CHILCOTT ON ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND DEVOLUTION - II
Western social sciences, especially when practised by politicians and diplomats become a mockery at best. If they are following western "natural sciences" they should be able to demonstrate what they proclaim not only using some theory (theories need not be correct. Any Physicist with a rudimentary knowledge of twentieth century Physics would know that Newton's theory of gravitation is "wrong" and that there is nothing called gravity. There were and are "renowned" Physicists in Sri Lanka without this knowledge! ), so that what is observed is consistent with the theory, but also by "repeating" the experiment. When Mr. Lee Kuan Yew says that if they had switched over from, English to Chinese there would have been riots in Singapore he utters something that cannot be demonstrated in the above sense. Further as we mentioned last week people including Messrs. Lee Kuan Yew and Chilcott seem to forget the one party "democracy" in Singapore.
Mr. Chilcott quotes the former Prime Minister of Singapore to claim that riots in Sri Lanka were after "they switched from English to Sinhalese and disenfranchised the Tamils". This is nothing but distortion of history. It is true that riots began after 1956 but it does not mean that 1956 was the root cause of the riots. In fact there are some Tamil parties that change the year of beginning of so called discrimination from year to year without at least being consistent. For some everything began to happen after the so called black July, of course forgetting that every day is a black day if one considers the murders by the fascist murderer Prabhakaran. Then for others it began after the so called discrimination against the Tamil students in respect of University admissions. What they call discrimination is just a standardization of marks in respect of media which is an accepted methodology when students sit an examination in more than one medium. At present in addition to the district quota there is a subject wise standardization which nobody has objected to. As a result of all these today it is more difficult for a student in Matara district to enter the University than a student in Jaffna district. However no "Sinhala" political party has so far claimed that Sinhala students are being discriminated with respect to University admission. In any event media wise standardization was implemented only for two years in the seventies and even if there was so called discrimination against Tamil students then, nobody can claim that there is such discrimination now.
With respect to so called disenfranchising Mr. Chilcott should realise that it is the baby of the British that the Sinhalas had been asked to carry. After the resistance by the Sinhalas against the British imperialist rule in 1817 and afterwards, the British governors and others responsible (rather irresponsible) for the governing of the country decided to bring labourers from other countries to act as a buffer between the British government and the Sinhala upcountry peasants who had shown heroic resistance against British imperialism. Originally it is said that the British wanted to import labour from China but due to logistic problems later had turned towards South India. That is how Sri Lanka was saddled with the so called upcountry Tamil problem.
When universal franchise was given to Sri Lanka in 1931, all those who were "British subjects" became entitled to vote as the British were not interested in defining the citizenship. As far as the British were concerned there were British subjects but no citizens of Sri Lanka (Ceylon) and that is how all the "upcountry Tamils" became eligible to vote. However when Sri Lanka became independent the country had to define who its citizens were and this was done by the citizenship act. Having defined a citizen it is natural that only those who are citizens should have the franchise and the "upcountry Tamils" who were not citizens were not entitled to vote. Thus it was not a question of disenfranchising the "upcountry Tamils" but a section of the people living in the country failing to become citizens under the citizenship act. This section were entitled to vote only by being British subjects and when the country became independent there was no necessity to give franchise to British subjects.
Mr. Chilcott would perhaps remember that even in the seventies the citizens of commonwealth countries were entitled to vote in Britain. This was really a continuation of the practice of British subjects being entitled to vote in British elections and I myself have voted in British general elections while I was a student in a British University. I now feel ashamed of having voted as I now realize that I was entitled to vote because I had been considered as a creature who could have been called a "continuing British subject". In any event subsequently Britain has taken off this dubious privilege and I would not be allowed to register myself as a voter if I go to Britain today for a year or two now. In essence this could be interpreted as disenfranchising me by the British government if one were to assume that the "upcountry Tamils" were disenfranchised by the Sri Lankan government.
Sri Lanka when she became independent had three choices as far as the "upcountry Tamils" were concerned. Give all of them citizenship, request India to take them back or demand British to take them to Britain. The Sri Lankan leaders at that time were Anglophiles and would not have dreamt of the third alternative, though it would have been the most logical step. Instead they started a long process of negotiations with India to request them to take the "upcountry Tamils" back. It has to be mentioned that at a certain stage Mahatma Gandhi had said if the "upcountry Tamils" were to remain in Sri Lanka then they should learn Sinhala. However, due to backboneless leaders that Sri Lanka had, even Sirima Shastri pact was not implemented and the "upcountry Tamils" were given citizenship on the strength of an affidavit. It is true that this cannot be reversed now but the fact remains that even if there was a so called problem of citizenship it has now been resolved.
Almost all the so called problems from Tamil not being an official language to "disenfranchising" of "upcountry Tamils" have now been solved but the "Tamil problem" continues to be alive implying that it is not the so called grievances that matter. In any event it was the British who changed the demographic patterns of the countries in their former empire, who had no respect for the citizenship concept of the countries and who thought of all the people in the colonies as subjects of the King/Queen. I have discussed these so called Tamil grievances in "An introduction to Tamil racism in Sri Lanka" and if Mr. Chilcott is not in possession of a copy, as it is out of print (though elite in Sri Lanka would not review my books they are read by the general public.) I would send him my copy on the understanding that it is returned to me after perusal. Had Mr. Chilcott's ancestors not brought these innocent people to Sri Lanka we would have been spared of this problem. The irony is that British (and their apologetics) who neglected these people for more than one hundred years confining them to "lines" in estates, only using them against the Sinhala peasants, have developed an interest in their welfare almost overnight. If anybody discriminated against the "upcountry Tamils" it is none other than the British who first by uprooting from their familiar surroundings in South India, and then confining them to "lines" without giving them the basic facilities did so.
(To be continued)
Professor Nalin de Silva
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