Sri Lanka: July cruelties and August tamashas — Pada Yathra politics then & now

by Rajan Philips

( August 7, 2016, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Pilgrimages are an essential part of religious and cultural life everywhere. In earlier times when the modes of communication were primitive, pilgrimages were a key medium of widening social awareness and expanding social consciousness. Based on anthropological studies of pilgrimages, Benedict Anderson insightfully accounted for the role of pilgrimage in the imagining of nations and the forming of national consciousness. South Asians and Sri Lankans can relate to this quite easily and experientially. They are also familiar with the modern use of pilgrimages as instruments of political assertions. Examples range from the sublime to the ridiculous – from Mahatma Gandhi’s freedom marches in India to Mahinda Rajapaksa’s padayathra in Sri Lanka. There have been other marches in Sri Lanka: the Tamil Federal Party’s Trincomalee march (Tirumalaiyathiri) in August, 1956 that led to the B-C Pact in July 1957; and JR Jayewardene’s Kandy march in October, 1957, mobilizing opposition to that pact and leading to its eventual abrogation in April, 1958.

The government has been quick to dismiss the padayathra as an admixture of political clowning and lack of serious political purpose, except the self-preservation of the Rajapaksas. But the government’s own politics and its messaging are also lacking in purpose and consistency. The revelation that the Port City project was put on hold apparently because of Indian pressure and not because of environmental concerns is an indication of not only the government’s duplicity, but also its stupidity. And while the Joint Opposition will blow hot on the government for bowing to India, it will coldly ignore the adverse environmental effects of this massive undertaking. Our political leaders across the divide are more eager to fight over India and China than to be alert to protecting the environment from the externalities of ill-thought out development projects. Neither are they alert to the rules of parliament in enacting legislation, or administrative procedures in awarding tenders. The government has been caught napping and has had its knuckles rapped by the Supreme Court over (VAT) taxation and tender awards. The JO, more keen on political street dancing than the finer points of process, forgot to petition the Supreme Court on the constitutionality of the Office of the Missing Persons (OMP) Bill within the stipulated seven day period.

On the positive side, there appears to be quiet but steady progress in the drafting of constitutional changes. The whole purpose of the current ‘National Government’ is to secure the required two-thirds majority in parliament for constitutional changes and to carry that over to a successful national referendum. The JO is watching for changes in the constitution that could be used to mobilize opposition to the government and augment its own political relevance. Remarkably, either by choice or chance, the JO did not make the incidents at the Jaffna University an issue during its padayathra demonstrations. And the government can justifiably sigh in relief after bringing together the representatives of both the Jaffna University Tamil and Sinhalese students and the parents of the latter to an amicable discussion facilitated by the President himself.

Sadly, though, it is not a sign of the country’s maturity when university orientations get embroiled in pseudo-cultural conflicts and require the intervention of the Head of State for their resolution. But that is how immature we have become, and President Sirisena needs to be commended for getting himself involved in resolving the Jaffna University dispute and stopping it from becoming a major nuisance. Unlike some of his predecessors, he did not ignore the problem as too unimportant for his office. Also unlike some others, President Sirisena did not call on the police and the army to restore order on a university campus, but took the more patient but prudent route of consultations and understanding.

Past cruelties and current politics

That brings me to the very positive intervention by Mr. ML Wickremasinghe in last week’s Sunday Island (July 31, 2016) to my article: “July and its cruelties” that appeared a week earlier. While agreeing with virtually everything suggested by Mr. Wickremasinghe, I can only add a rather sub-conscious reason for my not going over the war period and listing the string of atrocities committed by the LTTE. It was because I was trying to focus on the need to anticipate, identify and defuse tense mixed-ethnic situations that could erupt into a major a conflict. In my view, the failure to do so in the past contributed to the country being dragged into a prolonged war of varying intensities, and the government and authorities in public institutions should remain vigilant and avoid history repeating itself again and again.

As I wrote in the July 24th Sunday Island, the present UNP-SLFP government and the TNA Opposition are acting positively differently in contrast to their respective predecessors in times past. Equally positive are the Muslim and Indian Tamil representatives in parliament, as well as the JVP. Unlike in the past, there appears to be much better co-ordination and goodwill across the ethnic divides in parliament to keep the communal peace and build towards better relationships. Even the Joint Opposition voices are trying hard not to come across as being anti-Tamil or anti-Muslim while routinely castigating the government’s reconciliation agenda as an abject surrender to the forces of western imperialism. Put another way, the current parliament although technically incompetent in many respects is also ethnically benign.

The inter-ethnic dynamic involving the different parties and individual MPs in the current parliament is different from what was there in 1977 – with a juggernaut UNP government in power and the miniscule TULF in opposition insisting on separatism while searching for viable alternative. The political circumstances within and outside parliament in 1977 and the years following, gave rise to organizations like the Civil Rights Movement (CRM) in the field of human rights, and the Movement for Inter-Racial Justice and Equality (MIRJE) in the area of inter-ethnic relationships. For several years and against tremendous odds, they played a valiant role in defending human rights and promoting inter-ethnic harmony.

In contrast, today’s circumstances in parliament appear to be giving rise to the emergence of quite different civil society voices. These new voices are appropriating the language of human rights and that of law and order in defence of the indefensible, namely, practices, institutions and individuals that have long been associated with blatant human rights violations and inter-ethnic conflicts. This development is unfortunate, but there should be no surprise in its rise as a new phenomenon. Its danger is in its capacity to fuel future padayathras. For now, the purpose of the padayathra is more self-serving than unselfish, intended as a show of strength to warn the government, and more pointedly as a message to those investigating the myriads of allegations against the previous regime to beware of the potential return of the Rajapaksas. In future, it can grow into something more ominous and the government can ignore it only at its peril.