused to please the minority.
Then came the ethnic riots of 1958, 1977 and 1983 where most of the Tamils were forced to flee the country due to fear. These riots gave the impression to the Tamil community that they were not part of the island nation but aliens.
The events that have unfolded down the line from the inception have frustrated the Tamils and they were forced to believe that there was an unequivocal agreement between both the major political parties in the country - the SLFP and the UNP, to sideline the minority.
No racism involved
If the Sinhala community by and large were racists, then there would not have emerged different pacts in the past, according to many Tamil political party leaders.
The Dudley-Chelvanayagam Pact, the Bandaranaike-Chelvanayagam Pact, the Sirimavo-Shastri Pact and the Indo – Lanka Pact have all attempted to offer something substantial to the minority notwithstanding pressure from some quarters.
Racist elements have tried from both sides of the divide to mount pressure on successive governments to give and not give. But the fact remains that for merely political advantage the majority political parties have denied free and equal life to the minority.
It is no secret that when Sir Ponnambalam Ramanathan took up the cause of Buddhism to the United Kingdom, upon his arrival he was taken on a chariot by the Sinhalese, around the country. Even when the late Lakshman Kadirgamar went around the globe and insisted that the LTTE be banned, he was considered a hero by the Sinhala majority.
Ethnic nationalism
Author of many books Dr. Jayadeva Uyangoda of the Colombo University calls it ethnic nationalism.
He says Sri Lankan politics has been ethnicised and as a result politicians of various political parties have attempted to take advantage of this feeling.
Sri Lankan politics, according to him is looked at in the context of ethnicity. He describes this as 0-sum game. “It is like this. Either I gain everything or you lose everything. We describe this situation as 0-sum game. This is a bad game to play with the sentiments of the people,” he explained.
He pointed out that people usually have a tendency to give priority to give something extra to their communities and further said that due the ethnic conflicts in the country, ethnicism has been well institutionalized.
“People have started to always look at issues from a Sinhala, Tamil or Muslim point of view. Ethnic identity politics has been entrenched in our political culture and politicians and political parties have reinforced this. They appeal to ethnic sentiments and it pays dividends. I would not call it racism but ethnic nationalism,” he said.
He further pointed out that politicians have become reluctant to accept that Sri Lanka is a pluralistic country and added it is pluralistic democracy that should be exercised in order to let different communities live in harmony.
Join or not
Meanwhile serious questions are raised, whether or not, Tamil political parties should join hands now to represent the already battered Tamil community.
Already Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) led by V. Anandasangari, Peoples Liberation of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE) led by D. Sidharthan, and Eelam Peoples’ Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF) led by Varadaraja Perumal have coalesced together under one banner.
They will contest all future elections together as one party, named Democratic Tamil National Alliance (DTNA).
These three parties spurned the demand for a separate state after the 1987 Indo-Lanka Accord was signed. They believed in a reasonable devolution to the North-Eeast where people could live in harmony and enjoy the freedom of movement and expression. They believed in development and genuine security of the Tamils in these regions.
They expected the successive governments to consider Tamils also as part of the state but to them, every action of successive governments had only further distanced the Tamils from the centre.
However, today they still believe there could be a political package that would convince the Tamil minority that they are part and parcel of Sri Lanka.
Meanwhile, the Eelam Peoples’ Democratic Party (EPDP) led by Minister Douglas Devananda has already decided to go solo.
Devananda who broke away from the EPRLF, after functioning as the group’s Eastern military Wing Commander opted to fall in line with the main stream of democracy and to date, he has stuck to his parliamentary politics.
Devananda overtly criticized the LTTE and has escaped narrowly several assassination attempts by the LTTE.
From the time he opted to engage in politics he has been under threat.
He says it is not necessary for the Tamil parties to join together provided they worked for a common goal. His ambition is to meet the aspirations of the Tamils through parliamentary democracy. “Otherwise it would be of no use to anyone. We want our rights enshrined in the Constitution. We don’t want separate land but we want our rights honoured and our freedom restored,” he said.
He pointed out that the Tamil parties that decided to eschew violence and the gun culture could not win over the rights of the Tamil because of the several blocks imposed by the LTTE.
“If the LTTE is fully defeated, we can achieve this through parliamentary democracy. This is our goal and dream,” he pointed out.
It is learnt that the EPDP will contest future elections alone. The people in the North are now tired of the presence of the Special Task Force (STF). The presence of the STF, according to Devananda is due to the continuing threats posed by the Tigers.
He sees the necessity of the presence of the STF until elections are over.
“Once the elections are over and the LTTE defeated, I am confident that the STF will not remain here and we can exercise true democracy,” he said.
Different clashes
Clashes within and without political parties are inevitable. However clashes between the different Tamil parties and clashes among the Sinhala parties have distinct causes.
For instance splits among Tamil parties have been due to personality clashes. Almost all the parties, except the LTTE, believe, including the TNA, that it is only a political solution that will finally bring about a settlement.
Based on this philosophy they function at different levels, keeping one goal in mind. The cause for their struggle is one at the end of the day.
But when the Sinhala parties represent the majority community their aims have been towards power. They are not oppressed nor suffer identity crisis. But their aim has been to come to power. In fact even the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) insurgency was aimed at toppling the incumbent government to come to power.
PLOTE Leader Sidharthan says as the aim of the Tamil political parties remain one, they could easily gravitate towards each other later on for the sake of the community.
His view is that only if all the parties are united then the Tamil community could be strengthened.
“Whether one talks with the EPDP or EPRLF, the same sentiments are expressed at the end of the day. The fundamental question remains the same. This is why I strongly believe that it is essential that we unite together for this particular cause. After all, we do not want Eelam. The party that clamoured for Eelam is slowly but steadily vanishing from the society,” he said.
He said with the defeat of the LTTE, many Tamils feel that their future is over. But added it is only a myth.
“If there is a proper democratic process setting in motion, any Tamil will be willing to participate in that process. And once we are allowed to demonstrate our feelings and sentiments freely, I am sure, all the Tamils will feel that they are part of this country. I call upon all the Tamils not to lose hope,” he said.
Meanwhile TULF leader Anandasangari said no leader can be imposed.
He said if the people are allowed to elect their own representatives and leaders, then there will be no problems in the future.
“The problem here is that leaders are imposed on a community. People are forced to elect someone who they do not have any confidence in. Then problems start. This is what has happened to the LTTE. When Pirabhakaran forced himself to be the leader, the people started to distance themselves further away from him,” he said.
Opportune moment
With the probable elimination of the LTTE, it is possible and easy for the rest of the Tamil parties to take decisions together. If they claim to be the representatives of the Tamils in general, then it is the most opportune time for them to take one cohesive decision.
Through this exercise, they can bring the many scattered Tamils together.
Presidential Secretary Lalith Weeratunga has already identified the problems of the Tamil youth who are returning to Vavuniya from the rebel held areas. He has elaborate plans to set up many vocational training centres to train the youth and then send them back to their homes.
The Tamil parties can be part of this exercise to begin with. This is the time the Tamils need their warmth and guidance.
If parties are going to be again separated for personal reasons, and not show a keen interest on the people whom they represent, then the future of this community is going to be absolutely austere.
http://transcurrents.com/tc/2009/02/with_the_apparent_defeat_of_th.html
