By Vishwamithra –

“Life is like a game of cards. The hand you are dealt is determinism; the way you play is free will” ~Jawaharlal Nehru

Millions of stars are lightening up the skies; their solitary endeavor to brighten a moonless night is not often appreciated by many other than by those who indulge in uncommon love: exchanging whispering of infinite love, yet going thus far and no further; physical love-making is a no-no. They had been exercising enormous discipline and their murmuring of romantic dialogues were essentially within the parameters that were not usually observed by a man and his paramour. Manohari (Mano), a village damsel whose blooming love story met an unfortunate abortive end was due to no cause of hers. Her lover, Ravichandran (Ravi), was recruited by the then leading militant group, Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE).

At the time, Ravi was studying at the G.C.E. Advanced Level at one of the leading Hindu Colleges in Jaffna. His village was located within five kilometers of the town center. His romanticist attachment to the cause of Elam surpassed the limits of allegiance to the customary insistence of his parents. Convention and compliance to outdated loyalties took a secondary priority. The expanse of Ravi’s universe which knew no artificial boundaries had reached beyond the mundane limits of an ordinary student whose solitary ideal was University entrance. A world of fantasy enveloped the whole being of Ravi and his belief and trust in the cause he fought for and the leader whose charisma was far beyond ordinary appeared so attainable, so long as his and his comrades’ fidelity to the ‘State of Elam’ could withstand the guns and ammunition of the government’s military.

But it was not to be. However much strong and unbending the cause of the Tamil youth in the North had been, they had no credible chance against well equipped and well trained military forces of  Sri Lanka. Although the conflict lasted for almost three decades, the diminishing returns theory took its own course and brought about the demise of the movement and its iconic leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran.

This evening with the advent of dusk, Mano is spending another of her sessions of twilight solitude under the canopy of starry skies. The war has ended. The last of the guns went silent fifteen years ago. Mano has lost not only her lover; she has lost all purpose of living. She is just existing without any ideal in life. But she has been awakened to a new sociopolitical paradigm. Presidential Elections are looming ahead. Sinhalese leaders are visiting her environs again, this time for votes. All this time they couldn’t care whether Tamils existed or not, they would not pay attention to the nagging issues of Tamil youth in the North. They did not offer any solutions or resolutions to the issues that centered on the fundamental question of Northern Tamils: language and equality.

Mano did not bother to indulge in meaningless meandering on the borders of historical politics. Such matters did not render any validity to her losses. The most intriguing irony of all this is that it is not the problem of Mano and Mano’s only. Nearly every Jaffna damsel suffered the same fate, loss of all hope and all meaning to existence. The gallants are six feet underground.

Thirteenth (13^th) Amendment and Thirteen A (13 A) do not represent any malleable change. The Jaffna leaders themselves have succumbed to a dull and boring existence in traditional and status quo-like fashion. Fresh thinking and new paradigms have not opened. President Wickremesinghe does not seem to offer or even to pretend to offer anything of tangible value. The lands that were taken away by the armed forces have not been returned; police and land powers have not been devolved to the provincial level; no industry has been established in the North; unemployment amongst Tamil youth is rising exponentially and coupled with the Diaspora money being funneled into the North, any lasting resolution of the burning issues that irk them day in and day out, do seem to recede to the unknown. It indeed is not only the North and the East we as a country have walked into ever since the economic crash in 2022 April/May, it’s also a distressing sociopolitical quagmire.

However, the thirty year old war has taught the Northerners as to how to live in dire conditions; they were without electricity almost everyday, twenty four hours. They did not have cooking gas, petrol, diesel or kerosene. Mano used her ramshackle bicycle when the need arose to fetch household items from a nearby grocery shop. Even the shop shelves were empty most of the time. Men were fighting on the war-front while their wives, sisters and mothers were fighting a much harder fight at home, just to keep the living ones breathing. The trenches were much deeper; the household  chores, as always, were executed by the women folk and when the kitty ran dry, they invariably had to run to the pawn broker or the loan sharks that were propping up like mushrooms that were not being cultivated now, for the artillery fire would not spare when they shower their rains of flame.

It’s, in a very sensible sense, quite an obvious choice before Mano who has not exercised her universal franchise for a long time, in fact for her entire life she has spent on earth. The security that was falsely being provided behind the Palmyra curtain has withered away. In fact, there is no necessity for such security measures now; yet the presence of the military forces, their unkindly uniforms, their ferocious-looking jeeps and the threatening speed at which they speed across a barren landscape is most ironical.

It is in these chaotic circumstances the leading political parties of the South of Sri Lanka are attempting to recruit workers and turn them into their own voters; they are shameless and mindless leaders. Every Sinhalese leader, except perhaps Anura Kumara Dissanayake, cannot realistically relate to the plight of the Jaffna voter. Other mainstream parties of the South, UNP, SJB, SLFP and SLPP are playing the same old cards. They want to retain the status quo and they do not realize that it is fundamentally paradoxical that they try to convert the Northern Tamil voter back into a status quo-voter. That is a losing proposition. Tamils of the North and East rejected the status quo thirty five years ago. They rejected their own mainstream leadership and went to bed with Prabhakaran and they paid a very steep price, yet they do not seem to have minded it.

Mano does not suffer from a memory loss. She remembers it vividly that her own lover had to lay his life down at the altar of a false Elam. She has come out of the coma but the scars and wounds yet remain without even a sign of disappearing. It’s very difficult for her to come to terms with such unforgiving dynamics. She needs to examine more deeply into the possibility of realizing her dreams under an NPP government and AKD Presidency. She needs more authentic information; her limited knowledge of English and total lack of Sinhalese language knowledge has made it almost impossible to make up her mind. She wished that AKD could speak to her in Tamil, then only will she know that AKD and the NPP mean well when they say that all are equal in the country irrespective of caste, creed, religion and ethnicity. Would our mainstream Sinhalese leaders pay some attention  to Mano’s craving?

It is not a dream any more for Mano. It’s not a dream for all Northern and Eastern Tamils; it’s not a dream for all men and women in the country. It could be a hard and eventful fight; losers would be in the footnote of history books while the winners would have a rare opportunity to present themselves as plausible and believable alternative to bankruptcy and corruption.                                            

The Northern Province has five districts: Jaffna, Mullaitivu, Kilinochchi, Mannar and Vavuniya. As at the last census, 2023, these five districts had a total voting block of 443,153 registered voters. Ninety three percentage (93%) of the voters are of Tamil origin. (Source: Election Commission of Sri Lanka).In the Eastern Province, Trincomalee and Batticaloa have 307,000 and 438,000 voters most of whom are Tamils with about 20% to 30% being Muslims.

In the midst of this Tamil populations in the North and the East are many Manos and Ravis. They all had dreams and are still entertaining the same fantasies. But they are looking for authenticity, they are searching for honesty and absence of corruption; they will not come to terms with compromises. They will not succumb to pressures for they had been under unbearable pressure during the last three decades. No Sinhalese leader need to tell them how to tolerate hardships. Hardship has been their middle names.

*The writer can be contacted at vishwamithra1984@gmail.com