The national question in Sri Lanka has remained unresolved for 36 years short of a century if you start counting from 1948. This is the date to set the start as it was then that the Upcountry Tamils were disenfranchised and their citizenship robbed by the Senanayake-Bandaranaike UNP government. The history of the next 64 years is well known and oft repeated; it is redundant to recount it. I will only flag important milestones: the enslavement of plantation labour in 1948-49; Sinhala Only, and B-C & D-C Pacts, made to be broken; the 1972 Constitution, the 1976 Vattukotai Resolution and JR’s 1978 Constitution; the 1983 pogroms and the flight overseas of Tamils; the rise
of the LTTE, civil war and in 2009 its annihilation. That’s the storyline in a nutshell.I made this summary not for my usual purpose of theorizing that the state in Sri Lanka, over a period of time and events, has mutated from the post-colonial liberal democratic model to a semi-authoritarian Sinhala State. My objective in this essay, irrespective of which community is right and wrong, and which numbskull politician is to blame, is to draw attention to the stubborn longevity of the conflict and to pose a different question. Can this problem ever be resolved? Does sheer persistence compel us to conclude that something is ingrained in Lanka’s DNA? Should we conclude that there is no way out on any road we have trodden thus far seeking exit from this labyrinthine maze?
I have no intention of pointing you to a preferred answer, or persuading you to say yes or no. My mind is open to possibilities and today I am asking you to think along with me.
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