Photo: Funaral of Karuna's Cadre who was shot and dead by the LTTE in Trincomalle on last 23 August.By: N. Sathiya Moorthy
The less said about the continuing plight of the 'Malayaha Tamils', the better. At one stage in their career, over 50 years ago, there were those among the Sinhala polity and policy-makers who may have thought that handing over the problem facing the Malayaha Tamils' to their Indian parent would provide socio-political space for their own people. Down the decades, however, other developments elsewhere in the country forced the Sri Lankan State, and even a hard line Sinhala polity like the JVP, to acknowledge Malayaha Tamils as a part and parcel of the larger Sri Lankan society.
It did not stop there, however. The meek way in which the Malayaha Tamils surrendered to the Sri Lankan State's decision to declare them as 'Stateless' orphans may have contributed in no small way to psyching the 'Sri Lankan Tamil community' in the North and the East to toughen their responses when they came to be targeted next. Not only are the Tamils of the North and the East not yielding, but even decades after rushing to neighbouring India and to the distant West as refugees of one kind or the other, their hearts still seem to be in Sri Lanka. They cannot be wished away, either, as the Malayaha Tamils.
Any political process aimed at addressing the immediate concerns of the Tamil community should take all these into consideration while formulating a power-devolution package for ending the ethnic strife, peacefully. At the end of the day, any end to the current strife should not end up opening the Pandora's Box that have remained shut for long. Or, open yet another that had remained unnoticed, all along. Yet, there are clear indications that the ground realities have not changed – they have only been pushed under the carpet, for a time.
It may be too much to expect a political solution aimed at finding a peaceful end to the all-pervasive, all-permeating ethnic strife, to address all concerns of every section of the Sri Lankan society, at one stroke. The effect and impact of the ethnic issue and war are so overpowering that it would be difficult for the contemporary generation to be able to think outside the box, and take stock of the larger picture – which may still be in the making.
Yet, there is need to be a clear understanding, particularly in the second-generation political and societal leadership across the board that such issues are bound to crop up out of nowhere – and would have to be addressed politically, not militarily. In the past, the emergence of such inherent problems attending on a democratic polity within a diversified society, were addressed through a wholesale revamp of the nation's Constitution. That's hardly the way. Instead, a dynamic constitutional scheme, capable of inherent flexibility aimed at addressing emerging situations and scenarios, may be the need of the hour. Sri Lanka has such a Constitution already, the existing one having been amended adequately to address issues that have agitated the polity and society, adequately.
Still, a hurdle remains is in the unwillingness of individuals and sections of the polity to change – and also accept change, in turn. While the JVP, for instance, seeks political power equal and equitable with those of the two 'Sinhala majors', namely, the UNP and the SLFP, it has reservations to granting the same to the Tamil community. The Tamil community in general and the LTTE in particular, while wanting more powers for themselves, are unwilling to grant equity and equality to the Muslims, who were forced to see themselves as different – by none other than the LTTE. The Malayaha Tamils continue to remain outside the social scheme for most parts – so do large sections of the Sinhala society, for reasons of economic deprivation, rather than social ostracism.
The question is thus not about a 'unitary State', or a federal set-up, but about a 'unifying force'. The Sri Lankan State , as it stands now, has not been the unifying force, as it should have been – though it had been one for long, until shared threats of foreigner influx coupled with an alien rule, not all of it civil, continued to be in the air. The elitist background of the early rulers of independent Sri Lanka, which has continued almost unbroken till now, may have tempted greater dependence on political short-cuts in the guise of ideological posturing.
Given that democracy is all about the 'rule of, by and for the majority', Sri Lanka, which prides itself as the oldest democracy in modern-day South Asia, may have misunderstood it for 'majoritarian rule', from the very word 'go'. Whether it had anything to do with the reported 'Sinhala colonisation' of Tamil areas from the mid-Thirties after universal adult franchise became law in 1931, may require a closer study and scrutiny.
In doing so, the majority community, particularly the divided and divisive polity representing the same, also seemed to have confused 'constitutional nationalism' with 'cultural nationalism'. The latter provided the easy way out, as the implanting of the mechanics of 'constitutional nationalism' implied hard and lasting work, at the administrative, political and electoral levels. In the absence of a 'majoritarian unifying force' as 'constitutional nationalism', a democratic polity, where numbers mattered, may have thrown up political challenges to the elitist status quo, even on the economic front. It is this confused approach and contradictory attitude that needs to be addressed, for and while finding a political solution to the ethnic issue. The rest of it all would fall in place, without effort.
The writer is Director, Chennai Chapter of the Observer Research Foundation, an Indian policy think-tank headquartered in New Delhi.
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