
By Rajan Philips –

Rajan Philips
R. Sampanthan MP, the accredited Tamil political leader for the last fifteen years, passed away on June 30, 2024. More than any other Tamil leader before him, Sampanthan strove to resolve the political differences between the Sinhalese and Tamils by drawing on the social and cultural commonalties between them. He went further and extended this approach to encompass the Muslims and the estate Tamils as well. No other Tamil leader has worked across party lines and earned the respect and goodwill of all political parties represented in parliament. He opposed governments while negotiating with them and he supported governments while being part of the opposition, even leader of the opposition. That led to cynicism in many circles, but the main criticism of Sampanthan in Tamil political circles is that nothing much, rather nothing at all, has been achieved during his leadership. That is in spite of his parliamentary affability and consociational, as opposed to confrontational, politics.

R. Sampanthan
The same criticism can be levelled against every Tamil leader before Sampanthan including those who launched and unsuccessfully, if not disastrously, pursued the project of Tamil Eelam. Mr. Sampanthan was very much part of this process even though the mantle of leadership fell on him only in 2009 after the end of the war that the Eelam project had precipitated. To his credit he managed the transition from the abstract politics of self-determination through separation that precipitated violence, to the reality of realizing self-determination through constitutional changes without breaking up a state. He may not have progressed sufficiently to everyone’s expectations, but he has contributed to laying down the markers within which the process of resolution can effectively proceed.
The Paradox of Eelam
A paradox of the Eelam project is that it both obfuscated specific Tamil political demands with its all-or-nothing separatist insistence and contributed at the same time to their realization, even if more indirectly than directly. An often asked question in the wake of the Ealam project is what do the Tamils want? Or what are the Tamil grievances? A well-documented answer to this question was anticipated by the then Federal Party (Ilankai Thamizh Arasu Kadchi, ITAK) in 1956, and it identified four primary concerns: citizenship and voting rights of the estate Tamils; ending of state colonization in northeast, mostly the eastern province; parity of status for the Sinhala and Tamil languages; and regional autonomy for the northern and eastern provinces within a federal set up. What is the current status in regard to each of these concerns?
The Eelam project certainly hastened the settlement of the citizenship question, and it is off the agenda now. State colonization has gone as far as it could, but the land question has taken a new manifestation after the military sequestering of the private properties of Tamils during the war, the politicization of archaeology after the war, and the interpretive hassles over land powers in the 13th Amendment. The language question and regional autonomy are now constitutionally addressed in 13A, but they remain at inconclusive states of implementation. A new concern in comparison to the above four, and the most urgent of all of them is the plight of the victims of war in the north and east. This is how things are in Tamil politics. Whither now – is the question.
As well, unlike in the case of any of his predecessors, Sampanthan’s passing away has created a leadership vacuum in Tamil politics. Not to mention the litigation over it. Historically, Tamil political leaders were superseded and succeeded quite peacefully until the late 20th century when they were eliminated by assassination. There have been multiple leadership contenders at times but there has never been a leadership vacuum. This is not to say that there are no capable individuals around, but only to say that structurally and even societally they are constrained from assuming a leadership role either individually or collectively. The vain search for a common presidential candidate is a symptom of that vacuum and not the solution for it.
The search for a common presidential candidate is also a symptom of bankruptcy in Tamil politics and a product of the bankruptcy in national politics on the Tamil question. The presidential election could be the first opportunity to bring these matters to surface and to see where the seriously tenable presidential candidates stand on these matters. The immediate challenge to Tamil politics is not to find a common Tamil candidate to look like Joe Biden (with beard) in a television debate but formulate serious questions to engage the presidential candidates with a chance of winning the election.
Complicating the challenge is the global distribution of Sri Lankan Tamils and complementing it should be the stakes of the Muslims and the estate Tamils in the presidential election. To close this trend, the Eelam project not only uprooted the Tamils from their traditional homeland and transplanted them in a diaspora, but also created the parallel universes of Muslim nationalism and estate Tamil nationalism with each seeking its own recognition.
We could pay homage to the late Samanthan by reflecting on these questions and potential answers to them. Rather than doing the shorter version of it I am opting for the longer route by placing the life and politics of Sampanthan in its historical context. That will also tie in the current questions to their many antecedents, and potentially trace both their trajectory and their transformation.
A Long Line
The death of Rajavarathoyam Sampanthan marks the end of a long line of Tamil political leaders who were well schooled in the Westminster system of parliamentary democracy and made significant contributions to the constitutional development of Sri Lanka’s modern polity. The beginning of that line can be traced to 19th century British colonial rule and the 1833 appointment of Arumugampillai Coomaraswamy as the Ceylon Tamil Member to the island’s first Legislative Council established under the Colebrook-Cameron recommendations for constitutional government in the colony. That was one hundred years before Sampanthan was born.
Writing in 1966 on Ceylon Tamil contributions to the constitutional and political development of the island, Tamil political science scholar and constitutional historian AJ Wilson saw three distinct periods in a span of one hundred years starting in 1861 with the Legislative Council appointment of Sir Muthu Coomaraswamy, son of Arumugampillai Coomaraswamy and father of Sir Ananda Coomaraswamy. In Wilson’s periodization, the first period that lasted about 70 years was a period of nascent political development with limited representation and sounding board participation by elite members of the Ceylonese society.
The elite Tamil leaders of that era were limited to a single Ceylon Tamil family including the multi-faceted Sir Muthu Coomaraswamy and his two redoubtable nephews, Sir Ponnambalam Ramanathan and Sir Ponnambalam Arunachalam. Their contributions were remarkable for their pan-island sweep rather than an exclusive Tamil focus. Yet disputes over ethnic representation in the legislative bodies began to emerge in the early decades of the twentieth century. These disputes were between the elites of the different communities, and they used their ethnicity to claim representational status and power. There was little interest in structures of government or in the development of local government institutions closer to the people.
The first period ended in 1931 with the introduction of the Donoughmore Constitution, universal franchise, and a representatively expanded State Council. This period lasted for over 20 years and the dominant Tamil leader of this period was GG Ponnambalam. A brilliant criminal lawyer after a science tripos at Cambridge, gifted orator in English and a folksy demagogue in Tamil, Ponnambalam advocated balanced representation before independence and switched to responsive co-operation after independence that Sri Lanka won without a sweat in February 1948. In September, Ponnambalam joined Prime Minister DS Senanayake’s UNP government as a powerful cabinet minister and the government’s designated debater in parliament.
The Ponnambalam Years
Ponnambalam held the portfolio of industries continuously for five years through the death of DS Senanayake in 1952, and the succession by Dudley Senanayake as Prime Minister. Ponnambalam played a key role in the succession maneuvers, supporting Dudley Senanayake against Sir John Kotelawala. What many people may not know now is that the elder Senanayake and Ponnambalam were on their morning horse ride at Galle Face Green when Mr. Senanayake fell off his horse suffering a fatal stroke. Within two months of becoming Prime Minister, Dudley Senanayake, seeking a renewed mandate from the people, dissolved parliament and called for a general election in May 1952. The UNP won a landslide victory in the south. GG Ponnambalam and his Tamil Congress scored an equally impressive win in the north enabling Ponnambalam to claim electoral vindication of his association with the UNP government.
But the good times did not last long for Dudley Senanayake and GG Ponnambalam. The new government’s austerity measures and resulting price increases provoked a massive public protest that culminated in the Great Hartal of August 1953. The government was shellshocked and Prime Minister Dudley Senanayake resigned abruptly, opening the door for Kotelawala to become Prime Minister. One of his first acts was to fire GG Ponnambalam in retribution for his support of Dudley Senanayake in the earlier succession dispute.
There are two aspects to Ponnambalam’s role as a cabinet minister and the politics of it. GG Ponnambalam was Minister of Industries, Industrial Research and Fisheries for five continuous years from September 1948 to October 1953. As a young Engineer in the 1970s, I have heard from senior Ministry of Industry officials that Ponnambalam was the best minister by a distance they have worked with in their careers in that portfolio. Although a self-described “unrepentant opponent of Marxism,” Ponnambalam pioneered the establishment of state industrial corporations to make up for the absence of private capital or interest in industrial investment.
Politically, the sacking of Ponnambalam was a “monumental blunder” as the Historian KM de Silva has described it. In one reckless stroke Kotelawala broke the budding Sinhala-Tamil political rapprochement that DS Senanayake had masterfully achieved by co-opting GG Ponnambalam to his ‘federalised cabinet’ – as Wilson used to call it to describe the elder Senanayake’s purpose of including all segments of the island’s political society in the country’s cabinet government.
That was also the end of Ponnambalam’s dominance in Tamil politics even as it was the end of accredited Sri Tamil representation in a Sri Lankan cabinet. It is fair to say that in the seventy years since Ponnambalam was a cabinet minister there has not been a single Tamil cabinet minister who could match Ponnambalam’s personal calibre or his political consequence. Equally, after the three industries that were established in Kankesanthurai (Cement), Paranthan (Chemical Factory) and Valaichenai (Pulp & Paper Mill) during Ponnambalam’s tenure as Minister, there have not been comparable levels of state investment for employment creation in the Northern and Eastern provinces.
*Next Week: SJV Chelvanayakam and Federalism
Fairmindedone / July 21, 2024
“The vain search for a common presidential candidate is a symptom of that vacuum and not the solution for it.”
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The urge within certain leadership for a common presidential candidate is an irrational thought designed to achieve nothing sensible. Never found the rationale for it from anyone who are involved with it.
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Ajith / July 21, 2024
“The urge within certain leadership for a common presidential candidate is an irrational thought designed to achieve nothing sensible. “
What is the rational thought against to common candidate which will achieve something sensible?
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SJ / July 21, 2024
Fmo
You are talking about leaders who have no clue about the situation.
Since the crash of the Satyagraha of 1961, the Tamil leaders only wored by trial and error, with error nearly all the time.
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SJ / July 21, 2024
…worked by trial and error…
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Fairmindedone / July 21, 2024
Regarding the parallel universe of other isms, the answer lies in at the time of independence. There were two linguistic national groups, Sinhalese and Tamils.
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Enshrining this linguistic duality of the nation in the constitution and in the conscience of the majoritarian community for action will resolve much of the nation’s problems that’s ailing the society at large.
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SJ / July 21, 2024
Fmo
It is not a linguistic group based issue efore us.
We have four distinct nationalities who have vastly different concerns and aspirations.
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Nathan / July 21, 2024
… The search for a common presidential candidate is also a symptom of bankruptcy in Tamil politics.
The absolute truth.
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SJ / July 22, 2024
The bankruptcy is far worse in the way they are setting about the matter than in the poorly thought out plan.
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Fairmindedone / July 21, 2024
A good piece of work. The article dealt with the personal assessment of the Eelam Project, then most dealt with the lack of natural flow of a leadership within the community after Mr. R. Sampanthan, followed by long past leaders, including GG Ponnambalam and then an abrupt end.
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Your attempt to examine the Eelam Project couldn’t go through objectively. To have a Tamil’s perspective, one cannot be a part-time Tamil, and it is imperative to immerse oneself intellectually fully into it to swim.
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On the 50th Anniversary of the Tamil Research Conference that ended in state sponsored tragedy, not to mention the standardisation, and the continuity of repeated riots and subjugation of the Tamil society enabled the creation of the Eelam Project as the defensive nationalism within sections of the Tamil society.
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Its operational methodology was that of an uncompromising militancy, hence its failure to achieve anything to the resolution of the enduring conflict. To the contrary, it resulted in debasement of an ancient culture at the hands of the majoritarian community. However, it unwittingly created a new normal within the Ceylon Tamil society in Ceylon/Sri Lanka and globally.
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A solution to the continuing conflicted situation is possible but will become probable only if there is a Sinhalese leader in the mold of Lee Kwan Yew and a Siththankery born Sinnathamby Rajaratnam mold native leader from the Tamil community.
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SJ / July 22, 2024
“state sponsored tragedy”
There was nothing “state sponsored”.
Truly state sponsored tragedies started some years later.
It was a terrible accident for which the police were mainly responsible, but the deaths were not due to police attack.
There was a political adventurist background to the event, which few like to look into.
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Ruchira / July 21, 2024
“balanced representation…” How nice…!
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SJ / July 22, 2024
“Equally, after the three industries that were established in Kankesanthurai (Cement), Paranthan (Chemical Factory) and Valaichenai (Pulp & Paper Mill) during Ponnambalam’s tenure as Minister, there have not been comparable levels of state investment for employment creation in the Northern and Eastern provinces. “
One ended up as a serious health hazard, later an environmental issue as well. Another killed off a waterway through its effluents, and failed as an industry by 1980. The one that should have thrived as a successful chemical plant stagnated for lack of interest and investment
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SJ / July 24, 2024
“Mr. Sampanthan was very much part of this process even though the mantle of leadership fell on him only in 2009 after the end of the war that the Eelam project had precipitated. “
Incorrect.
RS succeeded Amirthlingam as leader of both the FP and TULF following brutal killing of TULF leaders including Amirthalingam & Yogeswaran and severe injuring of Sivasitharamparam in Colombo in the 1990s.
He led the TULF into subordination to the LTTE in 2001, antagonising the Indian establishment. The TNA was formed after the name of the TULF was hijacked by Anandasangaree in 2002 or so.
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It was his rehabilitation by India that occurred in 2009, after he denounced the LTTE and even claimed that the FP/TULF/TNA never asked for a separate state.
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