TNA’s suicidal path to Federalism
2016-04-29
“The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it”. -Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness
Before we examine the action and events originated by the Tamil leadership of Sri Lanka that defined and shaped the current socio-political milieu, let us look at the Sinhalese leadership have been engaged in since the turn of the Twentieth Century. Many accomplished historians such as Professors K M de Silva, G C Mendis and Jeyaratnam Wilson and social scientists of the calibre of Michael Roberts, Jayadeva Uyangoda and Dr. Dayan Jayatilleke and many others, have written books and essays and delivered talks on this subject.
The political background at the dawn of the Twentieth Century was greatly different from the one that encompasses today’s polity. Under the aegis of the British colonial powers, Ceylon and her political leadership at the time, though well-educated unlike most of those who enter politics today, was quite alien to the nuanced underpinnings of the Colonial Office of the United Kingdom Government. The emergence of eminent Tamil leaders such as the Ponnambalam brothers and later G G Ponnambalam during the Legislative and State Council era and their ready cohabitation with the leaders of the Sinhalese majority at the time and considering the prevalent socio-econo-political conditions, an exchange of ideas and policy-stances by both parties assumed more of a sophisticated and nuanced shade rather than real-life experiences of the proletariat and the middle-class of the Sinhalese and Tamils. What is even more ironic is that up to the early nineteen sixties, it was the Indian Tamil-component that comprised the largest group of minorities in Sri Lanka and not ‘Ceylon Tamils’. On the other hand, when the whole nation was ostensibly engaged in a ‘freedom struggle’ against the governing British Raj, issues dividing the two ethnic groups took a secondary seating, so to speak. Yet, one cannot forget that the Tamil leadership at the time, especially in the last two decades of the Nineteenth Century and the first thirty years of the next Century, lent their unequivocal support to the national leadership of the country through the offices of the National Congress, the main political entity at the time. Sinhala Maha Sabha of S W R D Bandaranaike, even then carried out a mutually exclusive political campaign in that while being the first politician, even before the Tamils of the North, to propose a Federal System of government carried out a campaign of nationalistic veneer. This difference between the rhetoric and actual policies, blemished his political life and ultimately paid by his life for the dangerous game he chose to play. That is why the Tamil leadership never trusted Bandaranaike throughout his political career. The same could be said about J R Jayewardene too. While J R introduced the Sinhala only as a medium of instruction in government-owned schools, he also led the famous Kandy March against the Bandaranaike-Chelvanayagam Pact in 1957. The greatest irony is that most of the chapters and clauses, the implementation of which in the Bandaranaike- Chelvanayagam Pact J R campaigned against, he himself had to concede when he signed the Jayewardene–Gandhi Agreement in 1987. Our recent history abounds in such political ironies and we lived with them in that half century or so.
See more >>>
2016-04-29“The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it”. -Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness
Before we examine the action and events originated by the Tamil leadership of Sri Lanka that defined and shaped the current socio-political milieu, let us look at the Sinhalese leadership have been engaged in since the turn of the Twentieth Century. Many accomplished historians such as Professors K M de Silva, G C Mendis and Jeyaratnam Wilson and social scientists of the calibre of Michael Roberts, Jayadeva Uyangoda and Dr. Dayan Jayatilleke and many others, have written books and essays and delivered talks on this subject.
The political background at the dawn of the Twentieth Century was greatly different from the one that encompasses today’s polity. Under the aegis of the British colonial powers, Ceylon and her political leadership at the time, though well-educated unlike most of those who enter politics today, was quite alien to the nuanced underpinnings of the Colonial Office of the United Kingdom Government. The emergence of eminent Tamil leaders such as the Ponnambalam brothers and later G G Ponnambalam during the Legislative and State Council era and their ready cohabitation with the leaders of the Sinhalese majority at the time and considering the prevalent socio-econo-political conditions, an exchange of ideas and policy-stances by both parties assumed more of a sophisticated and nuanced shade rather than real-life experiences of the proletariat and the middle-class of the Sinhalese and Tamils. What is even more ironic is that up to the early nineteen sixties, it was the Indian Tamil-component that comprised the largest group of minorities in Sri Lanka and not ‘Ceylon Tamils’. On the other hand, when the whole nation was ostensibly engaged in a ‘freedom struggle’ against the governing British Raj, issues dividing the two ethnic groups took a secondary seating, so to speak. Yet, one cannot forget that the Tamil leadership at the time, especially in the last two decades of the Nineteenth Century and the first thirty years of the next Century, lent their unequivocal support to the national leadership of the country through the offices of the National Congress, the main political entity at the time. Sinhala Maha Sabha of S W R D Bandaranaike, even then carried out a mutually exclusive political campaign in that while being the first politician, even before the Tamils of the North, to propose a Federal System of government carried out a campaign of nationalistic veneer. This difference between the rhetoric and actual policies, blemished his political life and ultimately paid by his life for the dangerous game he chose to play. That is why the Tamil leadership never trusted Bandaranaike throughout his political career. The same could be said about J R Jayewardene too. While J R introduced the Sinhala only as a medium of instruction in government-owned schools, he also led the famous Kandy March against the Bandaranaike-Chelvanayagam Pact in 1957. The greatest irony is that most of the chapters and clauses, the implementation of which in the Bandaranaike- Chelvanayagam Pact J R campaigned against, he himself had to concede when he signed the Jayewardene–Gandhi Agreement in 1987. Our recent history abounds in such political ironies and we lived with them in that half century or so.
See more >>>
