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By Veeragathy Thanabalasingham
Colombo, May 17: Fifteen years have passed since the end of Sri Lanka’s brutal civil war which lasted for about thirty years. None of the main political problems has not been solved. The country is not progressing economically either. Instead we see problems getting worse and the country is chaotic and bankrupt.
A large part of the southern Sinhalese polity does not seem to think that there is a pressing need to find a negotiated political solution to the national ethnic problem that has torn the country apart. In these fifteen years, the country has not moved an inch towards finding a political compromise that would fulfil the legitimate political aspirations of the minority communities.
Even the implementation of the 13th Amendment, which has been a part of the Constitution for more than three decades, is impossible. In no other country in the world do we see political forces taking to the streets to protest against the implementation of a constitutional provision.
Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, who never failed to claim credit for providing what he called courageous political leadership to defeat the Tamil Tigers militarily, had a rare historical opportunity to find a political solution to the ethnic problem with the support of the Sinhalese people fifteen years ago.
But he deliberately ignored that opportunity and pursued a more aggressive ethnic majoritarian politics with the dream of ruling Sri Lanka for a long time. He liberally used the war victory to divert the attention of the Sinhalese people from the main issues affecting them. That regressive strategy helped him and his family stay in power for a few more years, but did nothing good for the Sinhalese people.
It did not take long for the truth that ethnic majoritarian mobilization was essentially a cover-up for misrule and corruption to come out. However, the South still does not seem to have learned a lesson from it. It is unfortunate that even after Sri Lanka’s unprecedented popular uprising ousted the Rajapaksas from power two years ago, they are still able to run the government from behind the scenes. They are able to say that the candidate who gets their support and blessings will be the next president. Only a national election can tell if the popular uprising and the subsequent political developments have brought about any positive change in the political thinking of the people of South Lanka.
Meanwhile, the prospective main candidates will focus on the economic crisis in the presidential election, which is still four months away. It is unlikely that they will be concerned about the need to find a political solution to the national problem.
Addressing the Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) May Day rally in Colombo, Opposition leader Sajith Premadasa said that his government would find solutions to the problems of the minority communities with the support of the Sinhalese people and implement the 13th Amendment to the Constitution. But it remains to be seen whether he will mention it in his election manifesto.
Although President Ranil Wickremesinghe has the image of being the only Sinhalese leader to whom the minority communities in general and the Tamils in particular can approach to find a solution to the their problems, he is unlikely to show the courage to adopt policies that might alienate the Sinhalese nationalist electorate.
The National People’s Power (NPP) leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake had recently said in a speech in Jaffna that he would not negotiate to get votes from the Tamils by promising Thirteen Plus or a federal solution. He promised to create a Sri Lankan identity that embraces all communities.
In one of his recent articles, political analyst Rajan Phillips said that there is already a Sri Lankan identity in everyone’s National Identity Card and Passport and added that Dissanayaka is neither here nor there and asked whether he is suggesting anything more.
It is almost certain that none of the main candidates will make any promises that the majority Sinhalese will not support. At the same time, it cannot be expected that any candidate will emphasize the need to find a political solution forcefully in their election campaigns among the Sinhalese people.
In this background, humanitarian problems have also intensified in the last fifteen years. The Tamil people are unable to protect their lands from grabbers assisted by the security forces and hard-line Sinhalese nationalist political forces. They even have to fight to remember the war dead.
Blocking such commemorative events using the security forces and police is a cruel form of racism. This time a strange approach can be seen in the actions of the police. The police did not interfere with the commemorations in the North but only prevented them in the East. One couldn’t understand the logic behind it.
At the same time, a major problem facing the Tamil people is the absence of a cohesive Tamil polity to properly guide the them in the post-war period. Tamil people have Members of Parliament, but they are not prudent political leaders drawing lessons from past tragedies and guiding people in a manner suitable to contemporary domestic and international political situations.
After the end of the war, the historic responsibility of leading the Tamil people of the Northern and Eastern Provinces automatically fell on the Tamil National Alliance (TNA ). The leaders of the TNA failed to handle it properly and re-establish a strong polity among the Tamil people. They merely acted in the interest of party politics and did not care to build the TNA into a united political force capable of taking the struggle for political rights of the Tamil people to the next stage. They don’t have the political wisdom or commitment to do so.
As a result, today the Tamil polity is fragmented. And all parties are divided in one way or another. Where is the time for Tamil politicians to care about resolving the problems of the Tamil people when they are incapable of resolving their own disputes?
As for the Sinhalese polity, despite the various contradictions, they are united on what not to give to the Tamils. The South Lankan political parties are not interested in finding a political solution to the ethnic national problem, we see a worrisome situation where their is no unity among the Tamil political forces.
Although Tamil parties have been holding consultations on the idea of fielding a Tamil common candidate in the presidential election, it is difficult to expect them to come to an agreement. It is doubtful whether any non-political dignitary would come forward as a common candidate when looking at the ridiculous comments made by the leaders of some Tamil parties.
Be that as it may, we now see an intensification of impractical political activities that bind the Tamil people to the memories of past struggles. The Tamil people have every right to remember and honor those who sacrificed their lives in the struggles to win the political rights of the Tamil people and the innocent people who were unjustly killed in the war. But it is very important to understand that there is no point in simply living with the memories without an introspection as to why those struggles, full of unimaginable sacrifices, ultimately came to a tragic end.
This being the case, two new unhealthy trends are seriously infiltrating Tamil nationalist politics. One of them is religious extremism. Tamil nationalist politics has been secular since its inception. It embraced all sects among the Tamil speaking community.
The late S.J.V.Chelvanayagam, affectionately called ‘ Thanthai Chelva’ who was respected as the leader of the Tamils for decades was not a Hindu. But there was a time when all sections of Tamil speaking community including the Muslims, irrespective of their religious identities, accepted his leadership. It was also the most significant salutary feature of Tamil nationalist politics.
In recent times, attempts are being made to identify Tamil politics with Hinduism. Some people are also demanding that only a Hindu should be fielded as a common candidate on behalf of the Tamils in the presidential election. Not only that, the idea of putting one of the Hindu gurus who is actively involved in political activities as the common candidate was also proposed. There is no doubt that these efforts are influenced by the Hindutva policy of Bharatiya Janata Party in India.
Another is the increasing influence of extremist elements within the diaspora Tamil community. There was a long period when the diaspora Tamil community made a tremendous contribution to the political rights struggle of the Tamils in Sri Lanka. It made an enormous contribution in bringing the government’s oppression of the Tamil people to the attention of the international community.
However, in the period after the end of the war, certain elements among the diaspora Tamils tended to exercise undue influence in Tamil politics. Due to this, corrupt activities have increased in Tamil politics like never before. They believe that the direction of Sri Lankan Tamil politics can be decided by the money sent from abroad.
Those living in a safe environment abroad and talking about impractical policies can never decide what kind of political solution the Tamils living in the country need. Unhealthy interventions by the political groups in the diaspora Tamils also encourage anti-social activities in the Tamil areas.
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