Vaddukkoddai Resolution May Become Startlingly Relevant Again!
By Veluppillai Thangavelu –May 13, 2016
Veluppillai Thangavelu
If Constitutional Making Do Not Succeed Vaddukkoddai Resolution May Become Startlingly Relevant Again
“A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on. Ideas have endurance without death.” ~ John F. Kennedy
You cannot kill an idea, however one may try. A single idea from the human mind can build cities, rewrite all the rules, and transform the world. Neither armies, nor dictators, nor even mortality have power over them, people die, but their ideas do not.
An American civil rights activist Medgar Evers stated that “you can kill a man, but you can’t kill an idea.” He was later shot dead by a Klansman, but the civil rights movement endured.
Nelson Mandela, who led South Africa from apartheid to democracy, was a humble, eloquent and inspirational figure who advocated peace, democracy and human rights. He was South Africa’s first black president who is now dead and gone, but his thoughts on freedom, equality continue to inspire millions of people around the world struggling to gain their freedom from oppression and slavery.
On freedom he asserted that “There is no easy walk to freedom anywhere and many of us will have to pass through the valley of the shadow of death again and again before we reach the mountain tops of our desires.”
On equality, “During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.” (20 April 1964, Rivonia trial)
On a meaningful life “What counts in life is not the mere fact that we have lived. It is what difference we have made to the lives of others that will determine the significance of the life we lead.” (May 2002)
According to the epic Bharatham, Maharajah Yudhisthira was the rightful heir to his father’s kingdom. But just to favor his own sons, headed by Duryodhanan, Dhirstaratiran adopted various unfair means to cheat his nephews of their rightful share of the kingdom. At last the Pāndavas sent Krishna as their emissary to demand just five villages, one for each of the five brothers, but that was also refused by the usurpers. The Kauravas were blind with arrogance and power and tried to even arrest Shri Krishna himself. Their refusal eventually led to the War of Kuruksetra. The Battle of Kuruksetra, therefore, was induced by the Kauravas and not the Pāndavas.
In a similar vain, the Thamils asked for a regional council for North and East combined. Since 1979, the Federal Party (ITAK) has demanded a federal state in which the Sinhalese and Thamils can share power. After unsuccessfully agitating for a federal state for a decade, a pact was signed between Prime Minister Bandaranaike and Federal Party leader SJV Chelvanayakam on July 26, 1957.
