The claims and counter-claims of intransigence

Leader of the Opposition and the senior citizen of Tamil Nationalism R Sampanthan in an adjournment motion has made some interesting points.

“All people who lived in Sri Lanka, irrespective of their ethnicity, religion, or any other difference, whether Sinhalese, Tamil, Muslim or Burgher made their fullest contribution to the achievement of independence. It is almost 70 years since Sri Lanka attained Independence from Colonial Rule. Ethnic strife had plagued the country from shortly after it attained Independence. Pacts entered into between Prime Ministers and the Tamil Political Leadership to help resolve such ethnic strife and enable all citizens to live together in peace and amity, with equality and justice were not fulfilled by the ruling elite. As a result of such ethnic strife and ethnic violence against the Tamil people in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and thereafter, up to 50 per cent of the Sri Lankan Tamil population were compelled to leave their own country largely on grounds of insecurity and take up residence in different countries the world over.”

Some of the above is true, some can be contested.  Yes, people from all communities contributed to the achievement of independence, but it was the Sinhalese or rather the Sinhala Buddhists who sacrificed lives, over and above ‘the call’ of demographic slice.  The ‘other contributions’ came much later.  They were important, though.  

Yes, ethnic strife has plagued the country.  Pacts between Tamil political leaders and various governments have collapsed, yes.  On the other hand it is not the case that what was contained in the pacts died natural deaths.  Some of it survived and was even enshrined in constitutions later on.  Still, the objective of peace and amity, equality and justice, were not achieved, and not just as far as the Tamils are concerned.  

Sampanthan implies that successive governments are to blame, first for not resolving the ‘problem’ and secondly for being unsuccessful in stopping attacks on Tamils.  He is correct.  

On the other hand, it is not that the Tamils have been blameless in all this.  When you paint aspiration as grievance, when aspiration includes a desire to take control of one third the land mass and half the coast, when myth is called history and fiction called fact, you are essentially robbing your cause of legitimacy.  When you deliberately feed anxiety to the point that it evolves to self-righteous objection to perceived hurt, when you are silent as the demons unleashed by you turn into blood thirsty terrorists who will not stop at abducting your own children and holding your own community hostage, you are not helping your cause.  

Things then are not pretty.  Maybe this is why Sampanthan says, ‘Ethnic violence against Tamils is an imminent danger unless and until there is a political resolution of the conflict.’  In other words, he believes that if there’s no ‘political resolution’ to ‘the conflict’, then Tamils would get attacked.  This brings up two issues.   First ‘the conflict’ and secondly, the inability of successive governments to resolve it.  

Why have government’s failed?  The common explanation is that successive governments have ‘capitulated to pressure from extremist Sinhalese’ (sometimes called ‘Sinhala Buddhist extremists’ or chauvinists or racists).  Sometimes the ‘extremist’ qualifier is dropped and it’s blamed on the entire community or else the entire community is described as ‘extremist’.  Even the ‘state’ as well as particular governments have been described as ‘Sinhala’ or ‘Sinhala Buddhists’, never mind the fact that neither the state nor governments have exactly been kind to these communities, butchering them on occasion by the thousands.  

One possible reason, however, for ‘Sinhala intransigence’ is the absurdity of Tamil demands.  Just because you want something, it doesn’t mean that others are supposed to desist from assessing the fairness of the demand.  You can say they are ‘racists’ for saying ‘no’, but then again that’s crass politics, nothing more. 

We can interpret all this as a simple matter of politicians who depend on votes desisting from doing something that might get them thrown out of office.  We can also bring in the pertinent reality of political parties playing political cards ‘right’ to retain or regain political edge.  For instance, oppositions have typically opposed the bad as well as the good, clearly for reasons of political expedience.  And this kind of choice is not the preserve of Sinhala politicians.  Tamil politicians, as Sampanthan knows only too well, have upped the nationalist ante just to secure votes.  Exaggeration is a useful tool in anxious times, we should not forget.

It is prudent to take fixations of communal identity as givens.  It is silly to paint one community as villains and others as innocents. Given these realities, we need to understand that anxieties as well as the fact that extremists are best served by falsehood and not the truth with respect to grievances.  This is where Tamil politics has failed.  Sinhalese cannot be expected to swallow a tall story.  

This is also where successive governments have floundered.  The homeland myth has not been unpacked.  The issue of lines arbitrarily drawn by the British being taken as the boundaries of this mythical homeland has not been challenged.  The contradiction between claiming discrimination and the reality of half the Tamil population choosing to live outside the so-called historical homelands has to be taken up. 

It is time for a historical audit.  Otherwise, we will continue to have people like R Sampanthan disappointed and claiming that Tamils are running out of patience.  The truth is that the Sinhalese have been patiently listening to fabrications tossed out by Tamil extremists for decades.  It is time to stop keeping everyone in suspense.  It is time that the Government did the hard thing: get the homeland story, shake it, strip it of frills and obtain its true dimensions.   Until then we will have Tamil nationalists talking about the intransigence of Sinhalese and Sinhala nationalists returning the favor, charging that their Tamil counterparts are charlatans trying to shove fictions down the throats of Sinhalese to serve a land-grab objective.  It will be a ‘they are the bad guys’ back and forth that takes no one anywhere any time soon.  

Read also:

Sinhala and Tamil traces in an island history

Grievances and resolution: the question of true dimensions

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

Read more

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.

Read also:

Grievances and resolution: the question of true dimensions

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

Read more

Cheating Sinhalese in proposal and Tamils through outcome

JVP leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake has made two statements regarding reconciliation via constitutional reform.  Firstly, he has said that a referendum on a new constitution should not be approached the way the Presidential Election was fought.  In that election, the Northern and Eastern Provinces overwhelmingly voted for President Sirisena, who was the default candidate of the United National Party and as such was backed to the hilt by the coalition led by that party.  

What Anura K is saying, then, is that in this instance voters should not back a UNP-drafted proposal.  In other words, as far as the JVP is concerned, this is not something to do with Mahinda  Rajapaksa and indeed is a larger issue that has little to do with regimes, regime-change, good governance and what not.  

The signal is that the JVP is opposed to the new constitution or at least those sections that refer to devolution.  Why the JVP cannot openly oppose the secrecy shrouding the process or detail the relevant articles to which they only hint that they object, is anyone’s guess.  

The second contention is that in the event that the new constitution is rejected at a referendum, the cry for ethnic-based devolution should be abandoned.  This provides a clue.  The draft new constitution clearly includes articles that go beyond the 13th Amendment in terms of devolving power to the provinces.  This is not surprising since the chief architects of the process, Jayampathi Wickramaratne, representing a party that would not win a single seat in Parliament in a first past the post system, is ideologically committed to such devolution.  Add to that the ideological preferences of Mangala Samaraweera and Chandrika Kumaratunga, and the intellectual sloth and political naivete of the UNP and we cannot expect anything else.  

That said, there is a serious political problem in Anura K’s second wish.  Why should defeat result in a dropping of a demand?  In the first instance such change of heart cannot be legally obtained.  Secondly, if electoral defeat must necessarily result in abandonment of political project, there are lots of things the JVP should have dropped a long time ago.  And not just the JVP, one might add.  

It is like saying that since there are laws against theft, thieves should give up on wrongdoing from  pickpocketing to misusing power and abusing trust to pull of heists worth billions through the manipulation of Central Bank bond issues.  Silly.

While we can attribute the formulation of such wishes by the JVP to anxieties about how much political bleeding the JVP could suffer from the enactment of such proposals (if endorsed by a referendum) and of course sophomoric thinking, the key issues are essentially being skirted here, by the JVP and by the Government.  

First of all, the question ‘why devolution in the first place?’ is not addressed beyond the crass regurgitation of the logic of Eelamist myth-modeling sans appropriate weight to all the relevant factors.  According to all indications, is yet another ill-conceived pandering to Tamil chauvinism marked by an absolute disavowal of history and a shameless and even dangerous refusal to factor in historical, demographic and geographical realities.  

It is also, in effect, a proverbial lifting of the sarong to the valid observations made by President Maithripala Sirisena with respect to the errors embedded in provincial boundaries which (need we even mention?) were arbitrarily drawn by the British and has been the ‘base’ on which the Eelam Map has been traced.  It’s a trace that Tamil chauvinism swears by and sections of the current Government are loathe to inspect.  That’s pernicious historiography compounded by pernicious approval by the very fact of nonsensical constitutional drafting.  

It is clearly incumbent upon governments to listen to grievances and to set in place structures and processes that allow for the rational treatment of aspirations where the true dimensions of grievances and the appropriateness of aspirations are correctly assessed.  One can argue that these structures and processes do exist.  What is lacking is the political will to do this important and necessary audit.  The formulation of ‘resolution’ where such ‘homework’ is not done is irresponsible and goes against the basic principles of good governance.  In the absence of such will the natural yield is ‘whim and fancy’.  

The fate of a people should not be put in the hands of whim-fancy politicians because such idiocy and irresponsibility do not yield reconciliation but rather exacerbate antipathies and produce bloodshed.  

What if, for example, the JVP went further and something of this kind: ‘include a caveat whereby a an overall “yes” for devolution requires all Tamils to live in the North and East’?  That would be unfair, absolutely.  On the other hand, therein lies the key problem about devolution predicated on chauvinistic thinking and the exaggeration of claims.  Close to half the Tamils live OUTSIDE the so-called traditional/historical homeland (whose histories and traditions at best remain unsubstantiated).  

Strong supporters of federalism are now swearing that this is not the right time to have a referendum.  It will be defeated, they claim, because ‘wounds are still new’.  They advocate a brainwashing of Sinhalese before putting the question to them.  That’s ‘democracy’ in their book.  In other words Anura K and the JVP need not worry, going by what the devolution racketeers are worried about right now.  Any ‘yes’ vote for such measures in Parliament would seal the political fate of the aye-sayers and perhaps even their parties, at least in the short term.  The President, at the right time, could pull out SLFP support.  That’s ‘goodbye’ to the two-thirds needed to get it passed in Parliament.  The UNP could tell Tamils that they did their best but the SLFP wrecked it and thus seek to retain the minority vote.  The SLFP will say that the UNP was trying to whack the Sinhalese.  A general election would see the UNP losing much ground among the Sinhalese.  Needless to say parties such as the TNA will tell Tamil youth that the Sinhalese will never yield anything.

This is what happens when you put the horse before the cart.  Reconciliation is scuttled.  The necessary starting point of the exercise has been missed.  Failure gets scripted, even if that’s not intended.  Sooner or later, after much pain, suffering and even bloodshed, we have to return to the beginning, the historical audit and the sober assessment of grievances and the equally sober consideration of aspirations.  

If the ‘beginning’ is to be painted in colours that are acceptable to Tamils, then the Vadukoddai Resolution is an excellent document to have on the table.  The claims therein could be evaluated with those affirming and negating bringing substance and not rhetoric to the table.  Anura K can find his voice, even.  

All of the above, we must not forget, has the danger of scuttling important deocraticising measures which may have been included in the draft.  The mishandling of Tamil chauvinism by the constitution drafting pundits can therefore wreck that other, more important project that is such an important part of Maithripala Sirisena’s manifesto.  We saw a similarly surreptitious move by the Chandrika Kumaratunga government in the year 2000.  Proposing the kind of ‘resolution’ that her political successors in this Government are currently pushing effectively resulted in keeping intact the executive presidency.  

These are the issues that the JVP could take up, if indeed they want to remain politically relevant into the foreseeable future.  As of now they are party to the insidious attempts by a few to cheat the people, the Sinhalese in the proposal itself and the Tamils through the most likely outcome.

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

Read more

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

Read more

The management of insecurities

Dayan Jayatilleka has made some pertinent points regarding conflict resolution and the seemingly vexed issue of Tamil grievances/aspirations and relief sought in an article titled ‘Constitution-making and the North-South political cycle’.  

I have an issue withe the term ‘North-South’ so let me first get it out of the way.  It is a ‘break’ that has been used frequently enough to give it legitimate political currency.  Erroneous, however.  It has come to the point of ‘goes without saying’ which automatically assumes ‘came without saying’ and therefore pushed deliberately.  What does ‘North’ taken for and what is ‘South’?  They have acquired proxy status for Tamil and Sinhala respectively and imply, following the geographical reference, a land that is divided by a line moving from West to East where the ‘North’ is of (and a legitimate claim of) Tamils and the South of the Sinhalese.  

A geographical '50-50’ by way of the easy fracture 'North-South' is a gross distortion of historical and demographic realities.  Language, needless to say, is not innocent.  

With that out of the way, let’s consider the implications of Dayan’s more serious and more legitimate contentions.    

“Even today, there is no Tamil progressive or moderate tendency in or outside Sri Lanka that is willing to denounce the LTTE, Prabhakaran and Tamil Eelam openly.   Tamil politics has remained self-referential and pan-Tamil in character. Tamil nationalism is psychologically separatist even when it isn’t politically separatist.”

The above claim is followed by an expression of disappointment regarding the lack of interest on the part of Tamil politicians to forge a bloc with ‘Southern’ progressives.

Theoretically, a Tamil chauvinist or even nationalist retort could take the following form: ‘Sinhala politics has remained self-referential in character. Sinhala nationalism is psychologically unitary-fixated even when it talks devolution.”  It follows that a Tamil version of Dayan’s lament regarding ‘Progressives’ is also possible, although that would still leave us without an answer to the question ‘What is progressive?’  

Even if we were to put aside the strong objections based on history, geography, demography and doability to the Tamil separatist project and all devolution proposals that do not take issue with current political boundaries for their arbitrariness, their implicit subversion of separatist claims, the very existence of positions as detailed above gives credence to Dayan’s claims about things intractable and therefore the necessity of ‘management’.  

This is why I am in agreement with the first part of Dayan’s vision expressed as follows: ‘Sri Lanka could (should?) draw up a New Social Contract in which national minorities are integrated on the basis of equal citizenship and non-discrimination while assured of a reasonable sufficiency of autonomy through the devolution of power within a Unitary State.’  The reservations about the second part (regarding devolution) is principally on the issue of boundaries and economic logic of the same.  As mentioned above and as stated by President Maithripala Sirisena the current boundaries upon which the separatist map has been crafted, with quite some stretching on the Western coast were arbitrarily drawn by the British.  Secondly, given the reality that close to half the Tamil population live outside the so-called ‘Traditional Homelands’, devolution cannot assume to resolve any ‘Tamil issue’ in and of itself.  

Power-devolution is theoretically a democratizing proposition, but in Sri Lanka’s context, given the intractabilities mentioned above, it is a non-starter or, as the 13th Amendment proved, guaranteed to trigger bloodbaths and generate further complications, primarily because the foundational logic is flawed and therefore the edifice is necessarily weak.  

A different kind of devolution might make sense, for example one where the entire provincial boundaries are re-drawn in a way that makes sense in terms of geographical realities and takes into account current resource anomalies among the existing provinces, but again that’s not even an element that anyone is willing to entertain, leave alone discuss.  

This brings us back to ‘integration on the basis of equal citizenship and non-discrimination’.  That is a tough cat-belling, so to speak, but right now it’s the only logical starting point.  It would be about guarantees.  It would have to take into account the issue of religion and the ‘special place for Buddhism’.  Not easy since histories count, historicities count and these things have eminent toy-value for extremists and real, on-the-ground relevance.  

For example, would the removal of the tokenist privileging of Buddhism in the Constitution accompany an erasure of customary laws that are relevant to Islam and those relevant to Tamils who can cite the Thesawalami Laws?  Would we discuss the pruning of customary ‘Buddhist holidays’ from four to three (the sathara poya to pun-poya) and the privileging of Christian holidays (Sundays — 52 of them)?  

It is not easy, but it is a discussion that has to take place simply because resolution is for the most part about managing and balancing insecurities, whether or not they are legitimate.  That’s where the audit must begin and not with rhetoric.  And that’s exactly what has not happened.  This is why solutions (like the 13th) fail(ed).  The true dimensions, in other words, of all the relevant issues have been ignored.  There are no mechanisms proposed to ascertain these.  Small wonder that the entire reconciliation exercise is floundering.  In the absence or rather the improbability of magnanimity by all (and not some) the players in the story. 

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

Read more

Trumps and jokers, global and local

Did he say 'I'll make other countries also great (again)"?

It has been reported that the Government has asked US President Elect Donald Trump to pressure the UN Human Rights Council to drop war crimes allegations against the country’s troops. First of all, while there is references to allegations, what the UNHRC has focused on is essentially effective investigations.  It’s the modalities that have been scripted into the entire narrative on the Council’s discussion with Sri Lanka that have raised questions about infringement on sovereignty, selective application of principle etc.  

More importantly, writing to Donald Trump on this particular issue indicates a certain naïveté which is scary considering how important logic, good sense, knowledge and such are in the sphere of diplomatic relations.  

The missive follows Sri Lanka, in post-Mahinda Rajapaksa euphoria perhaps and perhaps believing that the done thing was to do whatever the previous regime didn’t do, went ahead and co-sponsored what is clearly a UNHRC resolution that ran counter to the country’s interests.  Asking Trump to dump it indicates misgivings. It also indicates that the Government implicitly acknowledges that the UNHRC is Washington’s pawn.  Thirdly, it is essentially an unofficial submission of the country’s national interests to the whims and fancies of the USA.  

The Government is essentially saying ‘big brother, get the UNHRC off our back, please’.  Big brothers make rules, kid brothers submit.  Once the nature of the relationship is established (and that’s what this request does), there’s no going back.  

Now it can’t be the case that the Government realized that it had erred or that the UNHRC resolution runs against the national interest only after Donal Trump won the election.  The Government did not appeal to Obama.  So why appeal to Trump?

The obvious answer (the true answer only the Government would know) is Trump’s ‘nationalism’.  Trump’s straight talk about ‘terrorists’ and ‘terrorism’ might have also nudged the Government into believing that he would be different to Obama.  

Well, there’s nothing to say that nationalists of one country would find lots of common ground with nationalists of another country.  

To put it crudely, wars are all underwritten by nationalisms, it’s ‘nationalists’ that fight one another.  In other words the idea of ‘Making America (sic) Great Again’ is by definition about an even more prominent role globally (‘great’ makes sense only in relation to other countries, after all).  The USA does not have to worry about making anyone else great, or rather less a pariah internationally.  Washington does not operate that way.

Perhaps the Government was inspired by Trump’s ‘nationalism’ to all of a sudden think ‘nationally’ (which it hasn’t going by what the Foreign Ministry has been doing since January 2015).  Even if that were the case, the more prudent approach would be one of using relevant statements from nations that have censured Sri Lanka in the recent past and making a Sri Lankan policy statement that is clear, logical, draws from relevant contexts and consistent with the statements made by such nations.  

Assuming that Trump will ‘bail us out’ just because Trump made some nationalistic noises is plain silly.  

It would have been better for example to draw extensively from Theresa May’s positions on the subject, refer to them, and make a Sri Lankan policy statement on allegations and investigations related to ‘war crimes’.  Just say ‘we have strengthened and will continue to strengthen further the domestic mechanisms’ and be done with it.  

This of course does not mean that Theresa May is a saint.  Britain has her reasons which are clearly not of the same order of the issues Sri Lanka has to contend with.  However, if it’s word play then one needs to be smart about it.

The words to Donald Trump are weak and weakening.  Quite apart from the sophomoric nature of the letter, it shows a serious weakness.  The regime knows that it will run into trouble with the electorate due to the mishandling of things pertaining to the UNHRC.  If the previous regime floundered thanks to arrogance and other kinds of idiocy, this government is tripping on unpardonable naïveté (we are being kind here). 

The Government is weak but it need not go out of its way to demonstrate the fact.   It is the same with respect to constitutional reform.  A lot of noise about power-devolution, some whimpering statements expressing misgivings mostly from proxies (the SLFP and Champika Ranawaka) but no clear stand.  This is dangerous in a context where certain elements are trying to fast-track the whole process, much in the way that J.R. Jayewardene fixed the mythical boundaries of Eelam with the 13th Amendment.  

The President has been bold enough to say that current provincial boundaries were basically drawn by the British, implying that power devolution based on such lines would be erroneous and indeed a travesty of justice.  He has stopped there without taking the argument to its logical conclusion.  

We can draw a parallel from the love note to Trump.  When one asks a favor, one is obligated.  One submits.  The one implies the other.  It’s the same with the federal idea.  It’s about two (or more) distinct political entities (usually an ethnic or religious community) contained in a geography with a considerable history voluntarily coming together.  That’s the story of the US constitution and also the Indian union.  In Sri Lanka’s case, these ‘conditions’ are far from established.  However, what is pertinent is that the fact of ‘coming together’ automatically scripts in the option of separation, regardless of rhetoric (at this point) disavowing such intent.  The Government, it seems, is well on the way to scripting in the possibility or option of separation through constitutional reform.  Sure, there will be safeguards, but there’s nothing to stop a future Amirthalingam or Chelvanayagam or Prabhakaran from pointing out the implicit acknowledgment (in such an amended article in the Constitution) of a specific, ethnic-based political entity contained/containable in a specific geography and using this to legitimate agitation and re-taking of arms.  

Both in constitutional reform and dealing with the international community, or rather those sections of it that have pushed against Sri Lanka, the Government has been lethargic and sophomoric.  It would be surprising if it changes the complexion of international relations, especially with respect to the human rights circus.  Domestically, it is a recipe for strife due to lack of clarity and statements that raised more questions that deliver answers.  One is tempted to talk of trumps.  And of course jokers.  But let’s just say ‘missed a few tricks’.  

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

Read more

First, get the lines straightened out Jayampathy

Dr Jayampathy Wickramaratne,  who is described as someone playing a pivotal role in the constitution-making process in his capacity as a member of the steering committee on the subject, has offered some thoughts on the progress of the initiative in an interview with the Daily Mirror.  He has offered a nutshell version in the following terms:

“There is some agreement on electoral reforms - a mixed member proportional system.  On the executive, the President’s position is clear that it has to be abolished. The President has to make a public statement. Then, we should look at how the present executive should be replaced with. The principles of devolution are under discussion by us. Things like the nature of State and the place for religion have not even been touched.”

In essence, therefore, the Committee hasn’t really moved beyond recommendations made by the committee headed by Dinesh Gunawardena on the matter of electoral reform.  In April 2015, President Maithripala Sirisena addressing a sizable rally of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) at Vihara Maha Devi Park vowed to see the 20th Amendment (on ‘Electoral Reform’) through.  It was after all an election promise which he made and which the United National Party (UNP) endorsed by supporting his candidacy for the presidency in January 2015.  In fact, according to his manifesto, it was to be done and dusted within 100 days of him assuming office, but in the 18 months since that last we-will-do-it assertion it’s been all quiet on the electoral reform front.

It’s pretty much the same on the matter of abolishing the executive presidency: chest-beating before the election, sporadic affirmation of intent (as at the funeral of the late Ven Maduluwawe Sobitha Thero) since watered down to ‘agreement in principle’ and now Dr Wickramaratne saying that the President wants abolition but hasn’t made a public statement.  That’s strange since there’s nothing more ‘public’ than an election manifesto!  Little or no progress, then.

The nature of the state and the place for (of?) religion are untouched, he says.  Tough issues no doubt, and we should not forget that the committee has a tough overall brief, but that said, ‘no progress’ is a legitimate conclusion.  

This leaves us with ‘devolution’.  It appears then that the Committee has expended efforts on this issue to the exclusion of all else, which of course is not exactly an indefensible privileging. 

So what of devolution as per the deliberations of this Committee?   Wickramaratne has dwelled at length on the division of powers between the ‘centre’ and the provinces, assuring strong safeguards against division of the country as well as mechanisms to ensure that the centre’s power to intervene in ‘provincial matters’ is not abused.  

He elaborates on the latter, lamenting ‘centre-intervention’ on subjects such as agriculture which he claims produced negative results while arguing that greater sway for provincial councils is the reason for better performance at the Grade 5 Scholarship Examination by children from schools outside the Western Province.  These are weak and selective examples which indicates sloth on the part of the Committee in engaging in a comprehensive review of the 13th Amendment.  It also indicates (dangerously) that the process has boiled down to one of constructing a case for a preferred outcome as opposed to a sober consideration of all factors and letting their true value determine direction and outcome.  

He says nothing of the gross wastage of budgetary allocations to the provincial councils, with large chunks going for up-keep and paltry amounts being set aside for development.  He says nothing of resource anomalies across the provinces, a fact that calls for centralized allocation (which can be constitutionally guaranteed, just as the kind of ‘strong safeguards’ regarding abuse of intervening power and separatist tendencies he believes are necessary).  There are no doubt many spheres/activities where greater sway by regional entities make more sense than centre-heavy policy-making processes, but there’s nothing to say that only devolution will produce such happy outcomes.  

Dr Wickramaratne clearly believes or wants us to believe that the Committee is taking its work seriously.  The facade of sobriety, however, crumbles on one crucial point: boundaries.  

Constitutional reform is not only about democratization.  We were told that it is also about ‘reconciliation’.  Reconciliation has been reduced to devolution of power and this itself demonstrates the poverty of the process, the intellectual arrogance and the political chicanery of the overseers.  Over and above the fixation of devolution is the glaring error of not revisiting the logic of the boundaries to which power is sought to be devolved by these worthies.  

If this is a serious process (and we are willing to make allowances for the long deliberations on account of the seriousness), then the Government should do a comprehensive audit of the entire system including all elements that have been created for political expedience (as was the case with the 18th Amendment, duly and happily overturned albeit with some flaws), thrust down undemocratically and illegally down the throats of all citizens (the 13th Amendment) as well as ad hoc decision that have (in retrospect) given a tangible foothold to myth-mongering and land-grabbing chauvinists.  The last, in short, is about cartography; the matter of provincial boundaries which President Sirisena correctly pointed out were drawn by a colonial power and which have no basis in any science pertaining to map-making including ‘history’ but which, since then, the Eelamists have used as the basis for a tall story about homelands!

Why is the Committee not (re)considering provincial boundaries? Why is not demanding (of itself, of politicians and relevant experts) a review of these arbitrarily drawn lines?  

Constitutions should ideally be robust.  If they can be amended willy nilly according to the whims and fancies of a few then they are not worth the paper they are written on.  It requires integrity (hard to expect such from politicians, but let’s keep that aside as a ‘what-can-we-do?’ thing) and seriousness.  If random interventions (like map-drawing) are concretized and legitimated in a context where these lines have been used to construct a separatist narrative, then the constitution-making process is a farce.  

As things stand and as stated at the beginning of this essay, the Committee is clearly not making much progress.  It is fixated on devolution with a few qualifiers to allay concerns about a constitution that essentially creates better ground conditions for separatists to operate on.  The Committee is absolutely silent on the most glaring ‘anomaly’ on the ground, that of random, unscientific, ahistorical lines demarcating the key unit that is being deliberated, namely the province.  How on earth can anyone take the Committee seriously, therefore?

Dr Wickramaratne has his work cut out for him.  Get the lines straight, Jayampathy.  If it’s a serious effort, then this serious error has to be rectified, however long it may take.  Anything less is dodgy and demands an F Grade.  You start at the very beginning.  The ABC, if you will.  And the ABC of devolution begins with boundary lines.  Get them right.  

See also:

The 'National Question' and the vague-speak of Tamil 'moderates'

President Sirisena has spoken (on Eelamist myth-mongering)

The quiet and shout of the racist label

Malinda Seneviratne is a freelance writer who contributes a weekly column for the Daily Mirror titled 'Subterranean Transcripts'.  Email: malindasenevi@gmail.com.  Twitter: malindasene

Read more