By C. Wijeyawickrema –

“Solutions to world’s problems could be found via Buddhism” –Dr. Abdul Kalam & Ms. Prathibha Patil (Ex-Indian Presidents)

Wigneswaran-a blessing in disguise

I thought of a Moses title to this essay because Ratanajeevan Hoole from his hiding place in USA made a comment that Wigneswaran (W) starts and ends his talks with something in Sanskrit that no one in the audience understands. Hoole is in the habit of criticizing Hindu Vellalas stating that he is a Pentecostal Christian belonging to a “lower” Tamil caste in Jaffna. But as a professed “Tamil Moderate” he is still happy with the TNA decision to “force” Wigneswaran (W) to contest for the NPC-CM job. Some others write to Colombo Telegraph website stating that it was divine intervention that a retired SC judge is coming forward for the first time. They do not know that there were Christian QCs in the Tamil Arasu Kachchi (Tamil State Party) in the past, and SJV Chelvanayagam was a QC whose best friend was the  then CJ of SC, one Jayatileka. The difference this time with W is that he knows Sinhala and Sanskrit and he is not a Colombo Christian. Hence, a Wigneswaran Damanaya in the Buddhist tradition will be much easier.

The currents and undercurrents that “forced” W for this job are the Christian establishment and Christian Tamils, Marxists, and the elite Christian Sinhalese in Colombo. W’s candidacy is similar to that of Sarath Fonseka’s in 2010. In each case the International king-makers were behind in picking them up. Wimal Weerawansa thought two embassies were behind it. But Daya Master who is on the field has identified them as foreign spies linked with some TNA parties. W was one of the “Tamil moderates” (the so-called reasonable Tamils) living in Colombo. The concept of a Tamil moderate is a creation by Robert Blake and the Norwegian agents, and these “moderates” are moderates only until they become separatists! Anandasangaree, the father of Tamil moderates has now joined the TNA candidates’ list. W’s talk after his “forced” conversion to become a TNA man is very different from his prior moderate incarnations. Is W the new Tamil Moses in an environment of resurgent Buddhist awakening exemplified so well by the highly popular Bodu Bala Sena (BBS) Movement? BBS says “come and examine (discuss), not come and believe.” We can invite (“force?”) this new Moses to come for a new kind of a Great Panadura Debate (of 1873).

W is a blessing in disguise for Sri Lanka because within a few days after his new tiger hat he revealed his true colours that he is still living in the 1976 Vaddukoddai era. He is neither a Tamil moderate, nor a Tamil federalist. He is for Tamil self-determination, without or with foreign help. He is a pure and simple separatist. All he wants is an election platform and a NP Council. The land and police issue is kept burning just to camouflage the real issue and divert Sinhala attention away from a 13-A based NPC election. Once W gets elected with or without a large majority, the new NCP-CM will invite foreign delegations exactly as the International king-makers expect him to do. Soon a Kosovo conspiracy will begin. Already W stopped using the words “a unitary Sri Lanka.” He uses the words” united” Sri Lanka. The message is very clear. The geopolitical situation today will not keep together a Tamil federal unit with a Sinhala federal unit. USA wants a Tamil state as soon as possible to dampen the Chinese plans in the Indian Ocean.

W says current 13-A is not a solution because it is a diluted version of the 13-A expected by Rajiv Gandhi.  He says JRJ diluted it by adding seven other PCs in the South.  He emphasizes on the clauses in the Rajiv-JRJ agreement He says South did not need PCs. Rajiv Gandhi wanted a PC for a merged North-East because that area is the traditional Tamil homeland recognized by the Rajiv-IRJ agreement.  He says Prabhakaran was right in his demands except that he used violence to reach that goal. He is silent about the world Tamil forums asking for a Tamil country with a UN seat or Tamil Nad asking for an Eelam in Sri Lanka because he is for it. Wigneswaran takes us back directly to the 1976 Vaddukoddai days by what he said so far. In this sense just like SJV Chelvanayagam W is also in a delusion. There can never be a Tamil country in this island because it is an unreasonable demand as Sarath Fonseka said before he got into politics. As a soldier Sarath F said that minorities can live in Sri Lanka with all the rights of equality and equal opportunity but they cannot make unreasonable demands. Sri Lanka is not a multi-cultural island. It is the country of the Sinhala Buddhists and poor Sinhala Christians where ethnic minorities can live and die with all reasonable rights and duties. This is what Norway does with non-Norwegian, non-Christians.

Thus, W is a new Tamil Moses in trouble. W put the 13-A supporters in trouble too. The first Moses did not have the Dollar backing. All those who said that 13-A or 13-A plus will solve the Tamil aspirations dilemma are now like the proverbial cats on a rock. This is the blessing in disguise. MahindaR has his last chance to act reasonably (using the Buddhist Middle Path) to save his country of birth, Sri Lanka by (1) dismissing w’s claim of a separate Tamil nation in Sri Lanka (like Scottish or Iris nations in Britain) based on an agreement with two Christian Sinhalaese in 1921 to that effect  (2) abolishing 13-A (3) empower people at GSN (village level) by a ten member people’s committees elected on non-political party basis who can decide matters relating to basic human needs (ref. Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs)  (4) re-demarcate GSN (grama seva niladhari) units using hydrological (geographical/ecological) boundaries and (5) thus the 103 river basins in the island will have GSN units that will go upward to create seven larger river basins, one of them will be Yalpanam (present NP) fed by the Mahaveli river.

Under this scheme: (1) people will get empowered at GSN level as suggested by the LLRC (2) there will be hundreds of Tamil GSN units where public “aspirations” can co-exist with private/individual rights of people in the GSN unit (3) such Tamil or Muslim units working publicly on their “aspirations” will not be perceived as a separatist threat by the Sinhalese (4)  in mixed GSN units there will be peaceful co-existence of ethnic groups (there will be no need for a Tamil police units in each Sinhala village as Tissa Vitharana proposed in his APRC majority report) (5) such hydrology/ecology-based GSN units can be merged at any higher geographical level to become a Pradesheeya, a District or a Province (thus seven river basins can be seven provinces) (6) link local with national by delegates to the parliament/a new senate (7) the removal of present PC white elephant and transfer of basic civic functions to local people will help remove 80% of corruption and inefficiency now prevalent in Sri Lankan society as it will surgically remove the politician-officer-NGO evil triangle now in operation.

There are other vital changes needed such as the national election systems, separation of powers, rule of law, a powerful senate not linked to partisan politics, how to remove politicalisation of everything and anything in Sri Lanka etc. etc. But they can wait. The urgent threat is Wigneswaran’s Kosovo plan with Dollar power behind him. The out-of-the box scheme proposed above is not new. Sarvodaya’s A T Ariyaratne wrote about it in the 1980s. The late Ven. Kalukondayave Pragnasekara Maha Nayaka Thero started an island-wide Crime eradication and village development societies’ program in the 1940s which was sabotaged by the Colombo establishment. In this regard the Divineguma Law must be modified to empower GSN level units as proposed by this scheme taking the decision-making power away from officers and the local politicians. But if the muddling through now going on by this administration is continued, it will make the mother of the Hasalaka Hero to cry again. The above scheme is a Buddhist way of taming the separatist Wigneswaran like a modern Angulimala Damanaya. The president can find a thousand Sinhala or Buddhist or even Tamil expatriates willing to come and help him in implementing this scheme which is paradoxically, both complex and simple.

First Tamil Moses

At the funeral of  SJV Chelvanayagam (SJVC), Rt. Rev. Lakshman Wickremasinghe (Ranil W’s uncle) identified SJVC (who belonged to the Church of South India) as a Tamil Moses (“S.J.V. Chelvanayakam and the crisis of Sri Lankan Tamil nationalism, 1947-77: a political biography” written by the late A. J. Wilson (1994), son-in-law of SJVC, page 73).  Wilson also thought that SJVC was hailed as the “prophet-seer of the Tamil people” (page 82). After the July 1970 General Elections SJVC felt “only God can help the Tamils” (page 114). Ironically, SJVC lost this godly agency in 1975 when he garlanded a statute of Sivakumaran who committed suicide after trying to assassinate a superintendent of police (some gods would approve such garlanding but not Gandhi). By then SJVC was convinced that the only alternative was to fight to the end for a Tamil Nad (Wilson, page 127).

SWRD (Bandaranayaka), whose ancestors were South Indian Tamils, described SJVC differently, (Hansard vol. 31 (June 3, 1958)  cols. 244-5)  “ [he is surely] one of the most dangerous types of human beings in the world, quite in his own way sincere, in his own way an idealist, but having no idea whatsoever of reality and the practical side of things. Very dangerous people, such people are capable of deluding themselves completely, capable of deluding others too” (Wilson, page 10). This observation of SWRD on SJVC can be applied to his fight to the end successor Prabakaran as well. Can it also fit with the ex-judge Wigneswaran (W) who comes armed with the Dollar power and R2P power of the international king- makers and Dayan Jayatileka’s “soft power”?

The Prabakaran killing project, blessed by an aging and helpless Thanthia Chelva failed despite all the support he received from the Colombo Christian establishment (example: P is a humane person-Colombo bishop Kenneth Fernando), NGOs, Marxists and “this war is not winnable” crowd, some of them now in the MahindaR cabinet. The two-thirds majority created with these jokers has now become a liability. Tamil separatism in Sri Lanka is primarily a Christian-Marxist project, and in a climate of a government mismanaging with yes men, domestic socio-economic affairs adversely affecting everybody, we saw the shaping of a new Tamil Moses in the retired S.C. judge Wineswaran’s (W) S.J.V.Chelvanayagam memorial lecture delivered on April 26, 2013 at New Kathiresan Hall, Colombo 4 to mark the 36th death anniversary of Thanthia S.J.V.Chelvanayagam, Q.C.

New Tamil Moses

W is not another Paskaralingam who fooled R. Premadasa and left Sri Lanka to join with the Eelam fighters. W is the top “moderate” Tamil intellectual now available in the market for the continuation of the Tamil Arasu Kachchi (Tamil state party) project. He gave his April 26th talk as part of an international plan thinking that MahindaR could finally get trapped in his own political game of muddling through with political gymnastics. W is also not a stupid Vartharaja Perumal. W wants more than land and police powers. He is for self-determination by the Tamil nation accepted by two Christian Sinhalese in 1921. Some useless and hopeless Sinhala politicians since 1931 cumulatively provided all the incentives he needed to fly high.

W says 13-A was meant to give devolution of power to Tamils in the North and East. (Clause 1.4 of the Rajiv-JRJ agreement says that there is a traditional Tamil homeland in the North and East.)  He wants self-determination forced internally or externally or both.  The so-called “Sinhala Buddhist” politicians cheated Sinhala Buddhists since 1931, some made Poya-pre-Poya weekend holidays, some created universities out of the two great pirivenas (and destroyed the proper education of Buddhist monks), Ranil W even got a ghost writer to pen a book on Buddhism. JRJ had his “Dharmista Samajaya” and had to ask Dixit to arrange for a ship to escape if needed.  MahindaR, who won 2005 Presidential election with a razor thin margin due to the Sinhala Buddhist rural and urban vote, is now flirting with multi-cultural and Inter-faith groups which are instruments of new remote colonialism. None of these politicians followed the Buddhist principles of the Middle Path (reasonableness doctrine) and they made country a mess. With Wigneswaran, coming as new Moses of Tamil separatism Sinhala Buddhists and poor Sinhala Christian masses have a last chance to prevent the beginning of the end of Sri Lanka as their only homeland.

The Malay-born Christian SJV Chelvanayagam found out that the Bhoomiputra movement in Malaya is a threat to him and developed his Ilankai Thamil [future Kosovo in 2008] plan in Dec 1949. In 1952 SJVC talked about the Yugoslav model aiming at “another Pakistan in Ceylon” (p. 42 of Wilson’s book). In 1952 nobody could predict how the Y model would end.  Unlike the stupid Sinhala politicians in Colombo Thanthia knew what he was doing. As Wison says Thanthia had to dream for a mythical Tamil homeland in the Eastern Province, because without the EP, an Eelam project is not viable unless it joins with Tamil Nadu separatists to carve out a larger Dravidasthan. In Sri Lanka, the locations with significant Tamil populations such as the upcountry areas and the Colombo City Area will become a Tamil frontier-land. Even the soon to become an “Indian prisoner” JRJ, told the parliament on Feb 20, 1986 that the Eelam will annex the upcountry and the North Central Province. Under the Eelam plans all what Wigneswaran now needs is a platform created by an election.

All what is needed for a Kosovo plan is an NPC election under 13-A

Asking land and police powers is a camouflage to fool Sinhala politicians in power. 13-A has all that is necessary without land and police powers in hand to create a Kosovo- type crisis. W can invite “foreign delegations” to visit him instead of the southern PC-jokers’ habit of salivating for a free foreign trip. Already, at present, petty American embassy officers go to meet with TNA catchers in Jaffna. In future, a Hillary Clinton or a Robert Blake, the international king-makers, would visit CM Wigneswaran, without Colombo even knowing about it. Who can stop NPC-CM inviting them on his own?  It is R2P. After all Hillary did this with Tamil Nad ignoring Delhi.  The end of Prabakaran should have been the end of 13-A also, because in Sri Lanka Tamils enjoy more benefits than in Tamil Nad, India or in Europe or anywhere else.

Actually, W sent his first trial balloon when he got the SC judge’s job (the dignity and professionalism in SC judgeships is long gone), when he gave his ceremonial speech on March 7, 2001. In his talk before an embassy crowd he used the opportunity as a platform to attack the Sinhala government that gave him the job! This is what he will do when he gets the NPC-CM job. Now, as a politician, he is lying and telling half-truths. It comes again and again in his TV interviews- Daily Mirror 7/16, Ada Derana 7/17 and 7/21. How can this QC say that Tamils asked separation because Sinhalese forced them to do so in 1956?  Tamils who did not know English and lower caste Tamils went to university after 1956.  Separatism was a Madras-based anti-Hindi, Marxist-Christian led Dravidasthan project that paralleled Ali Jinna’s Pakistan plan. They began in the 1920s and 1930s. Almost all Tamil separatists in Ceylon/Sri Lanka were English-speaking, Colombo-living Christian-Tamils.

W’s April sermon is full of non-violence and Gandhianism, aimed mainly at the Colombo embassy cows or foxes. His interviews in July are signals and messages to international king-makers about how they can help him in his Kosovo project. The path to Balkanization of India is shortest and easiest from a broken Sri Lanka. Even at this late stage after so many blunders Sinhala politician in power can prevent Sri Lanka from breaking—a breaking that will not give them peace of mind even in the deep-deep south since Tamils live in all over Sri Lanka could be easily manipulated to cover/hide terrorist infiltrators from the new Tamil Eelam in the island. W’s story (sermon) is full of half-truths, hiding facts. Above all it is unreasonable, legally and morally. How can he then ask the Sinhala Buddhists and poor Sinhala Christians to trust him?

Can we eat history?

Historically, those who hate history are people who have in their past unpleasant private matters or politically incorrect things that they think they should try to hide. Thus, JRJ asked this question because he thought his Thombi Muslim history should be covered. Catholic Archbishop had the habit of asking “what is the use of going back to ancient Sri Lankan history” in his Christmas/new year messages because the history of Catholic establishment (poor Catholic masses are just lambs in this story) in Ceylon or in the world was brutal, ugly and nasty.  Taking a similar stand, Wigneswaran is also cutting out history. His history begins only from 1921 with a James Peiris and a Samarawickrema, not with Elara, Dutugemunu or a Vijayabahu I. This is plain and simple dishonesty on his part. W based his right for a separate country on the agreement two Sinhala Christians made accepting Tamils as a separate nation in the Island!

During 1921-23 there was a conspiracy to make the majority Sinhala Buddhist people a legislative minority by making the combined number of Tamil and Muslim representatives equal to the total number of Sinhala representatives. Wigneswaran is referring to this coup promoted by the then British governor, but flatly refused by the London establishment. The coup was between two Sinhala Christians, and Tamil and Muslim agents. How could W begin his history with this coup?  The 1921 agreement was not with the two Mahanayaka Theros in Kandy or with the Ven. Anagarika Dharmapala. The problem was that when the communal representation that began with one each for the three communities in 1832 was becoming unreasonable as more and more Sinhala people became eligible for voting, Christian Sinhalese and Tamils got together to suppress democracy or the Sinhala Buddhists voters. This is why Tamil and Sinhala Christians asked the Donoughmore Commission not to extend universal adult suffrage in 1931. They said it was like giving razor blades to monkeys!

Second class Tamils and third class Sinhalese

W says Tamils are second class citizens. The first class in Ceylon was the English-speaking, Colombo-living Sinhala, Tamil Christians and the rich Muslims. The second class was (and is) poor Tamils, poor Sinhala and poor Muslims living in villages and towns. Because of American Missionary education that began in the 1820s (just after 1815 capture of the Kandyan Kingdom), and the preference given to Burghers, Malays and Tamils, minorities enjoyed lots of benefits under colonialism. Thus, Tamil leaders were the leaders of Ceylon until the situation changed after the 1915 Sinhala Muslim riots. Then only “nobodies could become somebodies” as the Christian Obesekeras and de Alwises who sat in the Legislative Council created in 1832 identified  jungle John’s like DS Senanayakas. When Ponnambalam and Arunachalam realized that they cannot continue as leaders of Ceylon, the idea of having a separate country for them began to crop up with the Dravidasthan movement in Madras. The British who promoted two Indias would have allowed for two Ceylons also if the condition in Ceylon deserved a spit. The Donoughmore Commission (1929), the Soulbury Commission (1946), and in 1980, the Sansoni Commission spoke against this demand of Tamil separatism. M. C. Sansoni summarized the negative sufferings the ordinary Tamils underwent due to this behavior—if the Tamils’ cry for separatism is given up, the two communities could solve their problems and continue to live in amity and dignity (Sessional Paper No. 7 of 1980).

It was this separatist thinking that made Tamil Christians to tell the Soulbury commissioners that allocating government funds to restore the ancient city of Anuradhapura was discrimination against Tamils!. It was this thinking that anything done by the government as Sinhalisation and anti-Tamil. GG Ponnambalam, as the minister of industries got cement, paper and chemical factories but at that time he was branded as a Tamil traitor. It was this thinking that prevented any Tamil cooperating with the Colombo government a traitor, and kept the poor Hindu villagers in perpetual poverty under caste suppression. Buddhist monks avoided Jaffna and went to Europe and America for Buddhist Dhamma work because of this thinking created by Tamil Christian separatists operating from Colombo.

Both GGP and SJVC used to openly ridicule Sinhala politicians in Colombo as not suitable to rule Tamils and SJVC was ready to deliver Trinco to India on a plate. GGP’s statement in 1936 resulted in ethnic clashes in Gampola which led to the formation of the Sinhala Maha Sabhava by SWRD. SJVC said Sinhala leaders were not big enough to rule the Tamils (Wilson, page 128). They were not willing to accept the majority-based territorial representation that began in 1931. Instead they wanted the communal representation that began in 1832 to continue. GGP expressed this as 50-50. SJVC advanced it as two nations, especially after Dec 1949 with the formation the Tamil state party (ITAK). Obviously Wigneswaran does not want to hear such histories. Instead he says Singapore has four official languages ignoring that it was under strict dictatorship promoting English! He also forgets that Malaysia with Malay also developed under a dictatorship. Sri Lanka is in a mess not because Sinhala became the official language in 1956 (with reasonable use of Tamil language), but because it had a useless set of leaders. As in Mandela’s South Africa, Sinhalese was a majority that suffered under a minority favoured by a colonial master. This was changing and it cannot be called Sinhalisation and use as the logic for a Tamil country.

Back to separatism with Wahabism growing

Wigneswaran is now resurrecting the old separatist demand. W wants us to believe that he is for a federal set up and will not demand a separate country. W is like a woman pregnant with an Eelam baby (child). He is serious about a united Sri Lanka he says, but world Tamils want a Tamil country with a UN seat. USA wants to control China using India and a foothold in Sri Lanka with an anti-Sinhala, anti-Buddhist Eelam. Two embassies in the island is better than one. Trincomalee is as good in 2013 for the American power as it was for the British expansion in 1802. W quotes in his April 26 Thanthia talk:

“…In a Memorandum Mr.S.J.V.Chelvanayagam submitted on behalf of the Tamils to all the Delegates attending the 20th Commonwealth Conference in Sri Lanka in 1974, he referred to this tendency in the following words which appear very relevant and topical in relation to the circumstances today too, when we are again going to host another Commonwealth Conference soon in our Country nearly forty years later. He said-

“The Sinhalese leaders have one objective of converting the bi-national, bi- lingual, multi religious state of Ceylon into a uni-national state with one Nation –the Sinhalese, a uni-lingual state with Sinhala only and with one religion Buddhism – involving genocide against the Tamils. This is substantiated by the following statement to the Press by a Cabinet Minister of the present Government and reported in the Ceylon Daily News of 27th August 1974- “In fact one of the things happening now is that many Indian Tamils who were earlier isolated are now learning Sinhala and even adopting our names and religion. This is part of the social assimilation”.

It was the Sinhala people who suffered for over 500 years under White Christian and later brown Christian control. The combined assault of colonial government, Christian agencies and Tamil Christians was so severe that in the 1920s there was a fear that Sinhala as a language could soon disappear from usage. See what a white American said about it in a historical context:   “Sinhala [language]’s survival as a clearly Indo-Aryan language can be considered a minor miracle of linguistic and cultural history” James W. Gair, Studies in South Asian Linguistics: Sinhala and other South Asian languages, 1998, Chapter 14: How Dravidanized was Sinhala phonology? Pages 185-199). Tamil language had no such problem. Yet W talks about dangers to Tamil culture from a Sinhala government. Like what will happen to his grandchildren of his son married to Vasudeva’s daughter?

Politicians cheating Sinhala Buddhists

What W needs to remember is that the Sinhala Buddhist people never discriminated against Tamils or any other non-Buddhists. Some issues arose because the mostly Christian Colombo English-speaking politicians misused and abused power and created tension between Tamils and Sinhalese. The Buddhist resurgence against Catholic Action was turned into a Sinhala-Tamil conflict. The removal of English for the benefit of 95% of Sinhala and Tamil people was projected as a removal of Tamil. 90 million Tamils are only 22 miles away. Lower caste Tamils went to universities because of the removal of English. In all other cases that W cites as discrimination against Tamils it was not Sinhalese targeting Tamils for hunting, but attempts to reduce economic and social disadvantages of people living in remoter areas without proper educational opportunities. Thus standardization of university admissions affected students from Colombo, Galle or Kandy just as students from Jaffna. Sri Lanka’s ethnic population distribution map is like a scrambled egg. Sri Lanka does not have a Tamil or Muslim discrimination Sri Lanka has a spatial inequity problem. JVP described this as “Milk to Colombo, and roughage to villagers.” Whether one is Sinhala, Tamil or Muslim they do not get equal opportunities in rural areas and outside Colombo. When Kumar Ponnambalam was asked to name any right that the Tamils did not get that the Sinhalese have, he finally blurted out that Tamils have aspirations.  This has nothing to do with spatial inequality, the real issue. “Aspirations” is a separatist issue.

Aspirations versus rights

Wigneswaran is in this aspiration game. He says Prabhakaran was right except that he used violence. “Aspirations” is a fluid concept as one group’s aspirations can clash with another group’s survival. Sometimes it can be a case of the guest ousting the host from his house like Sri Lankan Muslims becoming Taliban agents. Turkey has an aspiration to be part of the White Europe, but France does not want a Muslim country to dilute its Christian heritage in Europe with Turkey as an EU member. If Tamils wants a Tamil country with a U.N flag, Tamil Nad is the Tamil homeland to create it. But India does not want that to happen. Because Sinhala politicians are a useless lot some separatists Tamils perceive that Sri Lanka territory is a good catch for this Tamil aspiration. While aspiration talk is good fodder for politicians to manipulate, what individuals want is equal rights, not a separate country, so that they have equal opportunities for individual advancement.

W ignores all recent history also after his 1921 anchor.  He totally erased from even his selected period of history, the CFA (the greatest give-away in history), RPremadasa and Mrs. Chandrika offers of NP on a platter to Prabakaran behind the back of Sinhala people. W knows that if Prabakaran acted wisely, through 13-A he could have got his promised land not in Israel, not in Kosovo but in Sri Lanka.  May be it was God Vishnu who disoriented Prabakaran. Forgetting that he had already junked old history in the earlier part of his April 26th deliverance, W talked about the use of archeological DNA towards the end of his talk!  It is a habit of Tamil separatists to distort history by omission. For example, Stanley Thambiah never mentioned the 1962 police-army Tamil-Christian Coup or JRJ derailing the 1958 Reasonable Use of Tamil Language Bill in his books, even though the 1966 Dodampe Mudalali-Ven Gnanaseeha-Richard Udugama toilet coup was always mentioned.

Wigneswaran cannot become a reasonable Moses

W’s strategy is based on the acceptance by two Christian Sinhalese that Tamils are a separate nation.  His reasons for this conclusion come from his own biased history that begins from 1921. Bill Clinton once said that if each ethnic group wants a country there will be 2000-3000 countries in the world. In India alone there will be 50-60 countries. In Tamil Nadu itself the demands are for 4 new states! Little bit of flirting is not OK with this urge. Scotland is the best example. The moderates thought to satisfy Scottish people allowing a little bit flirting with a home parliament. They tasted it and now want to go beyond the point of no return. W is honest in this regard; he does not want flirting with 13-A or 13-A plus. He wants to go directly for intercourse. He put Robert Blake, Dayan J or Rajitha Senaratne in big trouble. The whole “moderate” NGO-Dollar crowd is in trouble. For SJVC it was one step at a time project. Even the moderates knew this. 13-A is a step on the separatist ladder.

Wigneswaran’s plan is unreasonable. W’s plan is the Prbhakaran plan. W said the difference is that P used violence. Scotland or Kosovo are different cases compared to Tamil settlements in Sri Lanka. The population map in Sri Lanka is a scrambled egg. 13-A will not solve any poor-Tamil problem. It will give jobs to a set of Tamil politicians to act like the way Jayalalitha-Karunanidhi joker family conglomerates behave in Tamil Nad. Tamils living outside Northern and Eastern provinces have no problems as W’s own life story has shown. His grandchildren will be mixed Tamil-Sinhala products. Hopefully they will speak both Tamil and Sinhala.

If there are reasonable Tamil aspirations there is room for them under a different set up, different from the 13-A path. That can be done. But a 13-A guided aspirations path is not possible in Sri Lanka as it is unreasonable and clash with Sinhala survival. The geography of the Island does not support it. Sinhala survival is not a Sinhala aspiration. It is Sri Lanka’s destiny.  Simply because now there is Dollar power behind the separatist aspiration game it is a delusion to think that break Sri Lanka can be broken into two pieces. The Tamil autonomy idea is the beginning of the end of the peaceful life of a people which has 2500 years of recorded history. New geopolitics can change some things but not this heritage.

The second part of this essay will explain how a reasonable solution can be implemented to allow room for those reasonable aspirations of Tamils living in the Sinhala areas in the south as well as in North and East. As mentioned earlier Sri Lanka has a spatial inequity problem and a corrupt politician problem. Sri Lanka in 2013 has no Tamil ethnic problem. Instead a new Islam Taliban threat is brewing. An engaged Buddhist approach now discussed in the West must be utilized to tackle these meta-(Antho Jata-Bahi Jata) problems.