Critical choice facing Sri Lanka: Throwing out the failed medicine of Vadukkoddei

by Sebastian Rasalingam, Toronto

(February 03, Toronto, Sri Lanka Guardian) Renuka Sharma (RS) and Satchi Sithananthan (SS), writing in the Sri Lanka Guardian on Feburay 01, 2009 (read) discusses what they call the "Critical choice Sri Lanka cannot shun anymore. This article must be taken in conjunction with the article by Susantha Goonatilleke (SG) which appeared in the Sunday Times on January 18, 2009 and reproduced in the TamilNet on the 30th of January.

Dr. Goonatilleke's article entitled "After the victory: Full-scale development in the north but no racist appeasement" provides a vision counter to that of RS-SS, and a critical evaluation of the two points of view would enable us to avoid the minefields that lay ahead of us who wish for peace and stability in Sri Lanka.

Satchi Sithanandan is a writer that I have respected for his opposition to the LTTE, and his attention to the need to hold up to certain moral standards in political action. But he too belongs to the younger generation which was caught up inadvertently into the racial mindset spawned by the political movements of the 1950s to 1970s. This is the "Tamil-Nation mindset". This mindset gives NO PLACE to basic economic needs of the deprived people. This mindset is a racist mindset because it looks at every problem as a contest between the two races - the Majoritarian Sinhalese and the minority Tamils. The whole objective of the political process is claimed to correct this situation by constitutional changes where the Tamils also become a majority "in their own land". Already in 1949 Samuel JV Chelvanayagam (SJV) and others of the Ilankai Tamil Arasu Kadchchi (ITAK) concluded that the solution to this problem is to build up the "Tamil Homelands" concept and strive for separation or at least Federalism. In the 1950s ITAK concluded that an extra-parliamentary struggle is needed, and launched the programs of militant civil disobedience which ultimately led to full-scale fighting between the Sri Lankan government and the Tamils led by the LTTE. The whole political process was guided by an ideological nationalist engagement based on the "Tamil-nation mindset".

A minority group starting an extra-parliamentary struggled basing its stance on ideology is taking a great risk. Parliaments are more favourable to minorities, while etra- parliamentary struggles favour the majority. Nevertheless, owing to the initial support of India, and the subsequent support of a diaspora, a protracted military struggle was possible. In the end, as is customary in this type of struggle, the sacrifice of a whole generation of people has been necessary to realize the folly of this type of ideological adventure. Yet the proposals made by RS-SS are old federal proposals of the ITAK, the same old medicine bearing the "expiry date of Vadukkoddei". We read the re-affirmation of the "home-lands concept", and the implicit threat that the Tamils can invoke the might of Tamil Nadu if the Sinhalese are not willing to grant these "basics" to the Tamils!

In 1952, as a young man in Jaffna I remember listening to the electoral campaign of the ITAK where several of the speakers declared that the ultimate objective is to "drive the Sinhalese from our homelands", just as the British were driven out of India, by a process of civil struggle and non-cooperation.

IN 1952 MOST TAMILS REFUSED TO BUY THIS LINE OF THINKING.

But the campaign moved forwards, andburned bright with the fuel provided by S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike's opportunist politics.

Today, the political program of the ITAK launched in 1949,and re-iterated 50 years later by RS-SS in their February 2009 article, lay in ruins. Two generations of Tamils are dead or displaced to foreign lands, or to the "Sinhalese" areas. The next generation has been eliminated and converted to cannon fodder by Prabhakaran, the executioner chosen by the diaspora to "drive out the Sinhalese and the Muslims from the Traditional Homelands". Tamils were regarded generally as Krisnamurthi-like gentle Hindus in a previous age. Today we have become branded internationally as terrorists, criminals busy in extortion, credit-card and money frauds, violence etc. The immorality of the war and the ideological racism of Eelam have contaminated the whole well being of the Tamils. Even its best men and women have, in little imperceptible steps seeped themselves in a mindset which is a racism that condones violence, recruitment of children for war and other atrocities. This is justified by utterances like "the whole world is aware that the LTTE is a child of Sinhala-Buddhist chauvinism and the majority community was guilty of violating the fundamental rights of the minority Tamils". The Chicken and the egg blaming each-other for originating the process!

The LTTE could not function without the funds of the Diaspora. The Sinhala chauvinists were given ample ammunition by the ITAK. Not one meeting was held by the ITAK in the south to explain the position of the Tamils to the Sinhalese. No visits were made by SJVC to explain and dialogue with the Buddhist Mahanayakas of the day. No conciliatory concessions were made by the ITAK to the government of the day. It is not just the Sinhala masses that were ignored by the Tamil politicians. They even ignored the poor Tamils. Opponents of the program were called Traitors. The civil disobedience programs ruined the chances for the nurturing of development and commerce in the North and East.

If we use an estimate of $300 million income (Jane's Intelligence) in the later years of the LTTE, and an income of zero dollars for the "Tamil cause" initially in 1972, the total income over the period is anything from 5 billion to 10 billion dollars. Given a Tamil population of 3 million or some 600,000 families, we could have provided at least $10,000 per family annually for 35 years from the money spent on the "Eelam struggle". With that kind of money given to poor Tamil families, they would have done FAR BETTER than any kind of Eelam. It would have been enough to just buy up everything outright!

The key to the dignity and strength of the Tamils is not constitutional struggles designed to create racist enclaves in the North and East. The key to Tamil dignity is regaining its control of the mercantile sector and economy of the land. Japan lost the war to the USA and the allies, but today Japan has fought back, using Toyotas, Sonys and Yamahas. That is the winning formula for the Tamils. Political movements based on ideology, be it nationalist rhetoric or Hegelian dialectic, fail miserably. Politics has to be pragmatic, empiricist and utilitarian for achieving anything.

Dr Susantha Goonatilleke's article of course reveals many aspects of the "Mahavamsa mindset". His plans for colonization for the sake of colonization is ideological and expresses the fear of the Sinhalese that the Tamils are basically planning to curve out a part of the land some day. However, I commend him for talking about development.

The constitution should NOT talk of Sinhalese or Tamils. Burr it may talk these languages and their status. The possibility that Tamil have today, to migrate and settle down in any part of the country should NOT be traded away for a federalism advocated by individuals who live in Sydney, New Jersy or Frankfurt. Tamils have to in return accept that Muslims and Sinhalese should also have the free right to settle down and do business in Mullaitivu and Mannar. The sine qua non for all this is a fast rail system which links every part of the country by rapid transit. The Colombo-Jaffna trip should not take more than 2 hours with a fast dedicated overhead rail line. Same thing goes for Batticaloa or Trincomalee. Mr. Johnpulle in a series of articles which appeared in the Sri Lanka Guardian had expressed the view that the cosmopolitan society that one finds in Colombo and the suburbs should be allowed to develop in the North and the East. I fully concur with that view. Such cosmopolitan societies cannot be constructed using the militarized formula of Dr Susantha Goonatilleke. Such societies arise from the exigencies of Trade and commerce. All that is needed is to create banks which would give easy credit for anyone who wishes to set up business in the East or the North.

The Tamils with their great capacity for survival and doing good in Trade would soon flourish, if the Tamil politicians, the bossy TNA types, separatists, or old-fashoned caste-hegamonists would leave them alone. Separatism and federal boundaries have never been good for trade, commerce and co-existence.-Sri Lanka Guardian