{"id":245386,"date":"2026-01-15T06:09:39","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T00:39:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=245386"},"modified":"2026-01-27T06:59:37","modified_gmt":"2026-01-27T01:29:37","slug":"the-tamil-question-dilith-got-it-all-wrong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/the-tamil-question-dilith-got-it-all-wrong\/","title":{"rendered":"The Tamil Question: Dilith Got It All Wrong"},"content":{"rendered":"

By C. V. Wigneswaran<\/a> –<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"

Justice C.V. Wigneswaran MP<\/p><\/div>\n

Someone asked me a question; Mr. Dilith Jayaweera<\/a><\/span> M.P. has said Provincial Councils are not suitable to Sri Lanka. What is your observation in this regard?<\/p>\n

I said; I have great respect for Mr. Dilith Jayaweera, an Attorney at Law, and who has been one of our foremost businessmen. He entered politics very recently. He is no doubt a Nationalist. He feels for his Nation just as much as we feel for ours. What he has failed to appreciate is that his is Sinhala Nationalism just as ours is Tamil Nationalism<\/a><\/span>. He confuses his Sinhala Nationalism to encompass the whole Island. He has a right to feel for his Sinhala Nation. But the Sinhala Nation does not encompass the whole Island.<\/p>\n

The North and East of Sri Lanka has been Tamil speaking from even before Buddhism reached this Island. The Tamil language has been spoken in this Island long before the Sinhala language evolved in the 6th<\/sup><\/span> and 7th<\/sup><\/span> centuries AD. Professor Indrapala has said the Tamil speaking people have been in this Island for more than 3000 years. The Northern and the Eastern Provinces have been areas of historical habitation of Sri Lankan Tamil speaking peoples in terms of the 1987 Indo-Sri Lankan Accord.<\/p>\n

Key Terms of the 1987 Indo-Sri Lankan Accord included <\/b>inter alia<\/i><\/b><\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

* Devolution of Power<\/b>: Sri Lanka agreed to implement devolution of power to Provinces, particularly the merged North-Eastern Province, through the\u00a013th Amendment<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u00a0to its constitution.<\/span><\/p>\n

* Provincial Councils<\/b>: The Accord established Provincial Councils with internal self-governance powers being granted to the North-Eastern Province.<\/span><\/p>\n

* Language<\/b>: Tamil was recognized as an official language alongside Sinhala.<\/span><\/p>\n

* North-East Merger<\/b>: The Northern and Eastern Provinces, historically Tamil-speaking areas, were to be merged temporarily until a referendum could decide their permanent status.<\/span><\/p>\n

Thus the purpose of the Provincial Council system was not for the benefit of those in the Sinhala Nation but to help the people in the Tamil Nation to co-exist peacefully with those in the Sinhala Nation<\/b> in this Country<\/b>.<\/p>\n

But the Tigers had come to the conclusion consequent to the passing of the Sinhala Only Act and the staging of the 1958 riots and thereafter many a pogrom against the Tamils culminating in the 1983 Racial Riots that the two communities which were held together in camaraderie by the British can no longer\u00a0 <\/span>live together but must part ways.<\/p>\n

A very significant policy pertaining to University Education designed by the Sinhalese intelligentsia including their politicians became the straw that broke the Camel\u2019s back in persuading the Tigers to take up arms to set up a Thamizh Eelam. Eelam is the old word for Sri Lanka which was used by the Sinhalese too as Hela. \u00a0 <\/span>Eelam and Hela both come from the Tamil word Ealu (seven) which referred to the division of the lost continent of Kumari Kandam into seven regions where Sri Lanka was situated in the seventh region.<\/p>\n

In 1971 the Sinhalese-led government introduced a system of standardisation of marks for admissions to the universities which was directed against\u00a0Tamil-medium students.\u00a0Professor K. M. de Silva<\/a><\/span>\u00a0described it as follows:<\/p>\n

“The qualifying mark for admission to the medical faculties was 250 (out of 400) for Tamil students, whereas it was only 229 for the Sinhalese. Worse still, this same pattern of a lower qualifying mark applied even when Sinhalese and Tamil students sat for the examination in English. In short, students sitting for examinations in the same language, but belonging to two ethnic groups, had different qualifying marks.”<\/i><\/p>\n

Therefore, the government policy of standardization was in essence a discriminatory regulation to curtail the number of Tamil students selected for certain faculties in the universities.<\/p>\n

The benefits enjoyed by Sinhalese medium students including Muslims who opted to appear for the Examinations in the Sinhala medium, as a result of this, meant a significant fall in the number of Tamil medium students within the Sri Lankan university student populace.<\/p>\n

Mr.Dilith Jayaweera when he says Provincial Councils are not suitable for Sri Lanka, he seems to have not studied the causes which made such an innovation necessary for Sri Lanka. In fact the Provincial Councils were not designed for the whole of Sri Lanka. It was a constitutional arrangement designed to give self government to the North and East under the Unitary Constitution which Constitution had been handed over to Ceylon by the British consequent to a conspiracy hatched by D.S.Senanayake and Sir Oliver Goonetilleke which Lord Soulbury regretted later when he found that he and the other Commissioners of the Soulbury Commission had been misled.\u00a0 <\/span>(Vide Foreward\u00a0 <\/span>by Lord Soulbury written for B.H. Farmer\u2019s publication Ceylon- A divided Nation<\/em> in 1963). In a letter to C. Suntharalingam, Lord Soulbury had written thus – \u201cThe Sinhalese behaviour to the Tamils has been excessively short-sighted and foolish. When as Chairman of the Commission on the reform of the Constitution of Ceylon in 1945 I studied the relations of the two communities. I was much impressed by the important contribution that the Tamils had made and were making to the economy of Ceylon \u2013 and I was aware that the Ceylon Tamils were better educated and more industrious than the Sinhalese \u2013 in many ways they were playing the part the Scots had played and still play in the economy of England\u201d<\/i>.<\/i> <\/span><\/p>\n

The Upcountry Sinhalese had preferred a federal constitution for Ceylon before the Donoughmore Commissioners.<\/p>\n

Though the Provincial Councils under the Unitary Constitution were to be restricted to the North and East, President JR Jayewardene to impress the diehard Sinhalese who supported him that he was not giving any constitutional benefits to the Tamils, extended the Provincial Councils Law to include the Sinhalese majority areas too. May be the Sinhala majority areas do not need Provincial Councils. But they were never innovated nor designed for the benefit of the Sinhalese!<\/p>\n

So Mr.Dilith Jayaweera must be presumed to have overlooked the history of this Island both ancient and recent when he said that the Provincial Councils are not necessary nor suitable for this Island.<\/p>\n

Of course the Provincial Councils\u2019 system as\u00a0 <\/span>presently designed under\u00a0 <\/span>the Unitary Constitution of Sri Lanka does not give the Tamil speaking People of the North and East the right they are entitled to under Article 1 of the UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) which reads thus – \u00a0<\/span>Article 1 of ICCPR – <\/b>1.\u00a0 <\/span>All peoples have the right of self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.<\/i><\/p>\n

2. All peoples may, for their own ends, freely dispose of their natural wealth and resources without prejudice to any obligations arising out of international economic co-operation, based upon the principle of mutual benefit, and international law. In no case may a people be deprived of its own means of subsistence.<\/i><\/p>\n

3. The States Parties to the present Covenant<\/i>,<\/b>(that included Sri Lanka too) including those having responsibility for the administration of Non-Self-Governing and Trust Territories, shall promote the realization of the right of self-determination, and shall respect that right, in conformity with the provisions of the Charter of the United Nations.<\/i><\/i><\/p>\n

The Tamil speaking persons in the North and East of Sri Lanka are a People in terms of Article 1(1) of the ICCPR. They are entitled for self government.<\/p>\n

The Human Rights Committee, which monitors the implementation of the ICCPR, has clarified that the right to self-determination belongs to the group as a whole and not to individual persons. Key characteristics and implications related to “peoples” in Article 1 include:<\/p>\n