THE BITTER TRUTH
Mr. Ananda Sangaree has said that this is not the time for the de merger of the northern and the eastern provincial councils, even if one is of the view that there is no basis for the merger. We do not know the view of Mr. Ananda Sangaree on this important matter, but it is well known that India wants the merger of the two provincial councils, and that the Indian leaders are applying pressure on the Sri Lankan government to continue with the merger. It is reported that the Indian Prime Minister met a delegation of the TNA, the proxy party of the LTTE, with the connivance of the Tamil Nadu government, without giving any prior information of the meeting to the press. Apparently the delegation had given the impression that they were going to Delhi from Chennai to meet Mrs. Sonia Gandhi, but having gone to Delhi had met the Indian Prime Minister. It is speculated that all of them wanted to keep the Sri Lankan government in the dark for the obvious reason that Sri Lanka would have objected to such meeting. To make matters worse the UNP is campaigning for the merger of the two provincial councils for eight to ten years, and it is clear that the western countries are also behind the move.
It cannot be said that all those who voted for the UNP are for the merger of the two provincial councils, and neither that all those who voted for the SLFP are for the de merger, even if the SLFP, as a political party were to declare that it is against the merger officially. It is well known that there are some leaders of the SLFP, especially of "Sudu Nelum" and other campaigns, who are for the merger perhaps without any knowledge of the facts. Thus people should be given the opportunity to decide whether they are in favour of merger of the two provincial councils or not, after a discussion, and since it is a matter concerning not only the people living in those two provinces, all the people in the country should be able to express their views on this particular matter. It is very likely that the leaders of the SLFP referred to above do not know that there is no valid basis for the merger, and the merger of the two provincial councils is based only on myths, and imposed on us by foreign governments. The people who are responsible for the propagation of the myths are the British, the other westerners including the Dutch who apparently are thinking of making it compulsory for the citizens of Netherlands to speak only in Dutch in public places, the Indians, the so called experts on Sri Lankan affairs in the west and in India, and of course the Tamil elite both past and present. As we have observed in these columns and elsewhere, with respect to Tamil nationalism, it is the political leaders who set the tune, and the general public merely follow the leaders after a certain time lag. Federalism first advocated by the Illankai Thamil Arasu Kadchi (ITAK) or the Lanka Tamil State Party better known as the Federal Party in keeping with the "little now more later" policy of Mr. S. J. V. Chelvanayakam, became the guiding principle of the Tamil public only in 1956. Separatism officially adopted at the Vadukkodai conference was later marketed to the public in 1977. Federalism and later separatism were advocated for combined northern and eastern provinces.
The Tamil leaders when marketing these concepts based themselves on two myths. They claimed that (i) the Tamils were not given their share of power at the centre by the Sinhalas and that (ii) the northern and the eastern provinces were the traditional homeland (historical habitats was the terminology used in the so called Indo Sri Lanka accord signed by Shri Rajiv Gandhi and Mr. J. R. Jarayawardhane) of the Tamils in Sri Lanka. It is obvious that the leaders were concerned of the Tamils brought by the Dutch for tobacco cultivation, and not of the Tamils imported by the British and settled down in the coffee and later tea plantations. The first myth was often marketed to the general public in the form that the Tamils were discriminated by the Sinhalas, which was more appealing to them. The Tamil man in general has had no share power and probably would not have understood if they were told that power at the centre was not shared with them. The non vellalas had no share of power with the Vellalas and were discriminated by the latter. No wonder the "struggle" later took an anti Vellala form also as it developed.
The two myths were connected by the so called solution, which has become the present problem. The Tamil leaders argued that since their share of power at the centre was not given they should be given the right to manage their own affairs in the so called homeland of the Tamils without any interference from the centre, which was later called the Sinhala government. This is the "rationale" for federalism as well as separatism, which has to be rejected outright. As we have pointed out in "An Analysis of Tamil Racism in Sri Lanka" which is a translation of the book "Prabhakaran, Ohuge Seeyala, Baappala Ha Missinala", in the early days of the legislative assembly in Sri Lanka, there was one member each representing the Sinhalas, Tamils and Burghers. The British did not consider the facts that the Sinhalas constituted more than seventy five percent of the population, and that the Sinhalas had established a unique culture in the country and had been living for more than two thousand years. On the other hand, the Tamils in Jaffna were descendents mainly of those who were imported by the Dutch for their tobacco cultivation (especially the vellalas), the Velakkaras who were mercenaries brought by the Sinhalas as well as Magha, from Kerala, at different periods, and the Sinhalas who had been living in Jaffna from ancient times. The presence of more Malayalam words in Tamil spoken in Jaffna compared with Tamil spoken in Tamil Nadu is due to the Velakkara factor. A linguistic analysis would reveal that the similarity of the two Tamil dialects in other respects leads to their separation to a period not more than three centuries.
The British would have ignored all the historical, demographical and cultural factors for at least two reasons. The first would have been the divide and rule policy of the British favouring the minorities in the colonies, and the second reason was the fact that among the elite the Sinhalas and the Tamils were more or less equal in numbers due to the privileges and favourable treatment that the Tamils were given by the British. However, from that day onwards, when the members to the legislative assembly were appointed on an ethnic basis favouring the Tamils against the Sinhalas, the Tamil leaders, mainly vellala, had been agitating for equal representation whether in the legislative assembly, state council, or the parliament. Further they had never wanted to change from ethnic representation to territorial representation. It is unfortunate that the members of the expert panel who produced the so called majorirty report still think in terms of ethnicity. It has to be pointed out that the Sinhalas had had no difficulty in electing Tamil elites not only to the legislative assembly but as President of the Ceylon National Congress. Later the Sinhalas elected Muslims and Tamils as their representatives in the Parliament, Municipalities, Urban Councils etc., though Tamils or Muslims have failed to elect Sinhalas as their representatives to those bodies.
It was clear to the Tamil elite that it was not possible to maintain the status quo in respect of numbers in the legislature as universal franchise was given to Sri Lanka. Thus they tried artificial means such as fifty fifty to reduce the number of Sinhala representatives in the legislature. When the Tamils tried these tactics before the Soulburry commission, the commission had to point out that it was not possible to reduce a majority to a minority by artificial means. The Tamil leaders were not prepared to give up the privileges that they enjoyed with the connivance of the British governors such as Manning, and whenever some of the privileges had to be given up due to natural reasons, they interpreted them as injustices done to the Tamils. These "injustices" were marketed to the Tamil people by the elite and gradually the latter were enable to incite the former against the Sinhalas.
Then in order to justify their claim that the provinces demarcated by the British as late as 1889, should be given power, the Tamil elite cooked up theories of Tamil homelands etc. The fact that the Tamils and the Muslims in the eastern province were confined to the coastal belt, and Sinhalas were living in the interior, was ignored and the whole province was claimed to be part of Tamil homeland. History was created and a Mahavansa phobia was constructed. The Tamil leaders and the "intellectuals" with the help of their counter parts in the western countries, have propagated all these myths on discrimination and homelands, and have "created" a problem that does not exist, namely the discrimination against the Tamils. A non existing problem cannot be solved even if some are prepared to die for a solution under instigation by some others. Lots of other myths have been used in the process. For example it is said that Sri Lanka is a multicultural country. One does not have to be a social scientist to see that there are two versions of multiculturalism practised in the world, which we call the weak and the strong varieties. It is the weak multiculturalism that is practised in the western countries as well as in India, where it is admitted that people of different cultures live. However, in those countries there is a significant, or very often a dominant, culture that is not equated with the other cultures. Huntington may have come up with loads of facts to show that Americans are a variety of Anglo Saxons, White Protestants etc., but even without Huntington it is not difficult to see this fact for oneself. We have written on this theme very often and it is not necessary to repeat all those facts and concepts.
In Sri Lanka the "intellectuals" want us to practice multiculturalism in the strong sense. If no western sociologist including those who managed to obtain third class passes in sociology and engineering, and who want to practise social engineering, has mentioned these two versions of multiculturalism, then the fault is not mine. In strong multiculturalism not only that different cultures exist but they are all considered to be equal. It is one thing to say that as individuals a Tamil is equal to a Sinhala. However it does not mean that in Sri Lanka Sinhala culture and Tamil culture are equally significant. The Tamil elite from the beginning of British colonial period, with the connivance of the British, did not want to recognise that Sinhala culture is the significant culture in Sri Lanka. Thus whenever the cultures that exist in Sri Lanka were not treated equally the Tamil leaders and the westerners together with the Indians threw their hands up shouting that the Sinhalas were discriminating against the minorities in the country.
It is because the predecessors of Mr. Amanda Sangaree propagated these myths that the "boys" took up arms to liberate themselves from the "yoke" of Sinhala "imperialism". The "boys" were encouraged then by the Tamil leaders, but now the former have turned their guns against the latter as well. If we are to defeat the LTTE, we have to tell the Tamil public that the above are myths and that there is no Tamil homeland as such and Sinhala culture is the significant culture. It is the duty of leaders such as Mr. Ananda Sangaree to tell this truth however bitter it may be. If we were to defend these myths or take refuge in them then we would be only prolonging the agony. There is no alternative but to de merge the northern and the eastern provincial councils, as these two provinces are not the homeland of the Tamils, and differ demographically, historically, geographically and culturally.
Professor Nalin de Silva
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