I was not shocked when the Chief
Minister of Northern Province wanted the government to handover the custody of
the seventy five children who lost their parents due to the landslide in
Koslanda to the Northern Provincial Council or in effect to some Tamil
organization(s) in the North. C Vigneswaran is only continuing with the
communal politics of the Tamil leaders of the nineteenth century. It may be
that the Chief Minister among other things assumes the following. All the
seventy five children are Tamil. The Tamil children who lost their parents
should be brought up by Jaffna Tamils. Otherwise they will lose their cultural
identity. The TNA is the representative
of Tamils in the Uva Province (and the whole country), though there are other
parties such as the UPFA, unlike the TNA
that contest in the Uva and poll votes not only among the Sinhalas, but the
Tamils as well. The basic thinking of the TNA leaders does not differ from that
of Prabhakaran. The UPFA even in Uva is identified not with the left of the
left parties in the coalition but with the SLFP.
The uncles of Vigneswaran never
considered the Tamils in Uva and central hills as their brethren. The
plantations were owned by the elite whether they were English Scottish Burgher
Sinhala Tamil or Muslims and the central hills together with the Sinhala poor
villages provided the servant “boys” to the elite. It was the LSSP though
misguided by Marxism (Karalasingham’s words to the effect that estate workers were
the vanguard of the proletariat revolution) that established trade unions in
the plantation sector to be hijacked by Thondaman. The politics in Uva has
evolved since the days of Bracegirdle and it is Thondaman, Mahinda Rajapakse
and few others who could address the Tamils in the central and uva provinces. Chelvanayakam
attempted to unite not only the Tamils but the Tamil speaking people in the
country against the Sinhalas, but it failed in no time especially in the
central hills. Ashraff wanted to go
alone after Vadukoddai but Hakeem finds it difficult to do so. Vigneswaran has
no appeal to the Tamils in the central hills but he thinks the TNA or rather
Ilankai Thamil Arasu Kadchchi (ITAK) is the sole representative of the Tamils in
the country, though before Chelvanatakam the estate workers were kallathonis to the elite Tamils as well.
If Vigneswaran thinks that the Tamil
cultural identity will be destroyed or diluted as far as the seventy five
children are concerned, he can rest assured that unlike the Judaic Christian
culture that pays lip service to cultural identities Sinhala Buddhist culture
has protected not only Tamil Hindu culture but Christian and Catholic cultures
as well. It is under the so called Sinhala governments since 1948 Tamil Hindu
culture has flourished in Colombo and it is well known that Hindu Kovils with Theru and
other festivals go from strength to strength in the suburbia as well as in
towns such as Matale. After all, Vigneswaran who was brought up in Colombo has
retained his Tamilness in spite of the western Christian education he received
at a leading school in Colombo. What Vigneswaran should try to understand is
that in and around Koslanda there are Tamil Hindu men and women who could be in
charge of the Tamil Hindus among the seventy five children.
It is clear that the TNA leaders who
were proxy to the LTTE are playing communal politics in order to satisfy the
dispersed Tamils in the western countries. Vigneswaran and others could join
with Hakeem against the Sinhala people on behalf of the Judaic Christian
culture but they would be resented by the Tamil leaders in the central hills. The Tamils in the central hills having lived
with the Sinhala villagers for more than hundred and fifty years do not mistrust
the latter. The Tamil children who lost their parents should be brought up by
the government, which more than anybody else could make sure that all the
communities in the country integrate with one another in the shortest possible
time.
The TNA on the other hand wants to
segregate people and communities as they can survive only by satisfying the
west and their pawns the dispersed Tamils in the west with their communal
politics. The TNA leaders are against integration as Shivajilingam has clearly
stated his opposition to Yal Devi running to Jaffna. Apparently he has said
that it was they who stopped Yal Devi running to Jaffna some decades ago. It
may be that they helped the LTTE to bomb Yal Devi and thus prevent social
interaction among the Sinhalas and Tamils. Yal Devi connects Colombo to Jaffna
and a highway from Colombo to Jaffna will ensure more and more interactions
among the Sinhalas and the Tamils.
We do not have to take lessons from
South Africa or any other country on so called reconciliation as we know how to
coexist without diluting the cultures of each other. We have respected each
other absorbing from the cultures of others. However, the TNA leaders such as
Vigneswaran and Shivajilingam are against reconciliation or whatever meant by
that term and look for segregation without allowing the Tamils and the Sinhalas
to interact. It is the communal politics that will guarantee the survival of
the Tamil leaders at least in the short term. In the long term with development
taking place these communal leaders will find their place in the dustbin of
history but it is the short term we have to be careful.
The communal politics of the Tamil
leaders is not new as the leaders of the nineteenth century also were engaged
in communal politics. Of course, they were driven there by the English
governors and officials who introduced communal politics with the establishment
of the legislative council in the early nineteenth century. The English
nominated members to the legislative assembly on a communal basis and to make
it worse they gave equal status to the Tamils, Burghers and Sinhalas in the
country. The English nominated one each to represent the three communities
totally ignoring the history, the population etc., of the country. The Sinhalas
who had a history going back to several thousand years and constituted about
70% of the population had one member representing them while the Tamils and
Burghers each with a recent history and with lesser percentage of the
population also had one member representing each in the legislative assembly.
Though the people or individuals are
equal in law cultures are not equal as anybody who has gone to a western
country knows by experience. There various versions of Judaic Christian culture
dominate and the other cultures are only in the category of also ran as in the
London Marathon. The Sri Lankan Sinhala Buddhist culture does not envisage to
be the dominant culture but what is expected is to recognize it as the
significant culture in the country. The communal politics of the Tamil leaders
under the auspicious conditions of the English never agreed to give that status
to the Sinhala Buddhist culture and the so called ethnic problem in Sri Lanka
is due to this fact and nothing else.
It is unfortunate that in Sri Lanka as
in the western countries it is the Judaic Christian culture that is the
dominant culture as we are still following the norms introduced by the English
in education, professions, culture, economy and politics. The communal politics
of Tamil leaders only help the westerners to maintain that status and people
such as Sumanthiran cannot be unhappy with the status quo.
Nalin De Silva
05-11-2014