When there’s fighting, when there are bombs exploding and
there’s expectation of explosion, when there’s death and displacement, there’s an
oft articulated wish: the end of fighting.
When a nation has been gripped by the clash of arms for close to three
decades there are costs that people bear, individually and collectively, costs
too numerous to enumerate here. There
are things that war taken which war-end does not return.
The end of war means different things to different
people. Those who count themselves among
the ‘winners’ will naturally celebrate, the joy overriding the inevitable
losses. Those who believe they lost, lament,
quietly for the most part. Whichever
camp one belongs to, there’s common relief on one matter: the end of gunfire
and bomb explosion.
Time passes and those with a political bent re-assess
strength and subsequent to a consideration of evolved circumstances re-invent
themselves and redesign strategy. As the
years go by end-moment, when revisited, is viewed with new eyes with gaze that
is invariably colored as much by event-memory as by the political ‘imperatives’
of the day. And so we have political
commentators impressing their political preferences or rather the ‘prerogatives’
defined by their ideological bent on reading this moment, that is the fifth
anniversary of what is officially called ‘Victory Day’.
By the time things came to an end on May 18, 2009 in the
environs of the Nandikadal Lagoon, a nation that had lost so much over three
decades recovered an essential ingredient for re-imagining a different future.
Hope. Naturally, what was hoped for depended
on perceptions of ‘moment’, extrapolations thereto and preferred outcomes, short
term and long-term. This is apparent
when reading ‘readings’ of Victory Day 2014.
Naturally, those whose preferred outcomes with respect to
the conflict did not materialize back in 2009 are disappointed that ‘post-war’
developments did not deliver their fantasies.
It is almost as though these ‘analysts’ believed that the political ‘coming
together’ which resulted in a particular reading of the LTTE and thereafter
chose a particular course of action would disband itself, abandon political
project and let the ‘losers’ design the post-war political tomorrow. Understandably, these commentators were
either ‘neutral’ about the LTTE, behind-the-scenes supporters of the LTTE or
else objectors to the LTTE but not to the LTTE’s project, albeit in a this-side-of-Eelam
formulation. They were and remain a tiny
minority.
Without doubt, post-2005 politics in Sri Lanka was about
defeating the LTTE militarily. If those
forces that backed the stand taken by President Mahinda Rajapaksa were asked to
state ideological position, the vast majority would have stated, ‘for the preservation
of the unitary state’. They would not
fiddle around with vague and patently non-political terms such as ‘united’
because vagueness and ambiguity (e.g. one can theoretically have unity in
either a federal or unitary set up) can only mislead. To ask, therefore, for any ‘solution’ that subverts
‘unitary’ at this point would amount to robbing victor of victory confer
political defeat on the military victor and be insulting to all the soldiers
who fought and died to safeguard the territorial integrity and sovereignty of
the nation. One can attempt this, but
there will be costs and that’s certainly not something this regime would dare
risk at this point.
The above, however, does not mean that all is well and good
in the country. Still, the Tamil people have
not lost the right to air grievances and demand redress. Indeed, ‘Victory Day’ created space for the articulation
of grievance in a more democratic environment.
It also created the conditions for representatives of that community to remove
myth and fantasy from grievance and aspiration respectively. This has not happened and that’s unfortunate. The space still exists, though. That’s what
it most important here.
The government, for its part, has opted to think ‘development’
(as per its definition) as an all-cure.
This is wrong. Instead of playing
cat-n-mouse with the TNA with respect to parliamentary select committees, the
government could take the initiative, throw gauntlet as it were. The following could be said out loud:
“Name your grievances and tell us how devolution ‘works’ for
your community considering that the majority live outside the North and
East. The geographical lines on your
grievance-maps have no scientific basis and have been drawn by colonial rulers
and you swear by them: what’s the logic?
Would you go for a re-demarcation?”
But then again ‘Victory Day’ was not about the LTTE and the Eelam
project alone. It was about winning space to bring back issues that the war had
‘shelved’. Yes, the economy, but not only the
economy. We had a draconian constitution
and we are still saddled with it. If
there was hope that the rule of law would be restored, then there’s little to
celebrate today. The same goes for
insulating citizen from politician. The institutional
arrangement remains flawed and anti-citizen.
Five years is long enough to fix these things. They remain un-fixed;
indeed the flaws are openly celebrated by way of abusing the same.
The guns are silent and we are grateful to all who made it
possible, from the President down to the most humble soldier and everyone else
who in word and deed contributed in whatever way. Many other victories are within sight or
rather could come into full view, but only if the correct policy paths are
chosen. The Government has kept us
waiting. For a long, long time.
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