It is not the
elections on Saturday that I have in my mind. Neither would I expect the UNP to
join the others in this struggle. I am thinking only of a future struggle based
on what has happened in history relative to the Sinhala people who have a sense
of history that is not found among many other nations. The fact that there are
so many “vansakathas” in the literature provides ample testimony to the sense
of history among the Sinhalas and in the Sinhala Buddhist culture. If man is a
political animal Sinhala people are historical- political animals in general. It
is the sense of history that tells the Sinhalas that the TNA manifesto is by
the dispersed Tamils in the west sponsored by the western countries, and that
it aims to obtain a mandate from the majority of Tamils in the Northern
Province for an Eelam. The dispersed Tamils, TNA and the sponsors want to use
the ordinary Tamils in the Northern Province as a block that has given a
mandate for an Eelam in which the ordinary Tamils, especially the so called low
cast people would have no say. The Tamil politics in Sri Lanka have been
dominated by the Jaffna Vellala Tamils some of whom are Christians of different
denomination or Catholics.
Though called
the TNA the amalgamation of Tamil parties contest the Northern Province
provincial council elections under the name Illankai Thamil Arasu Kachchi
(ITAK) or the Lanka Tamil State Party. The ITAK leaders would try to outdo EPRLF
leaders such as Premachandran and leaders of other parties. It is not only a
symbolical return to ITAK (so called Federal Party) politics of pseudo non
violence but that instigates people to violence following the same violent
politics of Chelvanayakam. It is reported that nominations have been given only
to two candidates of the so called low castes though they comprise more than
fifty percent of the population of the North. In Sinhala it is said “honda
Honda netum elivena jameta” or better dances in the wee hours, and it is clear
that ITAK by becoming more racist would like to create another Prabhakaran with
arms supplied by the west while the leaders enjoy a luxurious life in Colombo.
The ITAK leaders would claim at present and until the elections are over that
they have no intention of establishing an Eelam. It is true that one cannot
“prove” that the ITAK manifesto is an Eelam manifesto.
However, what
has to be mentioned is that if one were to give a perfect proof then one has
not proved anything. It is in Pure Mathematics or Mathematics if we follow the
American jargon that one could give perfect proofs using Aristotelian Logic. When
I sat the final examination in Science with Mathematics as the main (and only)
subject nearly fifty years ago, there was a question set presumably by late
Prof. Douglas Amarasekera who left the University in disgust when some
ignoramus at the apex of higher education in the country wanted to find out whether Professors had
Ph.D’s, which asked the students to comment on “Pure Mathematics is the class
of all propositions of the form p
implies q. ” I can remember answering that question with glee
as I knew that in Pure Mathematics nothing is proved. The so called theorems in
western Mathematics only say that if the proposition p is true then the proposition q
is true. The verification of the truth of p is left in the hands of the God, and not definitely in the hands
of Natha Deviyo for that matter.
TNA (ITAK)
manifesto is not a Mathematical statement and there is no theorem of the form
if implemented then it would lead to the establishment of an Eelam. However, we
make our judgments in any area other than Pure Mathematics based on many other factors
including our experience which is by definition historical as there are no
future experiences. We predict the future based on past and the very fact that
we cannot prove mathematically that the implementation of the ITAK manifesto
would lead to an Eelam encourages us to believe so. It is definitely a belief
and not all believes based on history are meant for the wastepaper basket of
history.
I have an
entirely different perspective of the so called ethnic problem or the
‘minority’ problem even from those in the Sinhala national movement. The
Sinhala Buddhists whose core culture is that of the Yakshas who became
Buddhists by listening to Budun Vahanse directly are very tolerant of other
cultures. They would tolerate others without imposing their culture or absorbing
them into the Sinhala Buddhist culture by force or other means. I would not go
into details by comparing with the Hindu and other cultures but suffice is to
mention that the Muslims who arrived one or two centuries before the Portuguese
arrived in the country from present South India, and whom P Ramanathan
considered as ethnic Tamil but of Islam religion were not discriminated by the
Sinhala Buddhists and were allowed to live following their religion and
adhering to their culture. There was no antagonism between the Sinhala
Buddhists and the Muslims unlike in what
is now known as India, and when the Portuguese harassed the Muslims the Sinhala
King settled them in what is now referred to as the eastern province. This
tradition was extended to the Catholics who were harassed by the Reformist
Dutch and in general Sinhala Buddhists had no ill feeling towards others as
long as they were not invaders or used by the invaders. The Dutch and the
English changed this tradition and used the Tamils who were imported by the
Dutch and the Muslims against the Sinhalas in order to maintain their colonial
rule. The 1915 Sinhala Muslim “riots” were a result of this and the Sinhalas
thought of the Muslims as agents of English colonialists.
The history of
Tamil racism has been described in “An analysis of Tamil racism in Sri Lanka”
which is a translation of “Prabhakaran Ohuge Seeyala Bappala ha Massinala”
available in the fourth reprint. The Sinhala Buddhists had some ill feeling not
only towards the Tamils, Malays, Kochins
and others who were imported by the colonialists but towards the Sinhala
Christians whom they considered as agents of colonials. Piyadasa Sirisena’s
novels, Anagarika Dharmapala’s speeches and writings depict these resentments,
and the attitudes of the Sinhala Buddhists were cultivated as a result of their
anti colonial struggle which took more a cultural form. However, within a few
decades, in spite of attempts by most of the leaders of the Christian/Catholic
Churches to use the Sinhala Christians/Catholics against the Sinhala Buddhists,
through marriages and other social interactions the Sinhala
Christians/Catholics ceased to be agents of western Christian colonialism and
Sinhala Buddhists now have no ill feeling towards them. The Malays and some
other ethnic groups also went through this transformation but unfortunately the
Tamils remained outside this fabric. The Tamils in the estates and in the
eastern province are going through these transformations slowly mainly due to
social (cultural) interactions. The interactions between the Jaffna Tamils who
came to Colombo were with the English speaking culturally alienated Sinhalas
who had a colonial mentality and naturally they remained together with most of
the English speaking Sinhalas, “dasas” of the colonialists.
The stranglehold
of the Jaffna Vellalas in the Eastern Province and in the Central and Uva
provinces has been broken now and it remains to liberate the ordinary Tamils in
the Northern Province, especially in the Jaffna peninsula from the yoke of
mainly the English speaking Vellalas in Colombo, who are agents of western
Christian colonialism. This situation will be illustrated by the results of the
provincial council elections where the UPFA will do better outside the Jaffna
peninsula in general. The so called ethnic problem is a result of the western
Christian colonialists, especially the Anglo Saxons, using English speaking
Tamil Vellalas, the Christian/Catholic clergy and elite against the Sinhala
Buddhists and the aspirations of the Jaffna Vellala leaders to become the
rulers of the entire country with the sponsorship of the English colonialists.
The Vellala leaders beginning with Chelvanayakam having realized that they
cannot be the rulers of the entire country now want a separate state in the
Northern and eastern provinces again with the blessings of the westerners led
by the English, who maintain the dispersed Tamils in their countries to agitate
against the Sinhalas. This colonialism has to be defeated meaning that ITAK
politics have to exposed in the Northern Province. In order to do that we
should all unite against the ITAK that has been sponsored either as ITAK or its
previous avatars by the English since eighteen thirties.
Nalin De Silva
18-09-2013