COMING OF AGE OF PANASHAYE DARUWO
The Local Government Elections have shown to the world that the vast majority of the Sinhala people want a unitary state, meaning of course a country with a unitary constitution, and that more than sixty per cent of the people have approved the Mahinda Chinthanaya for a second time. However, it has to be remembered that the local government elections were held only four months after the Presidential Elections, and people generally do not vote against a government within that time. The fact that the Sandhanaya and JVP together with the JHU as a combination has increased their vote within a space of four months is noteworthy, though as a percentage none of the three parties individually polled more than what Mahinda Rajapakse polled last year.
This meant that the percentage of the votes polled by the UNP came down in four months. It appears that the UNP is in a leadership crisis worse than even its enemy's estimate. Though Mr. Ranil Wickremesinghe has lost his fourteenth election in a row there does not seem to be a person capable of replacing him. Strong man S. B. Dissanayake left the country in the middle of the election campaign, perhaps knowing the results in advance. It may be that he wanted to dissociate himself from the results, taking no responsibility for the poor performance by the party. It is true that there was very little that he could do within a month or so to "resurrect" the party, but it is also true that the party is still not prepared to accept him as the leader. Ranil Wickremesinghe has not lost everything, and the fact that he was able to relieve the strong man from the south and one time buddy of S. B. Dissanayake, of his work as an organiser, soon after the local government elections, indicates that at least for the time being Wickremesinghe is in the saddle with no challenge. Dissanayake will have to work very hard if he wants to be the next leader of the UNP. Karu Jayasuriya does not seem to be in the race for the leadership, and one wonders whether the SLFP (and the Sandhanaya) would suit him more than the UNP.
In the meantime there is nobody to challenge Rajapakse, though he is yet to be appointed leader of the SLFP. Rajapakse has been made the acting chairman of the party while the chairperson is living in far away countries. It is time that Rajapakse becomes the leader of the SLFP that has become the ruling party of Sri Lanka with the UNP coming a distant second with a reduced vote bank. Fifty years after fifty six (the elections were held from 5th to 10th in April 1956), the UNP has become the alternate party, and the Panashaye Daruwo (Children of Fifty Six), whether they are in the SLFP, JVP, MEP or JHU, have been entrusted with ruling the country. Incidentally one author had tried to portrait the LTTE as the children of fifty six, implying that Tamil racism was created only after 1956. Authors of this kind, who are against the LTTE but not against Tamil racism, forget that Tamil racism was created when the Dutch imported people from South India for the cultivation of tobacco. These farmers, called vellalas, became the dominant component of the population, and established their hegemony first with the help of the Dutch, and then with the help of the British. The British nurtured Tamil racism, long before Ranil Wickremesinghe and Chandrika Kumaratunga made statements on injustice caused to Tamils by the Sinhalas. If not for the sponsorship of the British and other countries of the west, Tamil racism would not carried out the propaganda against the Sinhala people. We have explained all this in these columns a long time ago, but unfortunately Anglophiles and the other worshippers of the west do not seem to understand such points.
The LTTE is not a creation of fifty six, but a descendant of TULF, Ilankai Thamil Arasu Kadchi, Tamil Congress, and Thamil Mahajana Sabhei of Ponnambalam Arunachalam. It is for this reason that I have identified Prabhakaran as a grand nephew of the Ponnambalam brothers in the book Prabhakaran, Ohuge Seeyala, Baappala Ha Massinala translated into English as An Analysis of Tamil Racism in Sri Lanka. Those authors who ignore the history of Tamil racism in this country want to establish and propagate the myth that Tamil racism was a result of '56, in order to whitewash their masters in the west. Similarly those who think that the western impression of Tamil racism was created by the statements of Ranil Wickremesinghe and Chandrika Kumaratunga do not look beyond the nose, may be in order to avoid antagonising the westerners.
Anyhow, the Panashaye Daruwo are now in the saddle, and it is up to them to work out a viable alternative to the existing western political, economic and cultural theories, concepts and models. We have to be careful not to be sectarian and identify only the JVP as the party of the Panashaye Daruwo, as some others have done. Most of the Panashaye Daruwo are in the SLFP, whether one likes it or not, and in these matters it is futile to attempt to interpret our pet ideas to give opportunistic meanings. Panashaye Daruwo are not necessarily the educated village youth, as what is meant by education itself is a question that has to be answered within the context of modernity. The so-called educated village youth have been given a third rate imitative western education, and such education would not produce the type of leaders that we want. What is required today is to give a national education (Jathika Adhyapanaya) to the Panashaye Daruwo as an alternative to the Vijathika Adhyapanaya they had received at schools and universities. It need not be a formal education, and President Rajapakse should be motivated to initiate such an education through the mass media. At present one could see some people who have got into the state mass media trying to propagate all the myths that have been produced by western education.
Panashaye Daruwo have an uphill task as already the country (and the world-we could ignore the world if we get things in correct perspective at home) has been poisoned with propaganda that helps Tamil racism. It is reported that the outgoing chairman of the SLMM is of the view that the Tamil racist problem is a freedom struggle. He thinks that unlike Al Qaeda, a terrorist organisation according to him, the LTTE is engaged in a freedom struggle. It may be his personal opinion, but we can expect that the personal opinions of many others in the SLMM, the Norwegian "facilitators", and personnel in the western embassies are not different. The NGO "intellectuals" also have the same opinion as they also claim that the LTTE constitutes of freedom fighters. The official view is formed by people with personal views whose views are in turn shaped by the official view, and we know that the "unofficial" view of the west is not that different from the personal opinion of the outgoing chairman of the SLMM. Even Chandrika Kumaratunga is of the opinion that there are injustices caused to Tamils by the Sinhalas, and she like many others who share the freedom fighter view, is against only the terrorism of the LTTE. As we have said earlier terrorism is only a mode, and when Candrika Kumaratunga says she is against terrorism, she does not mention that by admitting that the LTTE is fighting for a cause she has already justified the existence of the LTTE. All those who identify a freedom struggle or a just cause in LTTE activities are finally on the side of Tamil racism, and in order to justify a unitary state Panashaye Daruwo should be aware of the history of the problem as seen by the Jathika Balawegaya, and not through the dark glasses provided by education received from schools and universities.
The local government elections have taught a lesson to the SLFP, JVP and JHU. The JVP had overestimated their strength and demanded some thirty five councils to contest on their own and to elect JVPers as chairpersons of those councils. As they were not given so many councils to contest by the Sandhanaya, they decided to field their own candidates outside the Sandhanaya. This was not the first time that the JVP had overestimated themselves. In the 1971 insurrection, the thirty fifth anniversary of which the JVP commemorated last week, they overestimated their strength for the first time. Then it happened in 1982 and 1987 as well. The JVP has to learn that they have no place in the politics of the country unless they unite with the other Panashaye Daruwo. The JHU also should have learnt that lesson, and additionally, in their case they should have realised that in the general elections their vote had been inflated by the nationalist-minded UNPers. When the JHU united with the Sandhanaya all those "nationalists" went back to the UNP helping the UNP to capture some councils outside the Colombo Municipal Council.
The SLFP also has to learn a lesson from the results of the local government elections. If the JVP was in the Sandhanaya the UNP would have lost power in almost all the councils, except perhaps Kolonnawa, and it would have been a great moral booster for the Mahinda Chinthanaya. If that was the case then there would not have been any opportunity for the vijathika balawegaya to claim that the people had rejected Mahinda Chinthanaya or the unitary state. The people had not done so but NGO "intellectuals" will try to claim that the people want a federal state. If the people wanted a federal state they could have voted for the UNP, the direct agent of the vijathika balawegaya that includes the NGOs.
Fifty years after '56, we see the coming of age of the Panashaye Daruwo and it is up to President Mahinda Rajapakse to make sure that they are given a Jathika Adhyapanaya, and to see that the country and villages go forward hand in hand in a truly nationalist way. The President in fact has a golden opportunity of obtaining atwo thirds majority in Parliament. All he has to do is to separate the northern province from the eastern province in respect of the provincial councils, and have two provincial councils instead of the amalgamated provincial council, and call for a general election. Only the LTTE, some Tamils and some Sinhalas are in favour of the amalgamated council. Even Karuna would support such a move, and it would pave the way for the President to defeat the vijathika balawegaya.
Professor Nalin de Silva
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