Political realities and political solution to the ethnic problem in Sri Lanka.

By Arular Arudpragasam

(February 18, New Delhi, Sri Lanka Guardian) While the fundamental contradiction of human history has been that between barbarism and civilisation which seems to define the historical process, the upper hand of barbarism during the last two centuries has paralysed our abilities to comprehend and resolve many problems of governance which were solved harmoniously in ancient times. Normative structuralism that characterises civilisations and civilisational process, to which barbarism shows such aversion, has become an irrelevant aspect in good governance.

Nowhere has democracy and freedom brought forward strife and blood letting as in
Sri Lanka, which is an island nation occupying a strategic position at the centre of Indian Ocean. Since the onset of democracy in the free and independent country the majoritarian principle has led to the usurpation of virtually everything Sri Lankan by the majority Sinhalese community plunging the country into a civil war that has raged for over thirty years and all attempts by the international community to find an amicable solution to the conflict has been ineffective.

Rights of people exist historically in ancient and traditional civilised societies which are not democartic. They are assured and guaranteed by sovereigns and maintained by system of governance. From ancient times, these norms are sustained in an atmosphere of consent leading to good governance. The ascendancy of barbarism and its domination of world with its culture of incomprehension continue to fuel many intractable problems in the world which our ancients could have solved with ease by reference to traditional rights that existed in resolving these problems.

Foreign rule over countries like Sri Lanka never obliterated these traditional structures and perceptions of rights. Sri Lanka is a country where the new idea of democracy introduced in the governing process facilitated the process of usurpation by the majority community denying the Tamil people their very existence. Tamil people have fallen back to assert their ancient rights of homeland and self-rule as a matter of self preservation and the two traditions do not seem to meet. A governing process that is not congruent with the base realities and authority structures, which are deep rooted and sustained by the people, has become a recipe for strife, discord and revolt.

History and Rights Perceptions

The idea of a turning Sri Lanka into a Buddhist country may have existed in Buddha’s time. But turning Sri Lanka into a Sinhala Buddhist country is a new one. As the Sinhala language came into being only after thirteenth century and earlier Buddhism was more Tamil than Sinhalese. The Sinhala language did not exist during earlier period of Sri Lankan history. The Hela language which is a component of the Sinhala language along with Tamil, Sanskrit and Pali was not considered a vernacular language of Buddhism hence arose the need for the new language Sinhala.

Mahavamsa which has provided credence to the current historical perceptions of the Sinhala race as well as its ideological slogans and mind set like, ‘This is a Sinhala Buddhist country, (Mekka Sinhala Boutha Ratta), ‘This is Our Country’ (Mekka Appe Ratta ) This is ‘Our Mother Land’ ( Mekka Appe Mathru Bumi) which have remained the corner stoner of Sinhala Chauvinist Agenda for over a century, has only been a tradition of writing history rather than any authentic chronicle. There are many versions of Mahavamsa written by many monks and in different period. Two versions of Mahavamsa are available in English, one translated by Turnor and another by Geiger which appeared hundred years later. During the hundred year period its volume has doubled with foot notes of Geiger turning the Sinhalese into an Aryan race. This clearly shows how authentic this document is.

As the official version of history that came to be taught in schools was mainly derived from Mahavamsa, which was fabricated by Siamese monks in the 18th century Kandy whose intention was to turn Sri Lanka into Buddhist country has led the country into the current conflict. However the Tamil people of Sri Lanka are distinguished with a more heroic history and Buddhist heritage which was irrelevant to the schemes of the writers of Mahavamsa. Both Hinduism and Tamil have existed from time before the arrival of Buddhism to Sri Lanka or there was any Sinhala Race.

The Sinhalese of today want to claim the territory of the North East based on the Buddhist ruins prevalent in the North East. But at the time these Buddhist shrines went into ruin as a result of continued decline of Buddhism on the Indian subcontinent, there was no Sinhala language or Sinhala race in Sri Lanka. There were many languages and races and Tamil was for many centuries was the common language while Hela was the language of the aboriginal people. It is in the imagination of the 19th centaury authors, with the blessing of the British, the Sinhala Buddhist Aryan race, that brought civilisation the Lanka was born, into which the heritage of all races including ancient Tamils was assimilated.

Tamil rule and overloadship and sovereignty was the norm in Sri Lanka. It was not an exception. The last dominant rule over all of Sri Lanka and who held the title sovereign of Sri Lanka was the kingdom of Jaffna that lasted for four hundred years before the arrival of the Portuguese and its eventual surrender in 1620 after a hundred year war with Portugal which was the world power at that time. Raja Valiya a Sinhalese chronicle which is more authentic than Mahavamsa, has this to say about Kingdom of Jaffna.

After this there was no king in Ceylon. But the minister called Alageswara remained in Raigam Nuwara, and the son-in-law of Parakrama Bahu remained in Sempala Nuwara and the king called Arya Chakrawarthi Raja (King of Ceylonese Malabars ) remained at Jaffna Patnam. Of these three the power of Malabar Arya Chakrawarthi Raja was the greatest both in point of men and money and therefore he collected tribute from both the high and the low countries and like wise from the nine ports.
Raja Valiya. Trans. Turnor. Ed. Edward Upham. p.264.

The early history of Sri Lanka was marked by the rivalry between the Cholas and Pandyans whose empires extended far beyond the Tamil county and Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka, which was once part of India, was always under the rivalry and power struggles of these two dynasties. The current hero of the Sinhala Race, Duttu Gamini, who defeated aging Eelala, the Chlola prince who reigned in Anuradhapura around 150 BC, lived at a time when there was no Sinhala nation or Sinhala race in Sri Lanka. In earlier chronicles his father’s name is written as Kakka Vanna Thesan with the explanation ‘he so got the name because he had the colour of the crow’. As this would have exposed his Tamil origins, later day conspiratorial authors twisted his name as Kavantissa omitting the explanation that followed and turning the incident as Tamil against Sinhalese war and making Duttu Gamini a hero of Sinhalese.

The content and orientation of earlier Buddhism was considerably different from the present version of Buddhism , with many Buddhist sects around. The Theravada Buddhism of today was brought to Sri Lanka, by King Kirthi Sri, a Tamil king of Kandy in 1755AD and the Siamese Sects he imported to Sri Lanka almost overnight became enemies of the King who was Hindu and their anti Tamil crusade that put them on a collusion course with Tamils led to the political notion of Sinhala only Buddhism which also denied the Tamil Buddhist heritage of Sri Lanka. The reason why Buddhist priests have to be brought from Siam was Buddhism has reached a stage of near extinction and the Sinhalese were Hindus or Catholics during this period. The Siamese monks refabricated the Mahavamsa using old sources providing their aspiration of Sinhala Buddhism a historical foundation which got further twisted into Aryan Sinhala Buddhism during British period.

Aspirations and rights

The rights of people are enshrined in the people. They remain inalienable. As to who is the king or ruler matters little. The ancient rights are upheld as customary rights today and in ancient times these rights were the responsibility of the chieftain or the king of the principality to uphold. Sri Lanka was divided into principalities and the boundaries and customs of principalities were sacrosanct and rarely changed. This was so even under Portuguese and the Dutch and the Kandyan kingdom which consisted of many principalities. It was the British who changed the laws and imposed their laws annexed principalities into provinces. But the ancient laws continued as customary rights. It was difficult for person of one principality to cross over and settle into another principality without the consent of the ruler. Though there were many rulers, the right perception of people as our territory and our right, do not change easily.

Before the Siamese Buddhist sects revived the idea of Sinhala Buddhist Country, under Portuguese the Catholic Church wanted to turn the whole country Catholic. There are no Hindu ruins in Sri Lanka because Hinduism never went into ruins. Though the Portuguese destroyed and razed to ground many of the Hindu temples, looted their gold, almost all of them were rebuilt during the Dutch period.

The so called Sinhala Buddhist unitary state never existed in the history of Sri Lanka. It is a myth. The aspiration of a Sinhala Buddhist state as revived by the Siamese sects was based on historical claims that there was a Sinhala only Buddhist country is totally untenable and absurd.

The Mahavamsa was written by monks who had used old manuscripts that were ballads talking of historical events. The chronology of kings was a different manuscript. No one could write the history of whole of Sri Lanka as there were many independent kingdoms and communities which all had their own history. The Portuguese have over run the costal kingdoms and principalities and temples and destroyed everything along with historical works.

Democracy and usurpation

Under one man one vote majoritarian democracy when there is such powerful aspirational movements such as the dream of a Sinhala Buddhist country, the danger of permanent usurpation of the majority are very high, especially when there is permanent antagonism and disunity between communities. The alienation of the minority almost attains a status of permanent outcast eventually leading to frustration and revolt. As further abuse of government and pursuance of the aspiration become untenable, the divide become permanent under democracy. Large part of the conflict in Sri Lanka can be traced to democracy and what it stands to legitimise. Democracy rejects middle path and the consensual form of governance which is the cornerstone of governing traditions of ancients.

Democracy entrenches divide and enthrones extremism. In nations that came into being under Colonialism, the emergence of stable and sustainable nations was curtailed by democracy . It aggravates divisions cracking up nations along contours of uniformity. Sri Lanka is no exception. Majoritarian democracy was fully availed for the usurpation by one race the entire governing process and enrich itself at the expense of others. A just rule could not take hold. Democracy stood to legitimise injustice and discrimination.

Sinhala Chauvinism and Tamil experience

As democracy provided the opportunity for the enthronement of Sinhala Chauvinist ideology as the governing ideology in the independent Sri Lanka, the onslaught was relentless. There was no looking back for the zealots. The Tamil leadership during independence was quite well placed under colonialism and Colombo based. The British were too naïve to engage into the deeper dimensions of the oncoming problem. They could be easily cajoled as they were interested in maintaining their possessions like the tea estates, the Trincomalee harbour and the Katunayeke Airbase in Colombo, though subsequently, they lost all of them.

The ‘Appe Ratta’ ( Our Contry) siege of the Sinhala mindset let loose an avalanche over the Tamil people. In the process of banishment of Tamils from the island, first was the disenfranchisement of Tamils who were already citizens. The Linguistic chauvinism in the form of Sinhala Only Act, was used to virtually banish the Tamils from the government service. State aided land settlements were carried out within accepted Tamil areas violating the principle of territorial constituencies which formed the basis of providing adequate representation to minorities which concept was promoted as solution to the ethnic conflict by the by the British. The pursuit of Sinhala chauvinism was relentless. The first minority community that disappeared was the burgers who fled to countries like Australia, then the plantation Tamils half of whom were banished to India and subsequently the Tamils of North East.

The democratic Tamil leadership was helpless. But the Tamils of the North and East who have ruled their areas before the Portuguese were not prepared to take it any more. This led to the armed resistance from the early seventies that has continued to this day in various form. The Tamil people have never lived under a Sinhala rule and they never will. Unless a solution is found where the Sinhala people will live under Sinhala rule and Tamil people will live under Tamil rule a peaceful Sri Lanka will be a distant dream. Sinhalese see a unitary Sri Lanka with a majoritarian democracy as a great opportunity to realise a dream that they could never realise in the past but only brought Tamil rule over all of Sri Lanka.

The defeat of the LTTE will undoubtedly bring euphoria and celebrations as if the Sri Lanka has become Sinhalese and the will of the Sinhala race would prevail in the future over all of Sri Lanka. Many sections of Tamils too have wanted the end of LTTE. Many have fought LTTE for over thirty years. There was a period in early nineties when EPRLF was fighting LTTE, the Sri Lankan government was supplying weapons to the LTTE to fight EPRLF and destroy the Provincial Council established with the help of India. Subsequently LTTE started killing all those who worked with the government to find a solution and those friendly towards India as traitors. LTTE leader Prabakaran only had a perspective of war. He did not have the perspective of peace and the entire Tamil nation was sinking in a state of perpetual war and fear. The LTTE can come to the democratic path by disbanding itself and joining the TNA or EROS which will facilitate greater role for the international community especially India in bring about a settlement to the conflict.

The solution

The decadent idea of unitary state will never work as long as the Sinhala race remain possessed by the idea of a Sinhala Buddhist state which it has put in place since independence and its illegal claim for territory for all of Sri Lanka which has lately become its cry for motherland. When the British demarcated the current North East Provinces they ceded much territory from the larger North East Province to the Sinhalese and left only a part of the Tamil territory as Tamil provinces.

Sri Lankan polity today is divided as Tamil will and Sinhalese will. A peaceful united Sri Lanka is possible only if provision is made for the expression and articulation of the two wills separately in her constitution. Sinhalese have demonstrated time and again they want to be part of Sinhala Buddhist state. It is already there, a fait accompli. It cannot be dismantled in favour of a plural unitary Sri Lanka which the international community has been trying to promote in Sri Lanka. Only its containment within the boundaries Sinhala Ratta consisting of the seven provinces is possible.

For a sustainable solution to emerge from within Sri Lanka and uphold her soverignity, the Sinhala nation should on its own relinquish its territorial claims over the Tamil homeland and come forward to recognise the validity and historical basis of Tamil demands, and in a dignified manner, come forward to hand over Tamil homeland to Tamil people to establish their government and seek peace with the Tamils. Otherwise a sustainable viable solution remains the establishment of two independent states on the island. The expression of perverted patriotism with the intention of grabbing all of Sri Lanka will not provide the basis of any settlement to the conflict or the foundation of a stable and peaceful Sri Lanka.

But if the international community and especially India insists on a united Sri Lanka when a viable solution cannot emerge from within Sri Lanka, a solution lies in effecting a constitution with the participation of international community that reflects the principle ‘Tamileelam belongs to Tamil people, Sinhala Ratta belongs to Sinhala people and Sri Lanka belongs to all Sri Lankans’ and all Sri Lankans grow to be part of such a Sri Lanka. This is best done by having a three tier constitution one for Sri Lanka as a union and one for the Buddhist Sinhala and another secular constitution for Tamileelam and Sri Lanka having two regional assemblies and a parliament like in many federated countries. Attempts to perpetuate the hold and gains of Sinhala chauvinism and state of usurpation through various schemes will remain unacceptable to the Tamil people

For further reading on the historical aspects of this article read authors book, The Missing Pages of Sri Lankan History-The Traditional Homeland of the Tamils.
-Sri Lanka Guardian