Sri Lankan diaspora powers Tamil politics
Swapan Dasgupta
Last week, I sent a twitter message from Jaffna town which I was
visiting after 25 years. "There are more sandbags and police pickets in south
Delhi", I observed, "than there are in Jaffna town."
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Jaffna
library
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This terse message based entirely on my observation provoked
howls of protest. Various individuals responded denouncing me as "anti-Tamil"
and a stooge of Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, the latest whipping boy
of the morally indignant. It is entirely possible that a brief 24-hour visit to
a town where it was once common to find gun-totting members of various
para-military factions walking with a swagger, does not qualify me to pass
judgement on the totality of the situation in Sri Lanka's Northern Province.
Yet, it would be fair to say that the Jaffna I returned to was a
very different place from the war-torn but sleepy town that existed in the late
1980s. What I encountered was a mid-sized town with good roads and lots of new
buildings, bustling with activity. The Nallur temple looked as grand as ever and
the Jaffna library whose burning in the 1990s had created so much tension was a
picture of old-world serenity. The stadium named after Alfred Duraiappah, whose
murder was among the first of the LTTE's 'hits' seemed well maintained and there
is even an Indian Consulate in place in a carefully renovated bungalow. Yes,
there were the occasional signs of the bitter war that had ended barely four
years ago; but anyone who didn't know that this town was once in the frontline
of one of the most ugly civil wars of all times would never have guessed.
Sampanthan's theory
This is not to say that everything is hunky dory. At a gathering
of members of Jaffna civil society, there were voices raised against the
acquisition of "Tamil lands" by the Sri Lankan Army in its security zone
adjoining the airport. There were complaints about "Sinhala colonisation" of
areas in the southern regions of the Northern Province.
And in Colombo, MPs belonging to the Tamil National Alliance
presented us (a five-member team invited by the Bandaranaike Centre for
International Studies) with a well-written account of Tamil grievances. Its
leader, the 80-year-old Rajavardayam Sampanthan, who resembles a majestic Roman
senator both in appearance and eloquence spoke about the Sri Lankan government's
underlying desire to make the Tamil people "extinct" from the Northern and
Eastern Provinces.
Yet, at a lunch hosted by businessmen of Indian origin in
Colombo, I asked a Chettiar businessman how many Tamils there are in the capital
city. "About 30 per cent of the city" he replied. "And do you control 60 per
cent of the business?" I asked smilingly. "Only 60 per cent", he retorted with a
tinge of disappointment. "It's more like 70 per cent" he said with a hearty
laugh. Clearly, the noble Sampanthan's theory of Tamils being an endangered
breed in Sri Lanka doesn't have too many takers south of the Elephant Pass.
Military victory
The 'Tamil problem' that provides livelihood to the global human
rights industry and provokes indignation in some circles in India seems
essentially a Jaffna problem, and should be renamed as such. At the heart of the
problem is the term devolution which was recommended to the Sri Lankan
government as a possible solution to the problem by the Lessons Learnt and
Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) set up by President Rajapaksa in the aftermath
of his famous military victory over the murderous LTTE.
For India, which still takes a needlessly gratuitous interest in
the internal affairs of a sovereign neighbour, 'devolution' basically means
implementation of the 13th Amendment which formed a part of the embarrassment
called the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord signed by Rajiv Gandhi and JR Jayewardene in
1987. This amendment promised two things: the merger of the Northern and Eastern
Provinces, the so-called Tamil homelands, and the formation of Provincial
Councils, akin to India's State Governments.
But two problems have arisen. First, the merger of the Northern
and Eastern Provinces was set aside by the Sri Lankan Supreme Court on
procedural grounds. Sampanthan calls it a "dishonest judgement" but the
de-merger is now a reality. Secondly, it would seem that apart from the Northern
and Eastern Provinces, the Sinhala areas aren't terribly enthused by the idea of
Provincial Councils. Yet, elections to the Provincial Councils have been held in
all provinces barring the Northern Province. At one time it seemed that the
government was having second thoughts about holding Provincial Council elections
in the Northern Province but President Rajapaksa has categorically announced
that the democratic exercise will be undertaken in September. The TNA, which is
certain to win the election, now says that the powers of the Provincial Councils
are inadequate. It wants the Local Government to control land and the police.
The government may concede the first point but there is no way it will relax its
control over all aspects of security in the North.
Indian pressure
Who can blame Colombo for its reluctance? It's just four years
since the LTTE was decimated and it's just too early for the Central Government
to let down its guard. It is not that there is a desire to militarise the
province. The Sri Lankan Army is present in large numbers in the Northern
Province but it operates well below the radar. Logistically, the army wants to
insulate itself in the security zones, build strategically located cantonments
and operate as a rapid response force just in case insurgency resurfaces.
Ideally, the TNA should have no problem with this arrangement
because its members were also murderously targeted by the LTTE. Moreover, it has
declared, perhaps under Indian pressure, that it is committed to the territorial
integrity of Sri Lanka. It may still believe in emotional separatism but it has
formally abjured political separatism and abandoned the erstwhile TULF's call
for 'self-determination'.
At the same time, its actions suggest that it wants to keep
tensions and the ethnic conflict alive. It doesn't make sense until you realise
that Tamil separatist politics derives its main impetus not from the ordinary
people of Jaffna who are desperate for a breather but by the Tamil diaspora, the
ones who bankroll the seemingly respectable, 'moderate' politicians. With a view
of the island that is frozen in time, it is the diaspora that is proving to be
the biggest impediment to Sri Lanka getting over its troubled history.
Courtesy: Daily Pioneer
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