By Vishwamithra –

“Only the guy who isn’t rowing has time to rock the boat.” ~ Jean-Paul Sartre

Prior to Ceylon gaining Independence, Ceylon Tamils, firstly led by the Ramanathan brothers and later by G G Ponnambalam, would never have dreamed of an Executive Presidency as the head of the government machinery. They were all well-cushioned in the comfort of the British Westminster system of governance in which they would have stood a chance to be part of the decisive bloc in the formation of a coalition government in the event the winning Party did not secure an absolute majority at the elections. That political calculus actually did  not play to their liking.

The Sinhalese-led United National Party (UNP) and afterwards in the 1956 General Elections, the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), the two main political entities, continued to indulge in ‘divide and rule’ principle. Both the UNP and the SLFP drew and accommodated leading Tamil politicians from the North. So did D S Senanayake accommodate C Sunderalingam, Member of Parliament, Vavuniya and C Sittampalam who stood as an independent candidate in Mannar at the 1947 Parliamentary Elections. Sittampalam won the election and entered Parliament. He was persuaded to join the United National Party-led government and on 26 September 1947 was sworn in as Minister of Posts and Telecommunication.

After becoming interested in politics, Suntharalingam retired in 1940 and entered politics. He tried unsuccessfully to enter the State Council during by-elections in 1943 and 1944. He stood as an independent candidate in Vavuniya at the 1947 Parliamentary Elections. He won the election and entered Parliament. He was persuaded to join the United National Party-led government and on 26 September 1947 was sworn in as Minister of Trade and Commerce. DS Senanayake did not negotiate with the leading Tamil Party at the time.

‘In the 19th and 20th centuries the British recruited large numbers of South Indians, primarily Indian Tamils, to work in tea, coffee, rubber and coconut plantations in Ceylon. Ceylon’s majority Sinhalese viewed Indian Tamils with deep suspicion, fearing that they would dominate the island’s central highlands and ally themselves with the indigenous Ceylon Tamils, increasing the latter’s political strength. Following independence from Britain in February 1948, Ceylon’s Sinhalese-dominated government introduced the Ceylon Citizenship Bill which had the effect of denying citizenship and making stateless the country’s Indian Tamils, who by now accounted for about eleven per cent (11%) of the population. The bill provided for citizenship by descent or registration but both required documentary proof, something that was difficult for most Indian Tamils, many of whom were illiterate. The ALL Ceylon Tamil Congress (ACTC) opposed the bill which was passed by Parliament at its second reading on 20 August 1948. Shortly afterwards Ponnambalam decided to join the United National Party (UNP)-led government which caused a split in the ACTC. Eventually the ACTC dissidents, led by Chelvanayakam, EMV Naganathan and C Vanniasingam formed the Illankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi (ITAK, Federal Party) on 18 December 1949.

Illankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi

ITAK had four main aims: creation of a federal union in Ceylon with two states—a Tamil state in the Northern and Eastern provinces and a Sinhalese state in the remaining seven provinces; cessation of state-sponsored colonization in the two Tamil provinces; unity amongst the Tamil speaking peoples of Ceylon—Ceylon Tamils, Indian Tamils and Muslims; and equal status for Sinhala and Tamil languages. Chelvanayakam lost his seat in the 1952 parliamentary elections but regained it in the 1956 parliamentary elections. As Ceylon’s two main parties, the UNP and Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), introduced policies which further discriminated against the country’s minorities, such as the Sinhala Only Act which made Sinhala the sole official language of Ceylon, ITAK’s Tamil nationalism became more popular than the ACTC’s conservatism. In the 1956  parliamentary election the ITAK overtook the ACTC as the most popular party amongst Ceylon Tamils. On 5 June 1956 a group of Tamil activists and parliamentarians, led by Chelvanayagam, staged a Satyagraha (a form of non-violent resistance) against the Sinhala Only Act on Galle Face Green opposite the Parliament building. The satyagrahis were attacked by a Sinhalese mob as the police looked on, and ITAK MPs EMV Naganathan and VN Navaratnam were thrown in Beira Lake.'(Source: Wikipedia)

Such were the unquiet beginnings of the Tamil resistance to the Sinhalese-dominated government in Ceylon. The evolution of Tamil politics, especially in the Northern peninsula, has been somewhat erratic and inscrutable. When Sir Ponnambalam Ramanathan spoke against Ceylon being granted universal franchise in the early nineteen thirties, it was widely whispered that the Tamil elite in Colombo did not desire that their own brethren sharing and exercising the same right. It was not so. Ramanathan very clearly saw the writing on the wall, so to speak. In the event of a General Election being held for the whole country, it was beyond anyone’s doubt that a Sinhalese-dominated party would control the House of Parliament. Tamils would be condemned to be a minority in Parliament forever. A majoritarian parliament would guarantee a permanent dominance of Sinhalese over Tamils. As an ardent practitioner of politics, as a fighter for his beloved people, Ramanathan could not have seen it clearer. His alleged elitism may have had a modicum of irony in his original decision, yet the long-term effect of universal franchise had on the country’s men and women without any pre-qualification on educational levels of the franchisee did have a great impact on the plane to which the common man could fall purely due to a serous lack of good formal education.

Ceylonese Tamils have come a long way from the early twentieth century. Especially Northern Tamils belong in a different class in that the education facilities that were available in Jaffna and its immediate suburbs ensured that every Tamil who was keen on pursuing education had all what he could ask for. Their schools were of a superior category. Institutions such as St. John’s Jaffna, St. Patrick’s College, Jaffna Central, Jaffna Hindu College and Vembadi Girls’ High School are comparable or even superior to Colombo’s elite schools like Royal, St. Thomas’, Ananda and Nalanda. These Jaffna schools continue to produce some of our best secondary school students in the country.

But that evolution of the Tamil mindset that was brewing in the first half of the nineteen hundreds changed with passing time; the change that occurred, in fact, impacted on not only the Tamil psyche, it had a compelling effect on the Sinhalese mindset, accelerating the process of Sinhalese Buddhist Fundamentalism. The situation worsened by the continuing negligence of the country’s Sinhalese political leaders. The polarization widened and mistrust between the two communities reached a peak during the late nineteen seventies and eighties. A thirty year war ensued and the rest, as they say, is history; a lamentable one at that.

The political paradigm was made further confusing by the introduction of the 1978 Constitution. When the country’s executive power was vested in an all-powerful Executive President, Tamil had to think again. All of a sudden, it dawned on the Tamil leadership that it was much easier and more comfortable and unexacting to negotiate with a single person than with a whole parliament and a Cabinet of Ministers. Albeit the fact that it was almost unthinkable for them to dream about a Tamil occupying the seat of Executive President, it would have been excruciatingly painful to negotiate with a bunch of Sinhalese Buddhists who hold not only their religious allegiance to Buddhism but also their very parliamentary seats to a Sinhalese majority of voters.

Tamils in the North may have seen the dark side of the Executive Presidency system as was manifested during the successive terms of almost all our past Presidents and the current one; they see their own plight through a different sociopolitical prism. While all traditional mainstream political parties have opted to negotiate with Tamils every now and then, they also look over their shoulders as to the Sinhalese Buddhist voter whose suspicions allegedly are shadowing them. Tamil leadership is caught in between a rock and hard place. Prabhakaran and his Tigers have, in addition to taking the  Northern Tamil people to the brink of extinction as a separate community, also have thrown light on the validity and legitimacy of the current mainstream Tamil leadership.

One wonders, therefore in the current context, what Sinhalese leaders or leader Tamil National Alliance (TNA) would trust. Before we venture into such conjecture as to who would be on the positive side of the TNA, let us see who would not. Both the Pohottuwa group and Sajith Premadasa-led Samagi Jana Balavegaya (SJB) would not be trusted by the TNA leadership. Sajith’s weak leadership qualities and sheer political hypocrisy on the part of the Pohottuwa group would render them impotent in an event of fulfilling a pledge. Would the TNA trust AKD and his National People’s Power? They would do so in case they are convinced beyond any reasonable doubt that NPP or AKD would win the Parliamentary and Presidential elections respectively. The singular factor that they would have to consider is the probability of an NPP victory.

The TNA would certainly trust Ranil more than any other political leader; but Ranil’s electoral fate is gravely suspicious. There is no way that Ranil would secure a sufficient number of votes from amongst Sinhalese. But would he stand a chance if Northern Tamils cast their votes en bloc for Ranil Wickremesinghe and the party he would choose to back? Therein lies the answer to the Tamil dilemma.

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