Challenge to the Tamil status quo
In the past years and elections, the EPRLF along with PLOTE (People's Liberation Organization of Tamil Eelam) and TELO (Tamil Eelam Liberation Organization) used to try and arm-twist the major 'Ilankai Tamil Arasu Katchi' (ITAK), or 'Federal Party' partner to concede more seats than the latter would like to settle for. Knowing full well that they had no time to register a new party with the Election Commission (EC) and seek a common candidate, together and separately, they would talk about the urgent need for making TNA an electoral entity independent of the ITAK and independent of the party's 'House' symbol, which has better traction with the Tamil voters, especially in the North.
Not to show up the Tamil community to be seen as a divided house, the ITAK leadership would yield partial ground, for the others to feel vindicated and even victorious. Together, they would then go on to sweep the North and the Tamil areas in the East, against an even less credible Eelam People's Democratic Party of former Minister, Douglas Devan for TELO and PLOTE to take his line of defiance, though they were after all expected to pretend to defy the ITAK-TNA leadership until the latter would be 'moved' enough.
The formal exit of the EPRLF has meant that there are more seats for the other three to share. Even more precisely, there are more seats for the PLOTE and TELO to demand from what was now 'residual seats' from the ITAK, which might have hoped to retain most of them for itself. For TELO thus to pretend walking out and its Secretary-General Sri Kantha to declare that they are walking out of the TNA was as farcical as it could have been.
Dominant, domineering
It is sad that the dominant TNA political leadership has been taking the Tamil people for granted, as much as the LTTE and the pre-war TULF used to do in their time. Truth be told, the TNA has been the domineering political element in Tamil polity and society, without having any sense of duty, responsibility or accountability to the people who have been voting them post-war.
It is the kind of duty, responsibility and accountability that they want the Central Government in Colombo to have towards their people. If the Northern Provincial Council and administration are known for anything since coming to power with Justice C. V. Wigneswaran in 2013, it is for avoidable controversies, both of the constitutional and political kinds – at times within the TNA, and not for any achievements or dedication to the war-ravaged people, whom they all claim is theirs and theirs alone.
The irony is striking. Though the EPRLF, for instance, talked about ideologies and policies as the reason for its parting of ways with the TNA, no one believed it. While threatening to leave the TNA, TELO did not talk about ideology or policies, or even programmes, but only about seat-sharing. The TNA itself is in the news, either when some foreign dignitary deigned to visit Jaffna or meet up with party leaders, again as routine as their own poll-eve political demands have become over the past decades.
There are no takers, no readers for the internecine wars within the Tamil polity and society, which at last count may have more political parties and leaders than the post-war scenario could afford. It is ego-centric and not ideology-driven – or, continues to be so, even after war and violence, loss and destruction - as each one of them separately would want one to believe.
Enemy within
Sad but true, but the Tamils do not need an enemy from outside of the community. Beyond a point, for them to continue blaming the Sinhala polity and the Sri Lankan State would be a travesty of the truth. The enemy is within and has always been so. It was so ever since Independence, but no Tamil seemed to have ever paused to evaluate and judge.
Given time, a new-generation leadership devoid of war and war-time involvement, which TNA's Rajavarothiam Sampanthan, wanted to promote for the future, in Justice Wigneswaran and M. A. Sumanthiran, could well come from outside of the TNA. They could question the status quo and challenge the status quo leadership more effectively. After all, the TNA in power in the North has not done anything worthwhile for the Tamil people of the future, especially those in the East, to be enamoured of a re-merger of the kind that the party wants, but none else seem to talk or even think about!
(The writer is Director, Chennai Chapter of the Observer Research Foundation, the multi-disciplinary Indian public-policy think-tank, headquartered in New Delhi. Email: sathiyam54@gmail.com)
