The fallacy of the Diasporas being the legacy of the LTTE

(April 22, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) “Throughout the ages the Sinhalese and Tamils in the country lived as distinct sovereign people till they were brought under foreign domination: It should be remembered that the Tamils were in the vanguard of the struggle for independence in the fullconfidence that they also will regain their freedom. We have for the last 25 years made every effort to secure our political rights on the basis of equality with Sinhalese in a united Ceylon …………”. The late SJV Chelvanayagam, the leader of the Tamil United Liberation Front, in January 1975.

Contrary to what is made out in the Sinhalese chauvinist media, the Tamil clamour for a separate State was not born yesterday nor did the LTTE militancy materialize just like that for terrorism’s sake. It was the logical and inevitable outcome of nearly half a century of oppression of the Tamils by the Sri Lankan State and the denial of their basic democratic rights with its apparatus being the best recruiting agency for Tamil militancy. The more the violence against the Tamils the more youth joined the militant movement. The idea of a separate State, Tamil sovereignty and the dynamics of the concept of self determination therefore were not originally conceived by the militants. They merely inherited it and gave practical expression and a credible ideology to it. The development of this phenomenon should not to be viewed in isolation but in its true perspective.

Distinguishing the Tamil nation as separate from that of the Sinhalese especially in consequence of the 1972 Constitution, the historic Vaddukkoddai resolution of 1976, made after 25 years of national oppression went on to state : “This convention resolves that the restoration and reconstitution of the Free, Sovereign, Secular, socialist State of Tamil Eelam based on the right of self-determination inherent in every nation has become inevitable in order to safeguard the very existence of the of the Tamil nation in this country.” This will be discussed later on.

Until the political unification of Ceylon in 1833 as recommended by the Colebrooke Commission the Kingdom of Jaffna with its capital in Nallur was separately ruled from the rest of the island. The British believed that their empire would never be dissolved and began a process of consolidation providing amongst other things greater mobility of labour in their plantation interests as envisaged in Colebrook’s recommendations which also sought to dismantle the caste system.

In his well researched article captioned: “The Malvana Convention of 1598, and other historical conventions”, with courtesy to the Daily Mirror, 15 February 2010, Anthony Hensman writes: “Let us turn with relief to the hard, testable, provable, empirical world of scientific historical theses. Here we have the benefit of three historical documents of immense weight and indisputable authority and veracity i.e. the Malvana Convention of 1598, the Nallur Convention of 1616 and the Kandyan Convention of 1815. The first was signed in 1598, on the one hand, by King Philip 11 of Spain [ of Armada fame] as king Philip 1 of Portugal, in his capacity as king of Portugal and , on the other, by the nobility of Kotte assembled in Malvana…………In like manner the second was signed in 1616, on the one hand, by King Philip 111 of Spain[son of the former] as King Philip 11 of Portugal in his capacity as king of Portugal, and on the other, by the nobility of the kingdom of Jaffna, assembled in Nallur, whereby the latter freely acknowledged the sovereignty of King Philip and swore fealty to him as King of Jaffna, by virtue of the conquest of the kingdom by the Portuguese forces in 1616. Here again, it may be noted that the contracting parties are the King of Spain, as king of Portugal, and the representatives of the people of the kingdom of Jaffna, an independent, legally constituted, diplomatically recognized, political entity – a sovereign state. There is no mention of a state of Ceylon or Lanka or any other name……….By these two treaties the Crown of Portugal came into possession of the two separate states of Kotte and Jaffna, and they were so governed by the Portuguese crown as two territories………”.

In 1948 with independence, power in Sri Lanka shifted from the white Sahibs to the black imperialists. Prior to that, in November 1945, when D S Senanayake, the then leader of the State Council and the leader of the Ceylon National Congress later to become the United National Party leader and Prime Minister in the first government of independent Sri Lanka, in an attempt to allay the fears of the minority communities about accepting the new constitution made in Whitehall with his connivance for Ceylon, stated: “……… On behalf of the Congress (Ceylon National Congress) and on my own behalf, I give the minority communities the sincere assurance that no harm need you fear at our hands in a free Lanka” The Tamil members in the State Council believed this assurance and unanimously voted for the (Soulbury) constitution which ushered in the new independent Sovereign state of Sri Lanka in February 1948. Little did they suspect that Senanayake did not mean one word of what he had said.

In consequence of the 1976 Vaddukkoddai Convention, the Tamil people overwhelmingly voted the TULF into power at the 1977 general elections as the sole representatives of the Tamil people enabling its then leader A. Amirthalingam to become the leader of the opposition in the Sri Lankan Parliament. The answer to this was another devastating Pogrom organised and conducted within a few weeks by the Sri Lankan State apparatus under the Jayewardene regime. This was one in the train of such Pogroms from 1956 to 1983.

The passage of the Act making Sinhala as the only official language in 1956 saw the formation of the nucleus of the Tamil Diasporas the world over, and thereafter, every act of discrimination and State sponsored Pogrom as a response to Tamil demands made constitutionally, the Diasporas of the Sri Lankan indigenous Tamil people augmented and began to swell in corresponding proportion. The diasporas represent in large measure the extension of the collective consciousness of the Tamil nation and their continuing aspiration to free themselves from the yoke of an oppressive Sri Lankan State.

The new government in their attempts to reach a settlement to the national question, whatever that means, cannot afford to ignore the fact that the Tamils are a secular nation having a cultural tradition, an ethnic identity, a distinct language, a shared historical experience and a defined homeland. No “reconciliation” can be achieved by force, intimidation or thuggery. As an immediate measure the IDPs must be settled in their homes now being gradually taken over by the military. Indiscriminate arrests, unlawful incarcerations and killings of youth suspected as terrorists without proper trial must stop. Young women and mothers must be allowed to go about without the fear of being raped and killed with impunity. Places of religious worship of the Tamil speaking peoples should be respected. Criminal elements and political wayfarers should not be thrust upon them as their leaders. They should in the least be afforded the respect that human beings deserve. The noble Lord Buddha’s image should not used as a scapegoat to establish archeological untruths to distort history. Any form of sacrilege of the image of Lord Buddha, venerated by the world, and its abuse should not be regarded as the sole prerogative by any nation, a group or an individual.

History has a tendency to repeat itself. Tamil Eelam is an overarching concept under which Tamil Diasporas function politically, a concept outlawed by the Sri Lankan constitution, now in the process of being adopted by common consensus in the countries of their domicile. It is even held by some apologists of Tamil Eelam that the Tamil - Sinhala struggle is part of the continuum of the war between the deified Aryan king Rama and the demonised Tamil king Ravana an erudite scholar and an exponent of Tamil carnatic music, who is said to have ruled over most parts of Sri Lanka, . But this is mythology. As an aside, however, the greatest violinist, the late Yehudi Menuhin held the view that the original version of the violin which Ravana called “Bahuli” or the “Vahuli” was invented by him. So much for the Yugayas.

To say that that the Tamil Disporas are a legacy of the LTTE is to give them much more credit than what is really due to them.

( The writer, editor of the Eelam Nation, Online journal)