BOMBS AND ELECTIONS
Mr. Tissa Devendra, I am afraid, will have to wait for the next part in the series of articles on Olcott Buddhists as I have to write on bombs and elections this week, and as no article on elections these days could be written without a "snippet" on Olcott Buddhists, he could be satisfied with some reference to them according to "my definition". It has to be reiterated that I do not give definitions but that is the expression Mr. Devendra has used in his reply when referring to my description.
A bomb was exploded in Kollupitiya just a few days before the elections for the provincial councils in six of the nine provinces into which the British demarcated the island in 1889. The provinces in which the elections were not held were the North Central, the Northern and the Eastern provinces. As the elections to the Provincial Council of the North Central Province were held recently the only two provinces left out were the Northern and the Eastern provinces. It is ironical that the provincial councils were established in order to satisfy the aspirations of Tamil racism that wanted a separate state. However, as Tamil racism is not satisfied with anything short of a separate state or an administration such as the ISGA that would in effect be a separates state, the LTTE does not want elections for the provincial councils in those two provinces. Though the LTTE has deprived the right of the Tamils, Musilims and the Sinhalas to vote in the Northern and the Eastern provinces, all these communities in the other parts of the country exercise their rights at the provincial council elections though not as enthusiastically as at the general elections. Compared with the general elections a low turnout at the provincial council elections has been the norm and this year was not an exception. However, some sections of the private media tried to give the impression that this year's low turnout has been an exception rather than the rule.
When the bomb was exploded in Kollupitiya various private media tried to give the impression that the so called peace was over and the country was heading for war under the "Sandhanaya" government. On the other hand the government media emphasised that it was only an isolated incident and that on number of occasions previously there had been attempts at the life of Mr. Devananda. The government wanted the people to believe that there was no threat for peace even after the bomb was exploded. What are we to infer from the results of the elections to the six provincial councils that were held on Saturday. I do not think that the people cared two hoots for the bomb when they went to the polling booths on that day. They ignored the claims by the government as well as by some in the private media. If anything was proved at the elections it was the ineffectiveness of the media, especially the electronic media, with the expert opinion thrown out by the so called "vidvath" (knowledgable) persons from either side. Sri Lanka is such a homogeneous society that the so called common man is as "vidvath" or "avidvath" as the expert on many matters and especially on politics. In any event we have had no "vidvath" people who created concepts and theories in Political Science or in any western science for that matter.
The people saw the bomb as an attempt on the life of Mr. Devananda, in spite of the timing of the explosion. It is very likely that the LTTE (meaning Prabhakaran) timed it with the elections for the provincial councils in order to tilt the balance in favour of the UNP. Prabhakaran is naturally worried about Karuna and the former wants the latter out of politics dead or alive. Similarly Prabhakaran would be happy with the termination of the political life of Devananda. Karuna and Devananda are the two politicians apart from the veteran Anandasangaree who have been able to stand up to Prabhakaran successfully. As we have mentioned in these columns Karuna has no other choice but to enter ballot politics, however not completely giving up bullet politics, and in this type of politics his natural ally would be none other than Devananda. Prabhakaran is gradually becoming a liability in the eyes of the western powers who have maintained him so far, and sooner than later he would have to be ditched by the very forces that have kept him going against the Sinhala nationalistic forces. Prabhakaran is now also wanted by the Indian government and he knows that he has to eliminate Devananda and Karuna type politics, in order to claim that he is the so-called sole representative of the Tamils.
Prabhakaran by exploding the bomb wanted to give a message to the Sinhala people as well. What he said was with a "Sandhanaya" government the people would not have peace and if they wanted to live in peace, then they should vote for the UNP. In effect he said with the UNP the people could live in peace and with the "Sandhanaya" they could chose to rest in peace. The PA component in the "Sandhanaya" was desperate to prove that they were also for peace but it is clear that the Sinhala people have in effect ignored not only Prabhakaran but Ranil and Chandrika as well. They have voted for the "Sandhanaya" not because they believed the sweet (or bitter) nothings uttered by Ms. Chandrika Kumaratunga on peace but simply because they do not want the peace as promised by Ranil and Prabhakaran. They know that the peace that the duo have promised would see to it that the country would "rest in peace". ISGA spells RIP for Sri Lanka and the Sinhala people could not be fooled or scared by the bombs of Prabhakaran. It is interesting to note that neither the UNP nor the JHU had condemned the bomb explosion in their usual way of organising press conferences at the drop of a hat. My friend Dr. G. L. Peiris who is eloquent on other matters has not awakened after the explosion of the bomb. Perhaps the explosion was not strong enough to wake him up!
As mentioned before the media is not capable of influencing the opinion of the people. They know that especially the private electronic media support the UNP, while the government electronic media have no choice but to give publicity to government propaganda. Whatever the "vidvath" people may say they are also biassed and everybody has a personal opinion. People have "drshties" (views and opinions) that they cannot get rid of until they attain Nibbana, and the so called balanced views do not exist in this world in spite of western propaganda to the contrary. The Sinhala Buddhists, not the Olcott Buddhists, know that there is no objective knowledge as such, and that even "samyak drshty" is a "drshty" however that may be helpful to attain Nibbana. The Olcott Buddhists of course believe in an objective truth in the tradition of western science as well as in the tradition of Theosophy that believe in an absolute. It has to be emphasised that Nibbana is not an absolute truth in the sense of a Brahman or an absolute consciousness (parama vinnana).
The Tamil and Muslim voters, whether they were "educated" (before 1931) or not have been voting alone ethnic lines for nearly a century. No electorate with a Muslim or Tamil majority has returned a Sinhala candidate since 1912, whereas the Sinhala people have voted for Muslim as well as Tamil candidates from the very first election that was held to elect a representative of the educated Sri Lankans (Ceylonese) to the legislative assembly. A "vidvath" would say at the first election the cast played an important role (among the Tamils the cast was not important at that election as there were only a negligible non Vellalas among the educated Tamils.) but that is not something that could be generalised and invoked to explain the election of Muslims and Tamils by the Sinhalas at the subsequent elections.
However, since about 1955, the SLFP has been identified as the party of the Sinhalathva by the Sinhala people, especially by those who refuse to identify or identify very reluctantly with western (non Roman Catholic) Christian modernity that came into existence in the fifteenth century and has been evolving since then to date, the so-called postmodernity being only the recent phase where modernity is evolving with an unprecedented acceleration, and has been imposed on us as a result of western Christian colonialism. These people live mainly away from the suburbs of Colombo and of a few towns, and are not seen by the media and their "vidvath" panels. However, it does not imply that all the people living away from the suburbs of Colombo and of the towns referred to above belong to this category, and some offspring of them after receiving a western education in government, Buddhist or Christian (including Catholic) in English or Sinhala medium could become adherents of western modernity. It does not also imply that all the people living in the suburbs became followers of western modernity. The Olcott Buddhists came into existence as followers of Christian modernity that superficially separated religion from everything else, and everything else from each other. Western modernity created Buddhism as a religion, and the Olcott Buddhists could practise Buddhism while at the same time practising their professions that belonged to a non Sinhala culture. Though the term Sinhala Buddhist is not correct it is used here for want of a better accepted word. Upasaka is a better word and the term Sinhala Buddhist is used in that sense. It has to be emphasised that neither did Arhath Mahinda convert the king Devanampiya Tissa to Buddhism nor did the king become a Buddhist. It was not possible for them to do so as there was no Buddhism at that time. Buddhism as a religion came into existence only after western Christian modernity was imposed on us (similarly for Hinduism). Though it may sound paradoxical it was the Christians who brought Buddhism to this country, and not Arhath Mahinda.
Coming back to elections what is clear is that the majority of the Sinhalas and especially the Sinhala Buddhists have voted for the "Sandhanaya". This is a trend that could be observed even at the 2001 elections, when the majority of the Sinhala Buddhists voted for the SLFP, MEP and the JVP which made us to call for an alliance of the "children of fifty six". The term "children of fifty six" is being used by some to denote only the JVPers. However it is not so and by that term we identify those who were in their formative years in fifty six and who were born after that, and who have been influenced by the events of fifty six. It is in the suburbs of Colombo and Kandy (When all the others in the world refer to their cities and towns by their pre colonial names we continue to call them in English by the names given by the Europeans.) that most of the Olcott Buddhists are found and no wonder that the UNP performs better in these electorates or polling divisions as they are called now. The JHU is incidentally a phenomenon related mainly to Olcott Buddhists who are disgruntled with the UNP.
Two "vidvath" panels, one each over the Rupavahini and the ITN tried to ignore this fact which is fairly obvious. The "Sandhanaya" whether its leaders including Ms. Chandrika Kumaratunga would like to believe or not poll votes from the Sinhala people and not from the others. The "vidvaths" did not mention this fact and went on to tell the general public who are very often as "vidvath" as the members of the panels that in the rural areas the "Sandhanaya" had won. They did not explain why it was so, and having being trained in the Marxist schools they wanted to interpret the "Sandhanaya" win in terms of economic factors. It is not economics, however stupid it may appear to western trained imitative Political Scientists and Sociologists, that determine the politics in Sri Lanka. The poststructuralists may tell us that in Sri Lanka the so called national problem is over determined when in essence it means a bankruptcy of the western Political Science theory. Has anybody heard of some factor being over determined in western Physics? If a factor that is outside a theory is over determined then it is time for the theory to be discarded.
In the Central Province the UNP vote is inflated by the Thondaman factor as the Tamils of recent origin vote for CWC irrespective of whether the party is with the UNP or the SLFP. In fact one 'vidvath" mentioned that since the CWC is expected to join the "Sandhanaya" in the near future, it could be considered as if the latter has won in all the districts! In the Colombo district the Tamils in general vote for the UNP and in the districts where the SLMM contests most of the Muslims vote for that party. If the SLMM does not contest as a separate party the Muslim vote in general goes to the UNP. Only those Muslims who vote for the SLMM (Ashraaf) and few other Muslims would cast their votes in favour of the "Sandhanaya".
All these factors indicate that despite bombs and the so-called "threat" for peace many Sinhala people, especially the Sinhala Buddhists have voted for the "Sandhanaya" in spite of the "peace loving" leaders of that party. These Sinhala people do not want peace at any cost but first and foremost would like to live in a unitary state. It is the opinion of the vast majority of the Sinhala people as indicated not only by the votes that the "Sandhanaya" has polled but also by the dismal performance of the UNP even after the Tamil and Muslim vote has increased the number of votes cast in favour of that party. Unfortunately the Sinhala opinion is neglected not because it is not reflected in democratically held elections but merely due to the fact the Sinhalas are not armed and do not explode bombs, and since no foreign state is behind them. To say the least it is not a democratic practise to ignore the Sinhala opinion expressed recurrently through elections.
Professor Nalin de Silva
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