The Tamil Polity: From Ambivalence To Violence
By Rajan Hoole –August 6, 2016
Dr. Rajan Hoole
1979 – 83: The Mounting Repression – Part I
“The youth and the more radical elements felt that the parting of ways had come and that coexistence with the Sinhalese was no longer possible. Thus the Tamil bourgeois leadership had to adopt the slogan of “Tamil Eelam – the cry of a separate State – for their political existence…
They kept the people under an illusion, by such slogans calling the TULF leader Chelvanayakam the Mujibur of Eelam, and even hinted at taking up arms from election platforms. Critics of these slogans were called ‘traitors’ to the cause. However, little progress was made inside or outside parliament, apart from the TULF leadership praising [Jayewardene] as the greatest democrat in South Asia. At the same time the Tamil people faced the 1977 race riots…The TULF was impotent. As a result the sense of betrayal was acute amongst the youth and the people.” ~ Rajani Thiranagama, from The Broken Palmyrah
It is futile to describe July 1983 in terms of cause and effect. On the one hand we have the authoritarianism of those in power.
Their reliance on chauvinist ideology precluded their dealing rationally with the ethnic question. The more they tried to knock the Tamils into conformity, the more they lost control and the less real were their pretensions of control over what they conceived of as a unitary state from ancient times. In turn, the resulting nervousness made them more irrational.
On the other side, as a consequence of their being knocked about in bouts of communal violence and other forms of discriminatory treatment, many Tamils had by the 70s come to accept that they needed a violent arm. They were clear that they did not want this violent arm to become their rulers, but only to help the TULF, the main Tamil parliamentary party, to negotiate a decent settlement. This position also reflected a failure of moral and political imagination, and the inability of the Tamil community to muster a principled leadership and make the collective sacrifice required for a non-violent struggle.
It also suited elite Tamil inclinations to promote a jaundiced view of the ordinary Sinhalese people and avoid the nuisance of making sacrifices, while leaving it to the lower orders of society to bear the cost of militant violence. Thus, the TULF leadership exuded a certain ambivalence while promising a non- violent struggle. A TULF leader, who lived in Nallur South, was a refined man with an incisive mind. As with the birth of Bangladesh in 1971, he believed in achieving the separate state of Tamil Eelam through Indian intervention. He had a regular stream of concerned Sinhalese visitors from the South to whom he would very logically in his patient, cultured manner explain the TULF position. Privately he opined that little good would come from the Sinhalese.
The problem with the kind of mindset that was common among the Tamil elite, is its failure to take a responsible view towards the Sinhalese people and to see that the fundamental interests of the Sinhalese are very similar to those of their Tamil counterparts. They also failed to see the need to convince the Sinhalese that Tamil demands are fair in themselves and are not a threat to them. It was a chauvinist approach, albeit the chauvinism of the under-dog. It played into the hands of the chauvinists in the South supported by state power.
A further illustration from the TULF leader mentioned also brings out a serious problem with the TULF. The Jaffna secretary of the Communist Party, Mr. I.R. Ariyaratnam, was his back-door neighbour, separated by the two fences of an access lane. In a conversation in 1975, the Secretary expressed his strong disapproval of the murder of Jaffna Mayor Alfred Duraiappah by the militant youth. The TULF leader responded, “What else can you do with him?” Taken aback, the communist responded, “Today it is Duraiappah. One day they will come for you!”
