Sajith, the TNA and the Eelamist Compact

It is simple now. The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) is reported to have submitted a set of 13 conditions to be agreed upon as the price for supporting a presidential candidate. The Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) has refused to bite. The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) is reported to be willing to agree to a couple. The United National Party (UNP) has maintain a solid silence. 

The UNP candidate has a steep hill to climb as it is and does not need distractions and kakul-maattu of this kind. First of all, the collectives that voted against Mahinda Rajapaksa (and for Maithripala Sirisena) in 2015 are scattered. The JVP offered tacit support but is going it alone this time. The UNP-backed Sirisena rode on hope. Premadasa has to run against disappointment, disillusionment and even anger and resentment. 

The floating vote that helped Sirisena in 2015 may not back Gotabaya Rajapaksa but if ‘change’ is what prompted them then, it is not something they can expect from Premadasa since he is after all the UNP candidate. To be more precise he was and is a minister in the government that gave us broken promises, the Central Bank heist, a compromised national security regime, nepotism, political patronage, corruption, treachery in Geneva etc., etc.  And ruined the economy to boot.  

The much bragged about ‘Business Forum’ organized to drum up support for Premadasa had a full-house audience, but ‘business’ was sadly not their business. The campaign itself has declined to the point where pictures of the Galle Face rally are cropped and issued as ‘massive crowds attending Sajith’s rally in X, Y or Z’.  

He is struggling to capture the non-UNP sections of the Sinhala vote. The results of the February 2018 local government elections indicate that it is more or less the preserve of the SLPP. Groups fielding people like Mahesh Senanayake and Rohan Pallewatte are more likely to win over anti-Rajapaksa voters who are disgusted with the Yahapalana experiment. 

Sajith needs the Muslim and Tamil vote. It won’t be enough to win, but saving-face is victory enough in diminished circumstances. This is where the TNA’s ‘Eelamist Proposal’ (as we should call it) comes into play.  This is where the support of people like Rauff Hakeem and Rishard Bathiudeen and the parties and community they lead come into play.

Hakeem is in hot water. Rishard always was with his bullish ways. Hakeem’s association with the mastermind of the Easter Sunday attacks, the Islamic cleric Zahran Hashim is scandalous on several counts. First the association itself. Secondly, the fact that Hakeem did not disclose all this. Thirdly, having chosen to keep mum Hakeem sits on a Parliamentary Select Committee appointed to look into the attacks, the worst by any self-defined religious group on ‘non-believers’ in this country since bible-toting colonial rulers destroyed temples and kovils. 

And Hakeem, ladies and gentlemen, along with the SLMC has backed Sajith Premadasa. And Sajith for his part, for all his egotistic chest-beating pronouncements and pledges about national security, has not called Hakeem out on this issue. Sajith is cosy sharing the political stage with Zahran’s buddies. It has been noted. It might not be forgotten. 

The TNA’s Eelamist proposals, however, poses the most vexed of the questions for Sajith.  He has said he is not willing to submit to any conditions, but that was a general statement, applicable to anyone and everyone and therefore no one at all simply because the devil is in the details. One has to be specific about such things. If one is to be taken seriously, that is. That’s hard enough as it is in Sajith’s case. His theatrics may tickle the diehard UNP loyalists, but if that’s what it is all about then he achieves nothing more than getting them to the polling booth, something they would probably have done anyway.  

The conditions put forward by the TNA does much more than tickle, though.  Two options: a) accept them and face the ire of every voter who is against separatism and especially those who are well aware of the multiple calamities spawned by such Eelamist posturing for thirty years, or b) reject them and risk losing the Tamil vote.

The North and East, taken as a proxy for the ‘Tamil Vote’ is not a bloc as such. In 2010, Sarath Fonseka obtained 67% of the vote from these two provinces whereas Maithripala Sirisena upped the anti-Rajapaksa numbers (if you can call that) to the tune of 75%. The TNA suffered quite a slide at the last local government election. This time there is a Tamil candidate and a Muslim candidate as well. Whatever votes they get are votes that are most likely to have been cast for Sirisena in 2015. That’s a number that is going to feature as a negative in the Sajith-Register.  The general disappointments of the Tamil voter (promised so much in gay abandon by the Yahapalanists and largely neglected thereafter) should also be factored in.  

Regardless of these elements of the electoral equation, Sajith Premadasa needs to respond to the TNA. M.A. Sumanthiran, after all, has said that the party’s conditions would be presented to all the candidates. Sajith has to have a chit-chat with the TNA. The transcripts of that conversation have to be made public. 

At some point, someone will ask Sumanthiran or some other TNA spokesperson what the party’s position is on Sajith Premadasa. At some point someone will ask Sajith if he has agreed to the TNA’s conditions. If there’s no clarity, people will draw their own conclusions. Sajith Premadasa cannot be opaque on this. He just can’t afford it.  

malindasenevi@gmail.com. www.malindawords.blogspot.com

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The Sinhala and Tamil traces in an island history

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’.  

Any discussion on claims which contain words such as ‘traditional’ or ‘historical’ can make sense only if assertions are backed by fact and not myth.  They should be buttressed by a corpus of evidence that are coherent and wholesome, and are not marked by the errors of selectivity.  In an article where he sets himself the task of refuting an allegation that ‘the claim of traditional/historical homelands (of Tamils) is a load of balderdash, unsupported by any kind of evidence,’ (see ‘Wigneswaran and the puppeteering with ghosts') P Soma Palan (PSP hereafter) appears to have inadvertently reinforced my assertion (see his article ‘Claim of traditional homeland: not a load of balderdash’).

PSP dwells at length on the Vijaya Legend.  He calls it a myth and yet in a sleight of hand typical of Eelam myth-modelers and in contradiction of his own myth-claim insists that the real name is ‘Vijay’ or ‘Vijayan’ (a ‘Tamilization’ that has become ‘par for the course’ in creative Eelamist historiography).  The reference to Vijaya is taken from the Mahawamsa of Mahanama Thero in the 5th Century.  It is an epic narrative in Pali.  We cannot as yet take it as the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth and we certainly cannot call it a total fabrication; the veracity of certain parts have been established by archaeological excavation and by corroboration via other texts while certain other parts remain unsubstantiated.  The Vijaya legend belongs to the latter kind.  

To make sense of it, it is useful to revisit the chronicler’s disclaimer.  Mahanama Thero observing that the narratives (in text or other form) of the ancients (those who came before) are at times overly lengthy, at times all too brief and at times repetitive, claimed that his was an exercise of eliminating error and laying it out for easier comprehension and for the delight (of the reader).  What was left out and what was added, we cannot be definite about as per available evidence.  For the historian it is a useful document that provides base-text and innumerable clues, nothing more and nothing less.  

PSL asks me a bunch of questions, all based on the assumption that I’ve bought the Vijaya Legend.  I have not.  The ‘refutation’ of the Vijaya Legend that PSP offers is that ‘no race is founded by an individual’.  This is absolutely correct, but he’s making too much of a symbol or a signifier.  It is not that Vijaya descended from nowhere and founded a race of sons and daughters who inter-married and had children of their own and multiplied.  What’s important is not the name, but the process.  

It is reasonable to assume that Vijaya was not the first (and certainly not the last) ‘prince’ who came to the island with an entourage and with a conquistador’s designs.  For the chronicler his arrival was clearly significant enough in terms of impact on political control to give it the privilege of ‘starting point’.  This does not mean that the island was uninhabited or only sparsely inhabited at the time.  Neither do we know for sure the ‘clan names’ if you will of the indigenous peoples.  We do know that a document compiled by a South Indian Buddhist monk in the 1st or 2nd Century CE titled ‘Seehalavattuppakara’ referring to a community by the name ‘Seehala’.  We know that there are references to various communities in early inscriptions but none in which a Tamil trace can be found.  There are no references to any Tamil community or even a non-Tamil Dravidian community or any community with any trace of “Tamils, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalees” that PSP claims inhabited the island ‘before Vijaya’s arrival’ (he seems to believe the ‘myth’!).   I would love to examine his sources on this.  The relevant cave inscriptions, by the way, are in Sinhala Prakrit.  If indeed this was a ‘Tamil Island’ as PSP claims and if it were Tamils who were converted to Buddhism, surely there would have been some references, some caves, a dozen or even one with South Indian ‘Brahmi’ characters?  None!  

More on language, later.  Let’s consider the ‘evidence’ that PSP offers.  Ravana! It’s a nice story and interestingly written, true, but it’s as much ‘legend’ as the VIjaya story if not more.  That was a story that was popularized elsewhere.  The place names that PSP refers to are of relatively recent origin, this side of the Gampola Period to be more precise and possibly explained by several waves of immigrants being allowed to settle in various parts of the island by the kings of the time which are interestingly the very same places where ‘ravana legends’ and ‘ravana place names’ exist!  That’s ‘history’; what PSP offers is conjecture.  No evidence.  

PSP likes to conflate terms.  Hindu, for him, indicates Tamil.  Non-Buddhist by implication has to be Hindu.  Of course the people who lived before the arrival of Arahat Mahinda had their own religious beliefs, some of which were quite possibly related to present day Hinduism.  The island was never isolated.  There have even been Buddhists too before Arahat Mahinda, as evidenced by begging bowls discovered in Anuradhapura dating back to pre-Mahindian times as well.  Texts such as the ‘Divyavadana’ believed to have been written in the 1st Century CE speak of Buddhist missions that arrived in the island from time to time, dating back to the time of the Buddha.  What’s pertinent is that there is little evidence to say that even if there was any Hindu trace in these cosmologies there is even less ‘Dravidian’ markings and nothing of ‘Tamil’.   

“The ancestral progenitors of present day Sinhalese are the converted Tamil Buddhists,” PSP claims.  So, did Tamils drop language, create a new language and transform into a different ‘ethnicity’ just because they converted to Buddhism (as claimed)?  Whatever date the name ‘Sinhala’ came to be identified with the vast majority of people in the island, what is clear is that there was a process involved and that if there indeed was any Tamil trace it was marginal.  If ‘Tamil’ was erased by racist ‘Sinhala’ chroniclers, it is indeed strange that of the 15-20 names given to the island by outsiders there is not one that has any Dravidian trace, leave alone a Tamil one.  

PSP is full of myth and legend.  In addition to the Ravana Legend, he says that the Kataragam temple (Tamilized as per his whims to ‘Kathiragamam’) existed around 13,000 BC.  He offers no evidence. What we do know is that he’s speaking of the Mesolithic Age, the time of hunters and gatherers who didn’t have any fixed abode.  “The existence of pre- Vijayan and pre-Buddhistic Hindu temples, millennia before the arrival of so-called Vijay and Arahat Mahinda, proves that the Tamils and other Dravidian Hindu races, was the majority population of Lanka,” he claims, but what’s this evidence?  PSP’s sources would make wonderful reading and I eagerly await them. 

PSP’s most ‘potent’ devise is language, or rather its corruption; more precisely the easy and utterly ahistorical mechanism of Tamilizing.  He says Devanampiyatissa was actually Devanambya Alwar Tissan (a Telugu Hindu, according to him).  He offers that the real name of Arahat Mahinda was Mahendra, which would make Emperor Ashoka a Tamil!  Claim is fine, but again, it has to be backed by evidence. 

The literature on this neat but pernicious exercise is extensive.  Ranamadu was made Iranamadu, Akkara Pattu became Akkaraipattu, Batakotte is now Vadukkoddai.  Nothing wrong in people twisting names for ease of tongue but to then confer some kind of historical first on oneself is cheap politics, nothing more.  

Naming whim as ‘history’ does not make it history; neither does painting fiction as fact.  PSP speaks of ‘over hundred Brahmi Rock inscriptions confirming the “Holy Yatra” made by several Saints, Sages, Munis and Yogis, including the Great Agastya, who came to the sacred Kataragama and worshipped Lord Murugan.   None of it, strangely, have been recorded.  I would love to read the sources, let me repeat. 

There are broadly two kinds of ‘brahmi characters’, those found in the Northern part of what’s now India and those found in the South.  There are some ‘Southern’ characters in inscriptions found on this island, but they are very rare an are greatly overwhelmed by the northern forms or rather forms that can be said to have some relation to characters that are found in the northern part of the subcontinent.  The existence of southern forms at best indicates what is not denied — interaction across the straits; but to extrapolate such existence to a significant and indeed a majority Tamil community without explaining the predominance of non-Southern forms is mischievous.  If you want to assume a script because of a single or a few characters, then what do you make of the other characters that outnumber your ‘Tamil (sic)’ characters by quite a margin?  I would call it clinging to straws.   The myth that Sinhala was based on ‘Tamil Alphabetics’ has been comprehensively debunked, PSP is probably not aware.  

In any event, what happened to the Tamils that he claims were the dominant population of this island?  PSP speaks of ‘Tamil Buddhists’.  Of course there may have been Tamil Buddhists, but Buddhism is a doctrine, a philosophy and for some a religion, and one that has been embraced by people speaking many, many languages.  Embracing a doctrine does not mean one has to abandon one’s language, surely? Where are the Tamil Buddhist texts, on stone or parchment?  If they were so dominant, why didn’t we see a Tamil script evolving in this island, i.e. one drawing heavily from the Southern Brahmi characters? 

So, sorry PSP, “the architectural, epigraphical (Brahmi rock inscriptions) and literary and place names etc,” do not “establish any pre- historic population consisted of Hindu Dravidians in this island”.  The ‘Sinhalese’ as such must have been quite a race to convince others to abandon their language and be reticent in bed while they (the Sinhalese) orchestrated natural population increase.   

With respect to the issue of numbers and percentages, PSP takes us through the myths dealt with above, but carefully refuses to address the issue of the here-and-now — that pernicious fudging of the multi-ethnic-multi-religious narrative where proportions are absent(ed).  Even if we cite ‘war’ and ‘economic push and pull’ to explain why almost half the Tamils live outside the ‘historical homeland’ the overall percentages tell a story and one of land-grab intent by extreme elements of an otherwise highly civilized community.  PSP has perhaps forgotten that the Tamil narrative, as Rajeewa Jayaweera points out, has so far been about discrimination and genocide outside the North and East, a claim that is refuted by PSP's explanation of 'job opportunities and security' for Tamils preferring to leave the traditional-homelands (so-called)!   

Toss in the absence of history and we are left without ‘traditional’ and ‘historical’ with respect to ‘homeland’.  We don’t even have to comment on the (irr)rationality or rather the arbitrariness of the British in drawing provincial boundaries.  Suffice to say that PSP's claim that 'there was never a centralized Lanka' is old hat, and a hat full of holes one might add, considering the reigns of several kings, better known among whom are Dutugemunu, Parakramabahu I and Mahasen, as Rajeewa point out.

I hoped that some Eelamist ‘historian’ would come out with some facts.  Instead, PSP, possibly a well-meaning Sri Lankan who wishes the best for all Sri Lankans, has arrived with a thin portfolio but one filled with more myths and legends and questions obtained from such things.  I must say I am disappointed. 

*A slightly shorter version of this article was published in the Daily Mirror on February 23, 2017.

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Let's make Sampanthan's New Year wish come true

Cheating Sinhalese through proposal and Tamils through outcome

Death by obfuscation: the prerogatives of the federalist lobby

The management of insecurities

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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.  \

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Death by Obfuscation : The prerogatives of the federalist lobby

A few years back during a ‘BBC Session’ at the Galle Literary Festival clearly designed to rant and rave about rights abuse by the Sri Lankan security forces, the late Sunila Abeysekera, one of the panelists, spoke about the conflation of ‘Tamils’ and ‘the LTTE’.  The charge was that the Government had essentially marked all Tamils as either LTTErs or sympathizers of that terrorist organization.

A question was put to her: “Who is indulging in conflation here?  Who wanted the LTTE to be treated as the ‘sole representatives of the Tamil people’?  

Who wanted parity of status for the LTTE vis-a-vis the Government in negotiations to resolve what the parity-seekers called an ‘ethnic conflict’, i.e. one between the Sinhalese and Tamils?  Aren’t you, Sunila, guilt of conflation here?”  

It’s just one illustration of how language works to mis-represent, deceive, promote a particular ideology and drive processes towards a preferred outcome.  

Let’s start with the more familiar nomenclature associated with the ‘ethnic’ conflict.  First, the naming of entities as North and South (and at one point ‘Kilinochchi’ and ‘Colombo’).  To those unfamiliar with the relevant history, geography and demography the immediate image is of an island cut across the middle, from East to West, where given the identities of the principal protagonists, the ‘North’ is ‘Tamil Homeland’ and the South the domain of the Sinhalese.  Numbers are suppressed in this characterization.  Legitimacy to struggle is scripted as a ‘goes without saying’ (never mind the ‘came without saying’ and who moved what and for what reason!  

‘Border villages’ is another term liberally used at the time.  On the face of it, the term would apply to those areas on the periphery of the principal zone of conflict (never mind the fact that terrorism in its application was oblivious to boundaries, be they provincial or imaginary as per the notion of a ‘traditional/historical homeland’).  On the other hand, ‘border’ has a meaning, it is a demarcation that separates one geographical entity from another.  The entire conflict, in the ethnicization of it at least, was about real estate.  ‘Border village’, then, surreptitiously infuses legitimacy of land-claims  to the discourse ab initio.  Another ‘came without saying’ thing calculated to acquire ‘goes without saying’ value.     

This is how grievances get inflated and aspirations are made to appear ‘reasonable’.  It must be kept in mind that such sleight of hand in and of itself will not necessarily win the day for the mischief-makers.   

Obfuscation is a long-term project.  It involves selective reading of history, painstaking myth-modeling, creative historiography and relentless vilification of perceived enemy with deliberate ignoring of context, careful sifting of evidence to find and use only that which buttresses proposition and so on.  

That deeper ideologically motivated ‘academic putsch’ if you will is clearly evident in the work of academics who, at best, were or are motivated by a need to end ‘inter-ethnic tensions’ or at worst have some kind of deep-seated antipathy to the historical and real connexion between ‘Sinhala’ and ‘Buddhist’.  Thus we have tall stories about the Nestorian cross found in Anuradhapura as evidence of early Christian communities in the island, and equally tall tales about Prince Mugalan being a Christian or at least having among his men Christians when he took on King Kashyapa.  For the record, such claims have been comprehensively rebutted by academics and the rebuttals have been responded to with a deafening silence by the claimants.  

The intellectual sloth of well-meaning academics (or dishonesty in the case of the pernicious variants) as well as the political dishonesty of their approvers (‘likers’ and ‘sharers’ if you want to use the social media terminology for the relevant mis-education) has been excellently shown in a recent book.  Ishanka Malsiri, a young academic, an archaeologist by training, has completely debunked the claims made by Gananath Obeysekere in his much celebrated and oft-quoted essay ‘Duttagamini and the Buddhist Conscience’.  Malsiri’s review, titled ‘Dutugemunuge Hrda Saakshiyata Pilithurak’ (A reply to Dutugemunu’s conscience’) takes issue with each and everyone of Obeysekere’s contentions, points out the errors of omission and commission, his as well as the sources he has used to support his thesis, and inter alia points out how outcome-preference has driven the writer and robbed the essay of intellectual worth.     

Included in this response to Obeysekera is a critical assessment of the vilification of Anagarika Dharmapala and a refutation of many associated claims, including Obeysekere’s claim that Dharmapala considered Buddhism the preserve of the Sinhalese and sanctioned violence against Tamil people.  

We state all these factors because they have directly and indirectly fed the current drive for a federal solution (sic).  Here again, we see the politics of language and deliberate obfuscation.  The examples that are most frequently cited are those of the USA and India.  If history matters (and it should if we are talking about traditional/historical homelands), then the historical record rebels against ethnic-based breaking up of the nation and certainly against devolution to areas demarcated by current provincial boundaries.  

If we are to draw from the USA and India, then indeed ‘federalism’ has to be taken as a coming together of distinct political entities contained in distinct geographies.   Scripted into that definition is this: whoso voluntarily joins can by the very fact choose to live arbitrarily.   The centralizing processes in both countries, one notes, are conveniently ignored by those who cite the relevant cases.  

Even a cursory glance at the election manifesto of the TNA clearly indicates the double speak.   They talk of a ‘federal solution within a united Sri Lanka;.  They avoid defining ‘united’ or ‘unity’, which are clearly not depended on the structure of the state and cannot be obtained by constitutional article.  The details of the manifesto, moreover, show that whereas ‘federal’ is the label, the wine is a separate state.  

It is in this context that one has to assess the reservations expressed by some ardent federalists about pushing devolution (read ‘federalism’) at this point.  Some have argued that at the present time there is a danger of holding a referendum because ‘wounds are still too fresh and a negative vote by the electoral majority is a possibility’.  

Interesting.  What is implied is that the purpose of a democratic exercise such as an election/referendum is not about ascertaining the will and its direction but pushing through a particular position. 

It gets worse.  Consider this thought from an ardent federalist who was also a one time cheerleader for the ‘parity of status’ call: “No government that is elected, and whose mandate has democratic legitimacy, can make political decisions that do not have majority electoral backing. The majority of the electorate is waiting to be educated and convinced about the need for change, and for the change proposed by the government, as this is what is desired by the Tamil people.”

The majority of the electorate is "waiting to be educated and convinced about the need for change", did he say?  So they are as yet dumb and unconvinced?  How condescending!  

Interesingly though, the project has been revealed.  It’s not about reconciliation.  It’s about pandering to the desires of the Tamil people which (are we to assume?) are expressed by the political coalition that represents them, the TNA.  It’s about subjugating all other interests and ‘desires’ to those of a chauvinistic minority!

Language is not innocent, let us repeat.  It is pregnant with outcome preferences and ideological privileging.  It inflates real grievance and seeks to legitimate aspirations.  Crudely put, in the discussion and promotion of devolution, federalism and even reconciliation, language seeks to legitimate the process of constitutional and political tinkering that is expressly motivated to deliver what Prabhakaran and his bunch of terrorists fought, destroyed and killed to obtain.

All of this we can say is ‘politics and usual’ and dismiss the anti-intellectualism, deliberate misleading and so on as ‘part of the game’.  The problem is that a square peg will not be forced into a round hole.  The misfit at best will yield something shaky.  Constitutions should be more robust.  When they are not and when they are (as envisaged) forced down people’s throats, the body rejects it, one way or another.  

Tragically, what this ends up doing is to flush not only aspiration but even grievance down the tube.    Federalists, then and now, I offer are doing great disservice to the Tamil people, ironically in the very name of addressing grievances, delivering aspirations etc., not to mention that they seek also to dull the Sinhalese and hoodwink them into believing that it’s for their own good!  This is why, one might add, it is so necessary to vilify the Sinhalese and craft a ‘conscience’ that buys the nonsense about historical wrongs done to Tamils.  All language-stuff.  Obfuscating.  And potent.  

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

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ඊළමේ කයිවාරු රේඛා සහ බලය බෙදීමේ කෝලම

දුක්ගැනවිලි ඇත.  හැමෝටම.  අභිලාෂයන්ද ඇත. හැමෝටම.  අභිලාෂයන් නිර්මාණය කිරීම ධනවාදයේ අනිවාර්යයකි.  අභිලාෂයන් වැළඳගත් අය සටනට කැඳවීම දේශපාලනිකය.  සුලබය.  දුක්ගැනවිලි ප්‍රසාරණය කිරීමද, ප්‍රසාරණය කරන ලද දුක්ගැනවිලි වලට අභිලාෂයන් හා කිරීමද දේශපාලනික ය. සුලබය.  මෙසේ දුක්ගැනවිලි ප්‍රසාරණය කල නිසා හෝ ඒවා අභිලාෂයන්ට හා කිරීම දුක්ගැනවිලි වල සැබෑ දිග පළල ගැඹුර නොසෙවීමට හේතුවක් නොවේ.  ඒවා නොවිසඳීම ට ද හේතුවක් නොවේ.  කණගාටුවට කාරණය වන්නේ ආලේප සැරසිලි හේතුවෙන් ප්‍රශ්ණය වෙන අතකට අනිවාර්යයෙන්ම හැරීම යි.  දෙමළ නිජබිම් කතාව ආලේපයකි, සැරසිල්ලකි, සැබෑ ප්‍රශ්නය නොවිසඳෙන තැන ට ඇද දමන.  එබැවින්ම ඒ ආලේප සහ සැරසිලි වලින් සැබෑ දුක්ගලවිල්ල මුදවා ගැනීම අනිවාර්යයක් වේ.  ඉතින් අපි ආලේප සහ සැරසිලි ගැන කතා කරමු.

ඓතිහාසික/සම්ප්‍රදායික නිජබිම් ගැන ඊලාම්වාදීන් මෙන්ම ෆෙඩරල් වාදීන් ඇතුළු විවිධාකාර (බලය) බෙදුම්වාදීන් අඩි හප්පද්දී ඔවුන් හිතා මතා කතිකාවෙන් ඉවත් කරන කරුණු කිහිපයක් සඳහන් කිරීමේ පුරුද්දක් මට ඇත.  දෙමළ ජාතිවාදීන් ගේ ඊළාම් සිතියම පදනම් වන්නේ වත්මන් පළාත් සිතියම මත ය.  එම පළාත් එකිනෙකින් වෙන් කරන රේඛා ඇන්දේ බ්‍රිතාන්‍ය අධිරාජ්‍යවාදීන්.  සුද්දෝ.  ඊළම වේවා, 13 වන සංශෝධනයට එහා ගිය බලය බෙදීමක් වේවා (ෆෙඩරල් සිට ඊළම දක්වා), කතන්දරයට අදාළ ඉරි ඇන්දේ සුද්දෝ මිස දෙමළ ජාතිකවාදීන් නොවේ.  දෙමළ ජාතිකවාදයට එවන් ඉරි ඇඳීමට පාදක කර ගත හැකි කිසිඳු ඓතිහාසික මූලාශ්‍රයක් නැත. අඩුම තරමේ දෙමළ ජාතිකවාදයේ දුප්පත්කම කියාපාන සහ එය එදා සිට පෝෂණය හිඟා කෑ දමිළ බසින් ලියවුන ප්‍රබන්ධ සාහිත්‍යයේ වත් එවන් සාධක නැත.  සිංහලයාට නැති දමිලයාට ඇති 'වඩා පැරණි' ඉතිහාසයක් ගැන විග්නේශ්වරන් වැන්නන් පුරසාරම් දෙඩුවත් ඔවුන්ගේ සිහින දේශයේ 'දේශ සීමා' ඇඳ ඇත්තේ සුද්දෝ.  ඒ 1890 වර්ෂයේ.  [සැ.යු:  ඊලාම්වාදීන් වයඹින් ද කොටසක් තම 'සිතියමට' එකතු කල බව සැබෑය, එහෙත් 'උතුරු-නැගෙනහිර' කතාවට එය අවශේෂ වේ.]

සුද්දෝ එම රේඛා ඇඳීමට ඓතිහාසික මූලාශ්‍රයන් භාවිතා කර ඇති බවට කිසිඳු සාක්ෂියක් නැත.  පරිපාලන පහසුව සඳහා හිතුමතේට කොළ කෑල්ලක ඉරි ඇඳ නැති ප්‍රශ්ණ ඇති කිරීමේ කලාව ප්‍රගුණ කර තිබු සුද්දෝ කියන්නේ මේ රටේ සම්පත් මංකොල්ල කෑ, වෙහෙර විහාර දාගැබ් මෙන්ම හින්දු කෝවිල් කඩා බිඳ දැමූ, ගම් නියම් ගම් වලට ගිනි තැබූ, සිංහල ජනතාව සමූලඝාතනය කල (දැන් කාලේ එවැනි ක්‍රියාවන්ට කියන්නේ 'වාර්ගික ශුද්ධය' කියා ය), මේ රටේ සංස්කෘතිය විනාශ කිරීමට අසීමිත (මුත් අසාර්ථක) ප්‍රයත්නයක යෙදුනු ම්ලේච්ච්ඡ ජන වර්ගයකි.  (මේවා  අමතක වී ඇති හීනමානකාරයින් බොහෝ සිටින බැවින් කිව යුතු දෙයකි මෙය).   අඩුම තරමින් භූගෝලීය හෝ වෙනත් විද්‍යාත්මක සාධකයන් සලකමින් පළාත් වෙන් කිරීමටවත් ඔවුනට විනයක්, දැනුමක් හෝ උවමනාවක් තිබුනේ නැත.   ඉතිහාසයකට නෑකම් කිව හැකි රේඛා නැති බැවින් ඇත්තේ 'තක්කඩි ඉරි' පමණි.  බෙදුම්වාදීන්ට වැරදුනේ මෙතැනයි.  අබවින් 1890 ට පෙර දේශසීමා සහිත රටක ඉතිහාසයක් ගැන ඔවුනට කතා කල නොහැක.

දෙමළ ජාතිකවාදීන් ප්‍රධාන වශයෙන් කාරනා දෙකක් මතු කරති.  එක, දුක්ගැනවිලි.  දුක්ගැනවිලි ප්‍රසාරණය කලද බලය බෙදා විසඳීමට තරම් ප්‍රශ්නයක් නගන්න නොහැකි නිසාදෝ දමළ ජාතිකවාදීන් 'අභිලාෂයන්' ගැනද කතා කරති.   තේරුම් ගැනීමට අපහසු නැති, සාමාන්‍ය දේශපාලන කරුණකි මෙය.  බොරුව, වංචාව සහ තර්ජනය ඇතුළු තමන් සතු සම්පත් තමන් ගේ (එනම් සමූහයේ නොව, මෙවැනි කෛකතන්දර ගොතා දේශපාලනිකව ගොඩ යෑමට උත්සහා කරන පුද්ගලයින් ගේ) අරමුණු සාක්ෂාත් කිරීම උදෙසා යෙදවීම දෙමළ ප්‍රජාවට සුවිශේෂ වූ ක්‍රමවේදයක් ම නොවේ.  අවුල ඇත්තේ මෙවන් සැලසුම් වලට සුජාත භාවයක් ලබා ගැනීමට උත්සහා කිරීම යි.

මෙහෙම හිතමු.  නිජබිම් යැයි කියාගන්න ප්‍රදේශවල වෙසෙන දමිළ ජනගහනය (සමස්ත ජනගහනයෙන් ප්‍රතිශතයක් ලෙස ගත කල) ට සමාන ජනගනයක් ඇති ජනවර්ගයක් ගැන සිතමු.  එම ජනවර්ගය නියෝජනය කරනවා යැයි කියන ජාතිකවාදීන්ටද කයිවාරුව ඔප්පු කරගන්නට නොහැකි යැයි සිතමු.  ඔවුන්ද දුක්ගැනවිල්ල ට අභිලාෂයන් පටලවා, දෙකම ප්‍රසාරණය කර, ඉල්ලීම් තර්ජන දක්වාද තර්ජන ත්‍රස්තවාදය දක්වාද තල්ලු කලේ යැයි සිතමු.  මේ සියලු තත්ත්වයන් සමග 'වෙනම රටක්' ඉල්ලන තවත් ජනවර්ගයක් මේ ලොව තිබේද?  නැත.  උරුමකම් නැතිව ඉඩම් අල්ලන එකම එක කණ්ඩායමක් ඇත.  ඒඅධිරාජ්‍යවාදීන්.  'දෙමළාගේ ප්‍රශ්ණය' මේ අනුව ඉතා සරල වේ:  ඉල්ලීම සාධාරණය කිරීමේ දුෂ්කර කමේ ප්‍රශ්ණයයි .

ඊළඟ කාරණය 'දේශ සීමා' වේ.  ඊළාම් සිතියම ඇන්දේ කවුරුන් දැයි නොදනිමි එහෙත් එවන් සිතියමක් ඇත.  ඒ සඳහා පාදක වූ ඉතිහාසය කුමක් ද?  දෙමළ ජාතිකවාදී බේගල් වල දේශසීමා ගැන ඓතිහාසික කරුණු නැත්තේ ඇයි?

සී.වී.විග්නේශ්වරන් නම් කියන්නේ දෙමළ ඉතිහාසය (මේ දිවයින තුල) සිංහලයාගේ ඉතිහාසයට වඩා පැරණි බවයි.  පුදුම හිතෙනවා මට නම් මේ 'ඉතා පැරණි' ඉතිහාසය තුල දෙමළ සලකුණු අල්ප වීම ගැන.  කෝ ඒ ඉතිහාසය කියාපාන ඉතිහාස ග්‍රන්ථ?  කෝ නටඹුන්?  උතුරේ සහ නැගෙනහිර ඇති බෞද්ධ නටඹුන් 'දෙමළ බුද්ධාගම' කට සාක්ෂි දරනවා යැයි තර්ක කරන අය ට 'එහෙනම් කෝ දෙමළ බසින් ලියවුන බෞද්ධ ග්‍රන්ථ?' ප්‍රශ්නයට උත්තර දෙන්න බැරි ඇයි?  මේ සියල්ල ට වඩා වැදගත් වන්නේ 'කෝ ඉරි කෑලි?' යන ප්‍රශ්නයයි, මන්ද ඉරි කෑලි නොමැති නම්, 'දේශයකට' සීමා තිබිය නොහැකි නිසා.

මේ රටේ පළාත් නවයක් ඇත.  මේ 'බෙදීම' ප්‍රධාන වශයෙන් පරිපාලන පහසුව සඳහා විය.  වික්ටෝරිය රැජිණ ගේ පාලන සමයේ සිදු කර එකකි එය.  එනම් 1890 දී. එතෙක් රට පළාත් පහකට බෙදී තිබිණ.  ඒ 1833 සිට (සිව් වන විලියම් රජ සමයේ).  ඊටත් පෙර බෙදී තිබුනේ රුහුණු, මායා සහ පිහිටි යනුවෙනි.  'තුන් සිංහලේ' වුයේ මෙයයි (සැ.යු. මෙහිදී 'සිංහලේ' යනු සිව්+හෙළ හි බිඳීමකි, එනම් යක්ෂ, රාක්ෂ, නාග සහ දේව යන හෙළයට අයත් කණ්ඩායම් සතරෙහි එකතුවකි එය).  ඉතින් අර විග්නේශ්වරන් කියන ඉතා දීර්ඝ වූ ඉතිහාසයට අදාළ සිතියම් ඇත්තේ කොහෙද?  දේශපාලන වාසි සඳහා ඉඳ හිට වනන ඊළාම් ධජයේ ඇඳ ඇති සිතියමේ ඉරි කෑලි මොන මූලාශ්‍රයන් පදනම් ව නිර්මාණය කල ඒවාද?  විග්නේශ්වරන් මෙන්ම දෙමළ ජාතිකවාදය දෙසා බාන මිත්‍යාවන් මිත්‍යාවන් බව දැන දැනත් ආසාවෙන් ගිල දමා නැවත නැවත වමාරන බලය-බෙදීමේ ප්‍රේමවන්තයින් ද සාමාන්‍යයෙන් මෙවැනි ප්‍රශ්ණ වලට පිළිතුරු සපයන්නේ නැත.

එහෙත් දැන් නම් මග හරින්නට අසීරු වී ඇත, මන්ද ප්‍රශ්නය අසන්නේ ජනාධිපති තුමා බැවින්.  ජනාධිපති තුමා අදාල පාලකයාගේ නම වැරැද්ද ගත් බව සත්‍යයකි (ඔහු පැවසුවේ රට පළාත් නවයකට බෙදුවේ ජෝර්ජ් රජුගේ සමයේ බවයි).  ඒත් වැදගත්වන්නේ වර්ෂයයි.  1890.  විග්නේශ්වරන් ගේ 'ඈත අතීතයේ' නොවේ 1890 පිහිටා ඇත්තේ.  එකයි අවුල.  විග්නේශ්වරන් තවත් එක බලකාමියෙකි.  ඔහුව අමතක කරමු.  වැදගත් වන්නේ වසර සහ ඉරි කෑලි ය.  වැදගත් වන්නේ ඉරි කෑලි ප්‍රශ්නය මතු කරන්නේ යහපාලන ජනපති බවයි.  ප්‍රධාන පක්ෂ දෙකෙහිම නායකයින් මෙන්ම ජනතා විමුක්ති පෙරමුණ ප්‍රධාන වාමාංශික යැයි කියාගන්න පක්ෂයන්හිද නායකයින් මග හැර ඇති කාරණය සිරිසේන ජනපති තුමා මතු කර ඇත.  මේ ගැන බලය-බෙදීමට ලොල් ඊනියා බුද්ධිමතුන්, වාමාංශිකයින් සහ එන්ජීයෝ කාරයින් කිසිවක් නොකියන්නේ ඇයි?  ඉන්දියාවට කියන්න දෙයක් තියේද? එතකොට එරික් සෝල්හයිම් ලා මොනවා කියයිද?  බ්‍රිතාන්‍ය මහා කොමසාරිස් කාර්යාලයෙන් නිවේදනයක් නිකුත් වේ ද?

ඉරි කෑලි කතාවෙන් ඊලාම් වාදය මෙන් ම "ජනවාර්ගික පදනම්" මත බලය බෙදීමේ බලවේගයන් ද කුජීත වී ඇත.  ඉතිරි ව ඇත්තේ ප්‍රබන්ධ පමණි.  ඒවා ඔස්සේ බලය බෙදීම යනු තක්කඩි කමකි.  එසේ නොමැති නම් ඉඩම් මංකොල්ලයකට පිඹුරුපත් සැකසීමකි.

ඉතින් අප නැවත මෙසේ කියා සිටිමු.  දුක්ගැනවිලි ඇත.  හැමෝටම.  අභිලාෂයන්ද ඇත. හැමෝටම.  අභිලාෂයන් නිර්මාණය කිරීම ධනවාදයේ අනිවාර්යයකි.  අභිලාෂයන් වැළඳගත් අය සටනට කැඳවීම දේශපාලනිකය.  සුලබය.  දුක්ගැනවිලි ප්‍රසාරණය කිරීමද, ප්‍රසාරණය කරන ලද දුක්ගැනවිලි වලට අභිලාෂයන් හා කිරීමද දේශපාලනික ය. සුලබය.  මෙසේ දුක්ගැනවිලි ප්‍රසාරණය කල නිසා හෝ ඒවා අභිලාෂයන්ට හා කිරීම දුක්ගැනවිලි වල සැබෑ දිග පළල ගැඹුර නොසෙවීමට හේතුවක් නොවේ.  ඒවා නොවිසන්දීමට ද හේතුවක් නොවේ.  කණගාටුවට කාරණය වන්නේ ආලේප සැරසිලි හේතුවෙන් ප්‍රශ්ණය වෙන අතකට අනිවාර්යයෙන්ම හැරීම යි.  එබැවින්ම ඒ ආලේප සහ සැරසිලි වලින් සැබෑ දුක්ගලවිල්ල මුදවා ගැනීම අනිවාර්යයක් වේ.  දෙමළ නිජබිම් කතාව ආලේපයකි, සැරසිල්ලකි, සැබෑ ප්‍රශ්නය නොවිසඳෙන තැන ට ඇද දමන.  

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Power-sharing, yes! Devolution, no!

It's an old topic but one which neither goes away nor is marked by reason.  This was published under the same title in the 'Daily News' 5 years ago. 

There are two terms that are used frequently as though they mean the same thing by those who are determined to confuse the people for the vile purpose of pushing agenda that have no legitimacy and do not correspond to any on-the-ground reality: ‘power sharing’ and ‘devolution’. 

There are two kinds of arguments pertaining to ‘power-sharing’. First, there are those who believe that the current configuration of the political space is centralized and centralizing and therefore robs decision-making power from the peripheries.  It is essentially a regionalist argument.  The impetus for proposing a re-configuration is the mistaken or deliberately misleading notion that the current set up is anti-Tamil, the assumption being touted as fact being that two provinces of the above ‘periphery’ are ‘Tamil’, i.e. they (the North and Easy) are exclusive historical and traditional homelands of that community. 

First let’s take history.  On February 14, 1766, Kirthi Sri Rajasinha, the King of the Kandyan Kingdom ceded a stretch of land in the Eastern part of the island, 10 miles in width from the coast to the Dutch East India Company.  The relevant maps are contained in Fr. S.G. Perera’s ‘The History of Ceylon’.  Prof. James Crawford refers to this treaty in his book ‘The creation of states in international law’ as one of the earliest such agreements recorded.  Prof. S Arasaratnam’s work on the Dutch Period refers to the details of this treaty and points to the issues pertaining to sovereignty.

The implication is that the KandyanKingdon had the right to cede that portion of land and that it continued to have sovereignty over the rest of the territory until the British obtained full control of the island in 1815. 

In 1766 therefore there was no question of sovereignty of any other polity and when the relinquished sovereignty was recovered and reasserted in 1948 by the State of Ceylon it naturally reverted to the political geography prior to the signing of that treaty. 

That treaty, moreover, is the genesis of the demographic realities of today’s Eastern Province where the bulk of the Tamil population lives on that 10 mile wide strip of coastal land.  Their ancestors were brought there by the Dutch to grow tobacco. Even today the majority of the GramaNiladhari divisions contain a Sinhala majority population. 

If the issue of homeland requires a longer throw back into the past, we can go to the 10^th Century, to the golden period of Chola expansion/invasion and the invasion of the island by Raja RajaChola in the year 993.  Raja RajaChola is also known as a builder of Hindu Temples.  The inscriptions at these places, according to the Archaeological Survey of India, resolve all doubts about traditional homelands and sovereignty.  The inscriptions at the temples in Tanjavur and Ukkal speak in glorifying vein that Raja RajaChola conquered many countries, including one ‘Ila-mandalam’.  The inscription elaborates that this ‘was the country of the warlike Singalas’.  The plunder of wealth, one notes, is not from ‘Singalas’ who lived in ‘Ila-mandalam’ (which is a corruption of ‘Sihala’ or ‘Hela’) but the land of the ‘Singalas’, whether they were warlike or not being irrelevant to the issue. 

The archeological evidence shows that what is today called the Northern and Eastern Provinces were at one time the heartland of Buddhist civilization in the island.  Although there have been claims that these were the work of Tamil Buddhists, the thesis is not supported outside the rhetoric. 

Then there is demography.  More than half the Tamil people in Sri Lanka live outside the North and East.  Some argue that this is due to the conflict.  There is some truth in this claim, but there is absolutely nothing to support the thesis that the current demographical pattern will be reversed in the post-conflict scenario.  Indeed, the ‘exodus’ has benefitted the Tamil community/politicians disproportionately, for it has not resulted in an appropriate alteration in the number of parliamentary members allocated to the Northern Province.  

The ‘influx’ into the Western Province has resulted in at least 2 extra MPs for Tamil parties from Colombo in addition to the 9 from Jaffna.  ‘Exodus’, by the way, include all the Sinhalese and Muslims evicted from these areas by way of ethnic cleansing carried out by the LTTE with not even a whimper of protest or murmur of remorse from people like R. Sambandan. 

The bottom line is that devolution to the current provincial demarcations will leave more than half the Tamils in this country ‘high and dry’ while rabidly racist and chauvinistic politicians like Sambandan and Sumanthiran would benefit.

There is more to ‘geography’.  While the Eastern Province is ‘split’ among the Tamils, Sinhalese and Muslims, in terms of area, the largest slice contain Sinhalese, and not Tamils and Muslims, as mentioned above. 

There is a second school of thought regarding ‘power-sharing’.  The objection is the same: concentration of power. The difference is that territory is not the core concern, but the citizen.  The 1978 Constitution was clearly anti-people.  Whatever insulation that the citizen had vis-à-vis the politician was effectively compromised by J.R. Jayewardene.  The 17^th Amendment sought to win back some space for the citizen, but it was terribly flawed. The 18^th threw the baby with the bath water, in my opinion. 

There is, then, power at the centre that needs to be shared.  ‘Devolution’ only puts power in the hands of regional politicians and although this might appear to be empowering since politicians are after all representatives, resource anomalies rebel against the idea when the crucial issue of development is brought into the equation.  An ‘empowered’ Uva cannot demand from a devolved ‘Western’ to let it (Uva) have a slice of the surpluses generated.  Only a ‘Centre’ that is subject to checks and balances as well as held accountable in delivering on national development prerogatives can obtain such distribution.  Only a re-demarcation of provincial boundaries where resource imbalances are corrected can buttress the ‘devolutionist’ school of power-sharing.  As things stand, it is communal, anti-intellectual and politically unfeasible.

‘Power sharing’, therefore is not co-terminous with ‘devolution’.  Moreover in Sri Lanka’s context (taking into account history, geography, demography and citizens’ grievances, including those of minorities), power-sharing if it does not address the issue of citizenship anomalies that cut across the communities, would not only preserve current imbalances but also exacerbate inter-communal tensions. 

If these realities are ignored, it shows intellectual laziness, political arrogance and ideological poverty.  Well, all these plus rabid communalism.  We won’t have ‘unitary’ any more. Neither will we have ‘unity’. We will only have an entrenching of the racism and land-theft as per the Chelvanayakam Option, ‘A little now, more later’; the ‘little’ being the BIG ‘getting legitimacy for the boundaries of the Eelam Map’ for Prabhakarans of the mid to late 21^st Century to shed more blood over. 

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

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The Scotland vote and Sri Lanka

On the face of it, the referendum held last week on the future of Scotland and therefore the future of the British union, has some relevance for Sri Lanka. After all it was about separation. This is why it excited the Eelamist commentariat. The fact that the Scottish people chose, by majority, to remain in the union need not dampen their enthusiasm because the ‘unionists’ bent over backwards to offer concessions and the ‘losers’ can demand that they deliver.

The analogy applied to Sri Lanka would run on the following lines: ‘Those in Tamil areas demand a referendum. If they win, that’s Eelam on a platter. If they don’t, they can prevail on Sri Lanka “unionists” to deliver on concessions pledged during the election campaign’. In other words, a win-win situation.

That’s where the comparison stops, though. In the first place what Scotland is to the British Isles is not what ‘Eelam’ (as defined by the LTTE, TNA and others) is to Sri Lanka. More than half the Tamils in Sri Lanka live outside the boundaries of the Eelam Map. The ‘traditional homeland’ claim is at best dubious. Historical evidence doesn’t support the contentions. Archaeological evidence rebels against such fantasies packaged as ‘history’. There was never ‘annexing’ by one party of another, apart from invasions from what is now South India and adventures by the land-grabbing likes of Velupillai Prabhakaran. The lines have no basis in any history apart from the whims and fancies of a pen pusher in the British colonial government. There were no ‘Tamil areas’ which even the wildest imagination coincide with creative Eelamist cartography.

But there are lessons to be drawn from the Scotland vote. Thrishantha Nanayakkara makes some valid points. First of all, he alerts us to the value of the main political parties (i.e. those that are not ‘ethnic’ or ‘regional’) having a strong footing across the country and among ‘minority’ groups. He observes that if conservatives and labor were not strong among Scots, Scotland would today be an independent country.

There is a lesson there. Neither the SLFP-led UPFA nor the UNP have any support worth mentioning among Tamil voters in the Northern and Eastern Province. They’ve gone in general for coalition options in elections. The inability to ‘move’ in the way Labor and Conservative have in Britain could stem from multiple factors. First there is a manifest reluctance to engage with Tamil nationalism in a civilized and democratic manner, especially when Tamil politicians adopted racist, chauvinistic and unreasonable political positions. The pernicious communalist lines adopted by many Tamil political entities have not helped either. They’ve more often than not played to what could be called a primordial angst of that community at not having a ‘country’ that is Tamil-made of the by Tamils, with Tamils and for Tamils kind. In this respect, the Scottish National Party does not have a political equivalent among Tamil political groupings in Sri Lanka.

Thrishantha points to ‘a remarkable level of integrity and moral high ground that is associated with the SNP’. They did not feed a Scottish version of an embryonic LTTE the way the TULF and before them the Federal Party did in Sri Lanka. Indeed, the values of democracy and tolerance championed by the SNP found currency in the imagination of the Scottish polity; again something we have not seen in the Tamil community here in Sri Lanka. Perhaps this is why the Conservatives and Labor could sanction a referendum where they would naturally seek a preservation of the union. In Sri Lanka neither the main parties nor the ‘separatist’ have operated in a manner made for ‘democratic-trust’ if you will.

Another interesting element in the Scottish vote that is relevant to Sri Lanka is the economics of resources and control of the same. Scotland is resource-rich in a way that would-be Eelam is not. The ‘union’ had a commercial stake in keeping Scotland in its folds. What Scotland would gain from remaining in the union is not too clear at this point. But in Sri Lanka ‘resources’ hardly constitute the heart of the matter. It is more about identity, belonging (or lack thereof) and also a convenient garb for problems that are not peculiar to the Tamil community.

This is why when the TNA wants international observers present in the event of talks with the Government, it is logical to either reject it due to the bad experience with such ‘facilitators’ or to demand ‘local observers’ too for the TNA was after all the proxy of a terrorist organization and the people of THIS country have a far greater stake in observing negotiations than any non-Sri Lankan entity. The Scottish affair did not at any point require third-party presence but this was not on account of mutual distrust being absent. Different contexts, different modalities – it is as simple as that.

Still, it is not enough to blame the TNA and the previous avatars of Tamil communalism. The question of belonging has not been addressed in a manner that the Tamil community finds satisfactory. Grievance, perceived or real, deserves the ‘grievance’ tag and in a democratic polity there has to be space for articulation and address. This, more than anything else, will force everyone to substantiate claim and if this is not possible for such claims to be struck off the agenda. The weight of evidence is against the positions generally taken by Tamil nationalist elements at least to the extent that even devolution (forget separatism) to lines drawn by the British advantageous to expansionist visions of Tamil communalists is untenable.

Indecent as the British have been over the past several centuries including that country’s support of genocide by clinging to Washington’s coattails, the way ‘Scotland’ was handled is of a kind that is far superior to how the political leaders of Sri Lanka engaged with (or refused to do so) with territory-based demands of Tamil nationalism. Now that’s a plum that can be picked from the Scottish political pie.

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Raja Raja Chola 1 and the quicksand of Tamil chauvinism*

The history of this island can be read as an account of invasion, resistance, conquering and routing the enemy.  It is also a history of migratory waves and, in recent times, emigration as well. There are of course all kinds of histories.  There are those written by the winners which some claim make their authenticity questionable. There are histories embedded in folk traditions.  Histories can be read through careful perusal of archaeological record.  There are claims of place in history, some substantiated and others not.

Some say history is version, but no one will dispute that this assertion makes the version that the Ruwanweliseya is a Catholic Church anything but ridiculous. There are people who are scared of the word history and they tend to be those who make grand claims without substantiation or have little or no history to talk about. 

These are the ones who murmur the ‘multi-ethnic, multi-religious’ mantra not so much as a desired or desirable resolution as a manifest aversion to acknowledgment that certain peoples and certain religious traditions have contributed overwhelmingly to the admittedly problematic composites called Sri Lanka and Sri Lankans.

 
We remain products of who we were, who our ancestors were and what they did, whether we like it or not. In other words, history sits at the head table of the present and in ways that are disconcerting to some.

 
One easy escape from historical discomfiture is the construction of more comforting narratives of event, personality and associated metaphors. It takes much effort, a lot of money, a lot of purchasing, myth-models and propaganda. In my view that’s an option that Tamil nationalism was forced to embrace.

The success of that particular effort is indicated in the fact that Eelamists have managed to convince some that ‘north’ is Tamil and ‘south’ Sinhala, that devolution (which includes federalist and secessionist options) makes sense because the North and East (they don’t say Northern and Eastern Provinces, because the demarcation-less articulation makes for further inflation of territorial claim) are ‘the traditional homelands of the Tamils’.

They do not unpack these terms because doing so would force them to swallow the hard facts of demographic reality (over half the Tamils live outside these two provinces) and geographical factors (most of the Eastern Province is made of Grama Niladhari Divisions with majority Sinhala populations).

Then there is also history

.
They dare not talk of archaeological evidence. They will say the Mahawamsa was written by racist Buddhist monks but do not have anything close to a shred of evidence to counter what’s on the ground in these areas (even if one were to discount the Mahawamsa).  They cannot talk about a permanent Tamil presence in demographically significant terms. At best it is about Tamils who chose to stay behind after the occasional South India invasion was turned back.

There is one exception: the golden age of Chola aggression. The 10th Century AD.

This was the time the Cholas invaded not just this island but vast swathes of the subcontinent as well as territories in what is now known as South-East Asia. The LTTE adopted the Tiger emblem from the flag of the glory days of Chola domination.

 
Tamil nationalism, desperately seeking a historical prop, picked a derivative of the name that the Cholas used for the island, ‘Ila-Mandalam’. They were careless. Raja Raja 1, during whose time the Chola empire reached its zenith of glory, not only invaded but plundered and bragged about the plundering.

The Archaeological Survey of India, for example, includes reference to inscriptions at various Hindu temples built with the wealth looted from lands conquered by Raja Raja 1.  These inscriptions list the names of lands he conquered and refers to the island we today call Sri Lanka as ‘Ila-Mandalam’. ‘Ila’ is a corruption of ‘Hela’ or its four-part elaboration ‘Sihala’ (from ‘Siv-Hela’, made up of Yaksha, Naga, Deva and Raksha, each associated with a vocational sphere) and it is indeed the ultimate irony that the LTTE and its Tamil nationalist precursors used this to coin ‘Eelam’.

If this too is version, then Tamil nationalists could have all doubts erased by reading the elaboration that Raja Raja 1, no less, offers: ‘the land of the warlike Singalas’.

Whether the Singalas are/were warlike is not relevant to the issue of historical claim.
What matters is that Raja Raja 1 had no doubt whatsoever that this land belonged to the Singalas.
If it was the case that Singalas shared ownership with some other community, this fact would have been articulated especially if military intervention sought to buttress claim of or defend a kindred community.

In other words. it was a clear statement that ownership of territory had been wrested from the Singalas.

Now the inscriptions at the temples in Tanjavur and Ukkal were not authored by someone who had any interest in cooking history in favour of the Singalas.
These were not the observations of some interfering, arrogant and ignorant white man.
They are not taken from the Mahawamsa. Nor are they the 21st Century scribblings of a chauvinistic Sinhalese intent on deny property rights to Tamil Sri Lankans.

They are straight forward and matter-of-fact articulations of a particular political reality, authored in passing by someone who had absolutely no stake in conceding anything to those he conquered.

The claims about history put forward by Eelamists are eminently debunkable by a lot of archaeological and other evidence, but what shoots these to pieces is ironically the very source that they draw inspiration from: Raja Raja Chola I.

Does this mean that Tamils are not part of this polity or that they are or need to reconcile themselves to being second class citizens? No! It merely means that they do not have any privileged claim on historical grounds to any part of the territory that is called Sri Lanka. As citizens they have every right to expect the same privileges that citizenships bestow on all other communities and all anomalies relating to these needs to be corrected.

Such correction as is necessary cannot be territory based as history, geography and demography do not support such arrangements. Devolution is out, therefore.

As for those Eelam-fixated sections of Tamil nationalists, they can relax now: Raja Raja Chola I has taken a huge load off their shoulders. Had they realised this several decades ago, this country would have been spared a lot of death, destruction and dispossession. Time to move on, though. Raja Raja Chola I demands this.

*First published in 'The Nation' in January 2011.

Malinda Seneviratne is the Editor-in-Chief of 'The Nation' and can be reached at msenevira@gmail.com

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