Post-Mullivaaikkaal governance in Sri Lanka: Towards a totalitarian state
Groundviews -26 Dec, 2012
Image courtesy Lanka Standard
The present crisis engulfing the Jaffna University may be a turning point for the Tamil politics and Sri Lankan politics at large. There are three important issues, I would like to deduce from this stalemate, which are necessary to gauge the trajectory of post-war Tamil politics in Sri Lanka. Two of those issues are very familiar ones, that is because of the very reason, in Sri Lanka we have had repeated failures in achieving a dignified political settlement in the past. And the third one is an entirely new and alarming phenomenon that is unique to the post-Mullivaaikkaal governance structure of the Sri Lankan state. This new governance is misleadingly called as ‘militarization’ in the popular discourse without realising the conceptual and theoretical elucidation. Obviously, I would like to dwell in the third one in detail after a brief sketch of first two issues.
Firstly, this crisis will lead to the delegitimization and destruction of Tamil moderates in politics. Throughout the post-independent Tamil politics, Tamil moderates were electorally destroyed, during the first half of the history and during the second half, they were physically destroyed by the Tamil militancy. (I have dealt in detail about this particular aspect in this piece [1]). This is a very familiar story; successive governments in Colombo have let down the moderate Tamil politicians and they were never given a dignified solution to this protracted ethnic conflict. Presently TNA is having same old problem and its legitimacy has consistently been eroded by each and every crisis affecting Tamil population in Sri Lanka. On the one hand, Sampanthan and his cohorts have to deal with a deceitful regime, and on the other hand, they have to convince the exhausted and traumatised Tamil electorate that they can deliver a dignified political solution via political negotiations. Since the eruption of this crisis in Jaffna University, the TNA seems to be losing its grip and leadership in Tamil politics. Its first reaction was somewhat confused one and merely followed the protest momentum of the TNPF led by Gajan Ponnambalam, parliamentarian Mavai Senathiraja’s slothful body language at the Jaffna protest, organised by the TNPF, itself was a clear indication that the TNA is not comfortable with the idea of protest. The lacklustre protest organized by the TNA, at the Chelvanayakam memorial site, on 21st of December, has wittingly or unwittingly revealed the TNA’s internal contradictions among its constituent parties. Hence, any escalation of Jaffna University crisis can further delegitimize the TNA in the eyes of Tamil people.
