Response To Dr Nalaka Godahewa’s Speech At The UNHRC In Geneva – Part IX
- Dr Godahewa says: Demand for a separate state was to go back to “their age-old practice” of suppressing and exploiting their own people; emergence of terrorism was a result of this false propaganda; they continue to spread hatred, preach separatism, and mislead the international community with false information.
During the colonial period, all political parties took the policy position that Sinhala and Tamil languages should have parity of status in all spheres of governance. This position had even been incorporated one time into the constitution of the SLFP. Since 1926, late Mr Bandaranaike was a strong believer in federal structures for accommodating aspirations of diverse peoples. Demand for a separate state, however, was a later culmination of the political and emotional expressions of nationalism, awakened against majoritarianism that was advantageously transformed and diverted into generating an anti-Tamil consciousness for sinistrous political motives. Anti-colonial nationalistic expressions of Sinhala leaders were increasingly uttered with an anti non-Sinhala twist.
In 1952, nepotism pushed out Mr Bandaranaike from the deputy leader position of the UNP and late Mr Dudley Senanayake was appointed instead. Mr Bandaranaike changed his religious allegiance from Christianity to Buddhism and also became a master-orator in Sinhalese. He used all available opportunities to reinforce his political position and started championing the class interests of the Sinhala Buddhist national bourgeoisie, by advocating for recognition of their rights that had been heavily violated under colonialism. With this, pro-Sinhala nationalist sentiments took the centre stage, gradually making the anti-capitalist political sentiments secondary. Many members and sympathisers of the left also changed their political allegiances and joined the newly formed Sri Lankan Freedom Party.
As I have pointed out elsewhere, up until the early 70’s, Tamils as a community were not only against separation, but also rejected those politicians that advocated for it. A typical example is the late Mr. C. Sunderalingam[1], the distinguished professor of mathematics of the Ceylon University and MP, who contested the electorate of Vavuniya in the March 1960 general election. His entire election campaign was based on the slogan of establishing a separate state for Tamils. Though as a MP he was a strong voice in the Parliament demanding for the just rights of the Tamil people, Tamils in Vavuniya made him lose his deposit at the election for his separatist stand.
Soon after independence, stubborn refusal of legitimate Tamil demands by the successive Sri Lankan regimes, led to the next phase of their struggle, i.e., a demand for the formation of a federal state for the people in the north and east. Later Sinhala nationalists wrongly interpreted this as a demand for a separate state, because the Tamil name ‘Ilankai Thamil Arasu Kadchchi’ (ITAK – Tamil State Party) was taken to reflect a separate Tamil state. However, a fact check indicates that this demand was for an autonomous political structure with a level of devolution, which is even less than what is currently offered under the provincial council’s system.
In 1972 ITAK merged with the All Ceylon Tamil Congress and Ceylon Workers’ Congress to form the Tamil United Front. The Tamil United Front later changed its name to Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) in 1976. From the Tamil point of view, all efforts to resolve their problems within a united country through negotiations had failed. Those in power always repressed peaceful Tamil agitations and protests with violence. The Tamil United Liberation Front at its congress adopted the Vaddukoddai Resolution on 14 May 1976 at the insistence of its youth wing called ‘Tamil Illaignar Peravai’. It stated that problems of the Tamil people can only be solved by establishing a separate independent state called Tamil Eelam. Despite adopting this resolution, the TULF did not have any firm action program to establish it, and at the end of the 1970s the youth wing broke away to form an independent movement of its own.
During the history of the conflict the Tamil leadership had minimal political contact with the progressive forces in the south. The forces like the JVP in the south had minimal contact with the Tamil nationalists or progressive forces in the north-east. This could be due to many factors shown below, such as Tamil militancy increasingly becoming extremely violent, moving away from democratic principles using terror as a weapon; autocratic and gradual elimination of Tamil progressive militant movements; acceptance of the LTTE as the ‘sole’ representative of the Tamil people; violent attacks on Tamils in the south led by Sinhala chauvinists; weakened hold on the masses of the progressive left forces in the south; betrayal of Tamil peoples’ democratic rights by some left forces that formed alliances with the nationalist leaderships since 1968; the fear of alienation of the left forces from the Sinhalese; and fear of repression if engaged with Tamil militants.
From being a small group of militants the LTTE gained prominence after the government initiated July 1983 riots, which came to be known as the ‘Black July’. A problem that was confined to the borders of the Island became internationalised due to the exodus of Tamil people. Both Tamil and Sinhala diaspora under the direction of their respective leaderships, ‘worked’ extremely hard to internationalise the issue. With the emergence of the “9/11” fundamental Islamic terror in 2001 that saw a succession of four coordinated aircraft attacks on the USA, the tables turned. With around 3,000 deaths, over 6,000 injured and over $10 billion property damages, the US twisted arms of most governments to oppose militant liberation movements around the world.
The failed policy framework of successive Sri Lankan regimes led the country into a protracted civil war. Tamil leaders have also been derivatives of the same colonial process previously explained. While representing the interests of the local capitalist class, they also represented the social and cultural interests of Tamils as a community. In the 1940s while agitating for political independence they also agitated for a just and reasonable representation of the Tamils in state political institutions. Tamil demands were not for a federal state, nor for a separate state but for reasonable representation for their people. Their demands did not deviate away from the unitary state structure the British had imposed on the peoples of the island. The inhabitants of the land whether they were Sinhalese, Tamils or Muslims, have never voluntarily agreed to a unitary state structure. It was an alien construct.
Compared to long surviving federal states such as the United States, Canada, Australia, Switzerland and India, the devolution envisioned by Mr Chelvanayagam was extremely mild in both content and form. They were demanding a Tamil federal state within a united Sri Lanka, with the power to administer “agriculture, cooperatives, lands and land developments, colonisation, education, health, industries, fisheries, housing, social services, electricity, water schemes and roads”[3]. This demand in itself does not in any way constitute a demand for separation. Federalism or a federal system that Mr Chelvanayagam campaigned for did not represent a division of the country into legally separate independent entities.
