{"id":237782,"date":"2024-07-21T00:59:39","date_gmt":"2024-07-20T19:29:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=237782"},"modified":"2024-07-28T05:16:43","modified_gmt":"2024-07-27T23:46:43","slug":"tamil-leader-sampanthan-last-of-a-generation-leaves-without-succession","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/tamil-leader-sampanthan-last-of-a-generation-leaves-without-succession\/","title":{"rendered":"Tamil Leader Sampanthan: Last Of A Generation Leaves Without Succession"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Rajan Philips<\/a> –<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"

Rajan Philips<\/p><\/div>\n

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<\/a><\/span> 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.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"

R. Sampanthan<\/p><\/div>\n

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\u2019s expectations, but he has contributed to laying down the markers within which the process of resolution can effectively proceed.<\/p>\n

The Paradox of Eelam<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

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?<\/p>\n

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<\/sup><\/span> 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 \u2013 is the question. \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As well, unlike in the case of any of his predecessors, Sampanthan\u2019s 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<\/sup><\/span> 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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. \u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

A Long Line<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

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\u2019s modern polity. The beginning of that line can be traced to 19th<\/sup><\/span> century British colonial rule and the 1833 appointment of Arumugampillai Coomaraswamy as the Ceylon Tamil Member to the island\u2019s first Legislative Council established under the Colebrook-Cameron recommendations for constitutional government in the colony. That was one hundred years before Sampanthan was born.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s UNP government as a powerful cabinet minister and the government\u2019s designated debater in parliament.<\/p>\n

The Ponnambalam Years<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

But the good times did not last long for Dudley Senanayake and GG Ponnambalam. The new government\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

There are two aspects to Ponnambalam\u2019s 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 \u201cunrepentant opponent of Marxism,\u201d Ponnambalam pioneered the establishment of state industrial corporations to make up for the absence of private capital or interest in industrial investment.<\/p>\n

Politically, the sacking of Ponnambalam was a \u201cmonumental blunder\u201d 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 \u2018federalised cabinet\u2019 – as Wilson used to call it to describe the elder Senanayake\u2019s purpose of including all segments of the island\u2019s political society in the country\u2019s cabinet government.<\/p>\n

That was also the end of Ponnambalam\u2019s 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\u2019s 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\u2019s tenure as Minister, there have not been comparable levels of state investment for employment creation in the Northern and Eastern provinces.<\/p>\n

*Next Week: SJV Chelvanayakam and Federalism<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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