13 A, Sinhala Buddhist Hegemony, Regional Autonomy And Sri Lankan Politics
By Arthagnani -June 4, 2013
Once again the country is faced with a debate about the devolution of power to the Northern Provinces, which has a substantial Tamil speaking majority. Various objections have been raised about the means of doing this including the 13th amendment to the Constitution. One main objection, it appears, has been that the establishment of a Provincial Council will eventually lead to secession and the emergence of Eelam.
The vigor and the ferocity with this project was pursued by the LTTE can justifiably lead to this conclusion.
On its face, this may appear to be reasonable fear among the Sinhala nationalists according to one reading of the recent history of the island. The vigor and the ferocity with this project was pursued by theLTTE can justifiably lead to this conclusion. However, another reading of this history also is a plausible one. If one traces the history of the last 50 years or so one can see a different progression: there were successive attempts to give some measure of regional autonomy to the northern provinces by the central government: the BC pact, the Dudley-Chelva pact and so on. During this period the specter of a sovereign state for the Tamils did not arise. The only interest of the Tamil leadership was to create a relativelyautonomous Tamil speaking region in a unitary state. Even then one must point out that G.G.Ponnambalam, often defined as the father of Tamil communalism, as well as the “uncrowned king of the Tamils,” was not too happy with this idea. He proclaimed in opposition to the Federal Party’s program, “the traditional homeland of the Tamils is Sri Lanka.” And not just the Northeast, In 1949, he even joined the Senanayake cabinet. He, in alliance with the UNP, went to the elections in 1952 , on an anti-federalist platform of national unity and soundly routed the Federal Party in all but one constituency in the peninsula.
