The Left In The Tamil Struggle
By Rajan Hoole –August 13, 2016
Dr. Rajan Hoole
1979 – 83: The Mounting Repression – Part II
The idea of a revolutionary liberation struggle was in its origins a leftist notion, but the struggle largely became the property of the Right even though the use of leftist jargon persisted. All the militant groups that kept to their Left roots were driven to the margins or to extinction by the LTTE’s violent assertion of sole leadership. A generation earlier a corresponding process had taken place among the political parties in the democratic stream.
V. Karalasingham, a member of the LSSP who contested S.J.V. Chelvanayakam in the KKS electorate in 1960, did creditably, polling 5,042 votes against 13,545 by the charismatic and highly respected Tamil leader. Karalasingham has the distinction of having spoken at election meetings throughout the Island in English. The historian Seelan Kadirgamar in his memoir The Left tradition in Lankan Tamil Politics, presented at the Hector Abhayawardana felicitation symposium in December 1999, made this observation: “Karalasingam’s pungent criticism of the Federal Party is as much applicable to the FP in 1963, the TULF in 1977 and the Tamil political movements and leadership in the present impasse.” We will quote from the memoir in the rest of this section.
In the chapter Why They have Failed, from his book The Way Out for the Tamil Speaking People of 1963, Karalasingham observed: “It is worthy to note that all the parties that have hitherto gained the confidence of the Tamil people, have done so on the basis of resisting the ‘chauvinism’ of the majority community and securing for their people their legitimate demands. But the period of ascendancy of the Tamil Congress and that of the Federal Party has signified to the Tamil speaking people not an increase but a diminution – indeed a sharp and precipitous decline of their fortunes. What heightens their tragedy is that their present plight cannot be attributed either to their apathy or their lack of support to the parties which at different times spoke for them. Apathy there never was on the question of minority rights. If anything, the politics of the last 30 years in the Northern and Eastern Provinces has revolved round precisely this question, to the exclusion of all others. The popular support for the traditional Tamil parties has been so enthusiastic and overwhelming as to incur the envy and jealousy of their rivals.”
Karalasingham pointed to what he described as a strange paradox: “The Tamil-speaking people have been led in the last decade by an apparently resolute leadership guided by the best intentions receiving not merely the widest support of the people but also their enthusiastic co-operation and yet the Tamil-speaking people find themselves at the lowest ebb in their history. Despite all their efforts the people have suffered one defeat after another, one humiliation after another”. He pointed out that the fundamental flaw in the Tamil nationalist strategy is the position that the fight for the rights of the Tamil-speaking people is the responsibility of the Tamil-speaking people alone.
