By Vishwamithra –

“One is never afraid of the unknown; one is afraid of the known coming to an end.” ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

Each election generates its own pace; its dynamic life is basically organic in its development and always rooted in ground. The candidates and their surrogates may be engaged in artificial bravado; their fundamental desire may be more towards impressing the candidate and thereby winning favor from him in case he or she emerges victorious at the end of the campaign than telling the truth to the voter. But elections basically haven’t changed their shades of suspicion. One after the other, these events which we call elections bear some of the most savage aspects of inner realities. Politicians in general and candidates in particular know full well the ups and downs and defeat and victory of politics. Those who endure and withstand the stormy environs of politics will eventually survive, win or lose.

Whoever the voter is, whether Sinhalese in the South or Tamils in the North, his or her first perception of the candidate is one of suspicion and followed by trust thereafter if the narrative of the candidate is believable, beautifully messaged and reasonably trustworthy. It is exclusively upon each candidate to challenge the fundamental message of the opponent in the context of its historical endurance and its relatable demonstration at present. More often than not, the voter would realize his mistaken trust, if so, much later after the election results have been declared and a government instituted.

The Northern voter, especially given his ethnic, cultural and religious composition and differentiation, has been deceived by all our past rulers. From the days and times of Chelvanayakam‘s Federal Party (FP) all the way up to the current Tamil National Alliance (TNA), Tamils have been wronged than the Jews in the sixteenth century Europe. Like Shylock in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, Tamils have been ‘more sinned against than sinning’. A majority of Southern Sinhalese might not concede it but it is a fact.

SWRD Bandaranaike let them down once. A quintessential liberal who stated in the early part of the twentieth century that a Federal System is the most appropriate solution for the Tamil question, had to abolish his own Bandaranaike-Chelvanayakam Pact (BC Pact) under the pressure of Maha Sanga and a determined band of Sinhalese nationalists. These Sinhalese nationalists were the fertile ground from which modern-day Sinhalese Buddhist Fundamentalism grew without any disturbance. No Sinhalese Buddhist politician would oppose or challenge Sinhalese Buddhist Fundamentalism. If they did, it would be at certain peril of his or her own political future.

After the abdication of the BC Pact, the Senanayake-Chelvanayakam ACT was initiated by Dudley Senanayake and Chelvanayakam after the 1965 General Election. It promised further devolution of power to the North and East. That agreement too met the same fate which buried the BC Pact. Both SWRD and Dudley did not possess the inner strength, the political will nor the majority in Parliament in their respective times in power to follow to the end of a national issue that had been not only irritating, but grossly underestimating Northern Tamils and their collective anger for nearly a century.

All these disagreements, unkept promises and continuing animosities between a majority of Sinhalese Buddhists and Hindu Tamils created purely for the exclusive ease and use of Sinhalese politicians in the south of Vavuniya, ended up in a twenty seven year war.

The war is over. The Tamil militants and their armies have been completely defeated and crushed. A fair sense of peace is existing in the North. By no means is this the resolution of the Tamil issue. Widowed mothers are demonstrating in the North, waiting for the return of their sons and daughter who were taken by the Sri Lankan military forces at the time of war. No resolution has been reached. Leave alone a resolution, not even a word in regard to the whereabouts of these missing boys and girls is coming out of the closed lips of the government. Southern politics has been so much corrupted and debased even a well meaning politician cannot open his or her mouth about the fate of the missing men and women. Consequently, no closure of the issue could be reached or finalized.

Lands that were taken over by the military during the operation of the war is yet to be settled. Sinhalese politicians simply cannot repeat what they utter in the North in the Sinhalese area. The issue has acquired such a distasteful flavor and it is consuming the entire Sinhalese Buddhist psyche.

This is the context within which the current Presidential Elections are conducted. Both Ranil Wickremesinghe and Sajith Premadasa belong to that foggy untrustworthy enclave of politicians who have repeatedly let down the past Tamil leaders and population. Their political ancestry is no badge that they could wear with any modicum of pride. Between the two, Ranil looks more liberal and ready to extend a more embracing arm to Tamils, yet who surround and support him to get to power are not to be trusted with a dead end of a cigar! The Tamil leadership should know this without condition.

Sajith hails from a farther who was well known for his ultra Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism. His opposition to the 13th Amendment and Provincial Government system is recorded history. His nationalism bordered on downright racism and his conduct in Parliament and as President had always been one of extremes and born out of his elongated egoistic mindset. Unfortunately President Premadasa’s son, Sajith seems to have inherited the same mindset. Overestimation of himself and declaring it aloud to the whole world to hear has been his modus operandi. Promising a full implementation of the 13th Amendment and even going beyond that and issuing a pledge of the 13A is no strange kind of public political conduct for Sajith Premadasa.

But Tamil leaders in the North must take whatever Sajith says to them not with a pinch, but a barrel of salt. Sajith too is being supported and cocooned by some incompetent and opportunistic politicians who have already lost the uncomplicated trust of the people. Both Ranil and Sajith carry the obscene baggage of that stinky and rotten past. They served in the same party- United National Party (UNP) and political hypocrisy that they display should not be disregarded as a matter of course.

Yet Aragalaya-22 may have changed the general psyche of Sinhalese people, at least for a minuscule degree. That minuscule degree of change is what may be necessary for a minuscule improvement of the current situation. If the Northern leadership cannot trust either Ranil or Sajith, the only alternative is Anura Kumara Dissanayake. Days of the JVP promulgating an anti-India and anti-Tamil political stance are over. AKD is now the leader of the National People’s Power (NPP). But the burden AKD carries now is enormous. Despite the possibility of the JVP’s past weighing him down, if one could  repose trust on major national matters in any leader from the current crop, it undoubtedly looks like  AKD.

What the Tamil leadership must bear in mind is AKD’s personal past and his most humble beginnings. Those beginnings are easily relatable to the average dweller in the Northern villager who spends all his time on parched lands, sweating day after day trying to make it easier for the lives his offspring. His efforts and the chores of a Southern farmer are fundamentally the same or sometimes even harder. But relatability and mutual empathy are two fundamentals one cannot discard as unnecessary for any politician.

Tamils in the North may discard both Ranil and Sajith for they obviously represent a past that has been challenged and rejected by the North. They may still decide not to vote for AKD. But voting for either Ranil or Sajith is no option.

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