Wigneswaran and the puppeteering with ghosts

Sports Minister Dayasiri Jayasekara’s recent comments on Northern Province Chief Minister C.V. Wigneswaran contained valid observations, old news delivered as though it was new, half-truths and some uncalled for insults.  Wigneswaran’s response was, in contrast, quite sober though not unproblematic.  

In Jayasekera’s opinion, Wigneswaran is ‘nothing but a bhoothya’.   An evil ghost instigating disharmony between the Sinhalese and Tamils, to be precise.  He took issue with what he considers racist remarks by Wigneswaran which, he claims, is making it difficult for the Government to sell the idea of devolution to the Sinhalese.  He also said that Wigneswaran is cosy with the LTTE (meaning probably what’s left of it and of course its sympathizers) and ‘NGOs’.  

It’s a strange statement for several reasons.  The TNA was the principle apologist for the LTTE in the democratic political space.  Wigneswaran is a member of that political coalition.  Jayasekara is not making any startling revelations, therefore.  The comment on NGOs is vague.  It’s a silly generalization.  There’s nothing wrong with NGOs per se; you’ve got to name names and explain what’s so pernicious about them that warrants a reference that sounds dismissive.  However, it’s the question of ethnic harmony that’s problematic.  

Jayasekera, on the one hand says, ‘he (Wigneswaran) is trying to convey a message to the international community, saying that power devolution is not an option for Sri Lanka because of the Sinhala people’.  In other words, Wigneswaran contends that the Sinhalese are opposed to power devolution.  Jayasekera then acknowledges that the idea of devolution has not been embraced by the Sinhalese.  In other words, it has to be sold to the Sinhalese.  He is in fact endorsing Wigneswaran’s position and ironically also  the position of devolution-fixated NGOs, but contends that Wigneswaran’s racism is scuttling well-meaning efforts.  So, in effect, the two are on the same page with regard to devolution, but are at odds when it comes to the best way to get to destinations they both prefer.  

Wigneswaran, for his part, has said that the ‘Tamil people’s issues’ cannot be solved by chasing him away.  He claimed that even if he was ‘banished’ his successor would say the same thing.  He adds the reason, ‘as we always speak the truth’.  

He is correct.  Absolutely.  On this issue, let me qualify.  What is ‘this issue’?  Let’s discuss it.

The issue is that the Sinhalese are opposed not to devolution per se but to the kind of devolution that Tamil chauvinists have been touting for almost a century now, beginning with Ponnambalam Ramanathan’s communalism, G.G. Ponnambalam’s 50-50, the Batakotte Resolution, the Thimpu Principles and the various other separatist proposals, either in the form of Eelam or those following the Chelvanayagam Principle (a little now, more later).  

The ‘Tamil issue’ won’t go away as long as Tamil politicians consider it their political bread and butter to whip up communalism even to the point of conflating politically aspirations so grand that they are politically inexpedient.   Wigneswaran’s predecessors talked that talk, he talks it, and his successors will continue to talk it as long as it serves narrow political objectives.   To such proposals, the Sinhalese will object, this is true.  Wigneswaran is correct.  When he says ‘the Sinhalese are not interested in devolution,’ he is correct.  The Sinhalese have no reason whatsoever to agree to the kind of devolution that Wigneswaran proposes, his predecessors have proposed and his political/ideological successors would in all probability propose.  

And why should they?

There’s absolutely nothing in all the Tamil ‘grievances’ pertaining to discrimination that cannot be resolved in ways other than devolution of power.  The claim of traditional/historical homelands is a load of balderdash, unsupported by any kind of evidence.  There are no archaeological props, there’s no subaltern history and even the literary kind of ‘evidence’ is at best weak and easily debunked.  But we need not go into all that.  Just the fact that the ‘Tamil Homeland Map’ is essentially a pick off a set of lines arbitrarily drawn by the British is enough to pinch that part of the ‘truth-claim’ which the likes of Wigneswaran trot out now and again.  Add the fact that they blur the truth with ‘multi-ethnic’ talk but indulge in navel and toe gazing when asked about numbers and percentages and it’s actually pretty sad.  Throw in the fact that almost half the Tamil population live outside the ‘homelands’ and the bottom falls out of the argument.  ‘Issues’ are reduced to slow implementation of the Language Act, nothing more and nothing less.  Want to tell the Sinhalese that you need devolution to sort out that little tumor and you are bound to run into ‘Are you kidding?’  

The uncomfortable truth that confronts Jayasekara and others touting devolution along Eelamist lines is not that they are getting tripped by the racist statements issued by the likes of Wigmeswaran but the sheer mismatch between grievance and solution.  

Sure there are ghosts.  Evil ones.  There’s the evil ghost of misrepresentation, the evil ghost of exaggeration, the evil ghost of painting fiction as fact and myth as history, the evil ghost of silence on demographic realities, the evil ghost of a flawed colonial map, and the evil ghost of bullying Sinhalese into thinking that submitting to Tamil chauvinism is equal to ‘a solution that satisfies all communities’.  

Too many ghosts.  Way too many.  No wonder people are not buying it.   Wigneswaran is not a ghost.  He’s a politician who, like his predecessors, is puppeteering with such specters.  Jayasekara seems to have been mesmerized.  The principle ‘issue’ of both is that it’s a very hard sell as far as the Sinhalese are concerned.  It serves Wigneswaran’s political purposes, but wrecks Jayasekara’s.  That’s why the latter rants and the former is smug.   

Malinda Seneviratne is a freelance writer.  Email: malindasenevi@gmail.com.  Twitter: malindasene.  \

Read more

There’s pussy-footing galore around the TNA ‘ultimatum’

The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) gave the Government a deadline to respond to three specific issues: (1) The structure of governance (2) The division of subjects and functions between the centre and the devolved units and (3) Fiscal and financial powers.  The Government refused, point blank, claiming that solutions for a decades long problem cannot be found in 10 days. 

I believe that the TNA was not out of order in setting a deadline.  After all, these are issues that were raised long before this deadline was set and moreover have been articulated one way or another by various Tamil representatives (armed and otherwise) for years and years, decades upon decades.  Successive governments, perhaps eyeing the Tamil vote, have pussy-footed around these issues, balking at commitment one way or another and in this and other ways giving an unintended fillip to Tamil communalism that harps on non-existent grievances and aspirations that are politically unfeasible.  

The TNA is without doubt the political heir to the Eelam project blueprinted by rank chauvinists and racists such as S.J.V. Chelvanayakam and G.G. Ponnambalam and blood-marked by the terrorism of Velupillai Prabhakaran.  This does not mean that the TNA can’t ask questions or demand responses, especially when the Government invites it to discussions on issues pertaining to Tamils.  In this sense, it is silly to say that the TNA ought to have chosen a better time to make such demands, for example during Chandrika Kumaratunga’s tenure when ‘there was a relative (greater?) strategic balance’ as Dayan Jayatilleka argues (‘Breaking the deadlock; avoiding a breakdown’, Daily Mirror, August 9, 2011). 

There is a thing called ‘appropriate political moment’, yes, but that does not mean there are auspicious and inauspicious times to ask questions or that the questions themselves are somehow invalid if the time’s not right.  After saying that the TNA is the weaker negotiating partner, Dayan uses the word ‘deadlock’.  If there is the imbalance he rightfully claims there is, then there’s no deadlock.  The stronger party can say ‘stuff it’.  It has, by the way.  Still, the questions remain ‘on the table’ so to speak, as they have for decades. 

Dayan says that ‘reconciliation’ should be incremental.  That’s logical.  In fact ‘incremental’ was the original strategy of the Eelamists; Chelvanayakam said for example, ‘A little now, more later’.  Dayan seems to conflate ‘reconciliation’ with ‘Eelam-end’, knowingly or unknowingly.  Indeed, the rest of the article is a virtual blueprint to get to this ‘end’. 

He points out that war-end can result in major constitutional change, but that this is not always necessitated.  Sri Lanka doesn’t need major constitutional change, he claims. Well, that’s his opinion, but if democracy, good governance, insulation of the people from politician etc., are important, then we do need major constitutional reform.  Only someone who is ok with constitutional dictatorship or constitutional feudalism (the terms applicable to various post-1978 regimes) could argue otherwise.   

Having fixed the ‘as is’ of the constitution, it is logical to demand full implementation.  Dayan does this and adds for good measure that the vanquishing of the LTTE had made this possible. Correct.  The problem is that he is focusing on the 13^th Amendment to the constitution, an illegal piece of legislation authored to sort out misnamed and misarticulated grievances, and moreover almost of lynchpin significance to the furtherance of the separatist project.  Interestingly, many argued that its ‘full implementation’ was the one and only way of undermining the LTTE, but that’s an aside as far as this article is concerned.

Perhaps aware of the problematic circumstances of its birthing, Dayan weaves a neat argument for the implementation of the 13^th Amendment.  This is what he says:

‘Our history is not solely that which is purely indigenous. It is the product of the interaction of the external and the internal; the synthesis of the dialectical interaction of us and the other. No provision of Sri Lanka’s Constitution should be repudiated on the basis that it was not wholly indigenous, any more than electoral democracy, the multiparty system, the legal system and much of our democratic rights and structures should be swept aside because they are of external provenance.’

He is absolutely right here.  On the other hand, it does not follow that all things externally wrought should be embraced uncritically or as being ‘good’.  If it works, yes, but if it does not and if it further exacerbates existing problems, then no.  The dialectics of interaction involves on occasion, contestation and resistance.  Circumstances change.  Back in 1987, a weak government that was unpopular had no option by to let the dialectic interaction dissolve into abject surrender.  This is 2011. The circumstances are different and Sri Lanka, as a nation, can not only resist but revisit a blunder and make necessary corrections. Dayan won’t dare displease his Indian masters by saying all this, hiding behind vague terms such as ‘dialectic interaction’ and ‘geopolitical reality’ instead of saying aloud ‘Indian thuggery’.  That’s his prerogative but he can’t expect the entire country to purchase such shameless servility of the intellect. 

Dayan introduces a caveat (‘any modifications in one or another direction must be balanced and mutually agreed upon compromises’) and a warning (‘any opening up of fundamental questions, of the sort contained in the TNA’s triple query, at this stage, can lead to the kind of unravelling that was prefigured by the Supreme Court decision on the merger’).  The first is logical, in terms of the process of constitutional amendment, and the second is just fear-mongering.

Ignored in the lengthy piece are the legitimacy of the TNA’s query and the scandalous refusal of the Government to question the basis of the query.  The questions posed are founded on a particular set of assumptions that do not stand inquiry in relation to history, demography and geography, not forgetting of course political ‘doability’ and indeed the political risk for the regime. 

The 13^th Amendment, ladies and gentlemen, amounts (in this time of Eelamists being in reduced circumstances) to fixing Eelam boundaries.  And, even if the TNA had history, geography and demography on its side as well as some kind of economic logic that shows devolution would make for better development-distribution, then the 13^th has to be accompanied by extensive amendment to the constitution with respect to curtailing the powers of the executive presidency. 

Dayan is a political scientist by training. He cannot be ignorant about this.  Why then is he pushing for the 13^th?  I have to conclude that while he was against the LTTE and terrorism and fought valiantly on many forums in this regard, he is an unabashed supporter or pawn of separatism, whose current ‘incremental’ is the fixing of Eelam boundaries. 

[Courtesy Sunday Island, August 14, 2011]

Read more