By

N.Sathiya Moorthy

It is sad and unfortunate that even years after the forced exit of the LTTE, the government is unwilling to bury it in the past, and move on. The recent media discourse, limited or otherwise, that there could not have been elections in the North or the East if the LTTE were around, may have achieved nothing more than keeping memories of what the government calls the ‘terror outfit’ alive – if not kicking.

It is equally unfortunate that ‘Tamil nationalists’ and the TNA should be talking about possible malpractices in the upcoming Northern Provincial Council polls, as if they had no role in, or benefit from the LTTE-manipulated parliamentary polls of 2001.

Without having the courage to stand up and apologise to the nation (as a whole) for this, and the LTTE forcing the Tamil boycott of the presidential polls of 2005, the Tamils cannot expect their futuristic charges on this score to stick against this government, or any other, nearer home in particular. For ethnic mistrust to evaporate and mutual trust to emerge, both sides have to contribute to reconciliation and accommodation. Just because the international community is sympathetic to the Tamils, based also on imbalanced and incomplete information about the past in particular, it does not flow that they alone could get away with it.

Through the decisive days of ‘Eelam War IV’ and beyond, the government thought and acted likewise (the latter when looked at retrospectively). ‘Accountability issues’ and UNHRC resolutions were the result.

More may follow. Instead, if the Government had itself initiated the LLRC process, things might have been different.

Percentile problems

From the Sinhala side, the ‘majoritarian’ or ‘Sinhala nationalist’ groups and leaders are identifiable – hence stand the chance of being isolated.

If that has not happened already, and over the past decades, it also owes to the electoral reality that for every ‘Tamil separatist’, there are three, four or even five ‘Sinhala nationalists’ in the nation’s electorate. That is, if one left out moderate ‘Tamil nationalists’ and those Tamils that have still voted for sections of the Tamil-speaking polity in the North and the East that are branded as ‘unworthy Tamils’ – by no one knows, who.

The percentile problems in vote-share dictate the conscience of the Sinhala political majors, as well as it over-rules the relative moderate politics of the TNA leadership. From the Tamil side, post-LTTE, ‘extreme’, if not ‘extremist’ ideas are trial-ballooned every now and again.

If at all anyone knows the origins, the parentage of passing verdict on the ‘ethnic loyalty’ of individuals in the Sri Lankan Tamil community remains shrouded in mystery, post-LTTE.

It is another question if at the height of LTTE’s glory and power, it did all the thinking, including those on ‘branding’ Tamils, likewise – or this amorphous parent was doing it for it, and with certitude that even the LTTE could not defy.

Thus, KP, Daya Master and Tamilini were heroes in their own right when they worked relentlessly for the ‘separatist cause’ but have become persona non grata for the ‘Tamil nationalists’ when they moderated their political positions to pragmatic terms, albeit under governmental ‘rehabilitation’, post-war.

Douglas D, Karuna and Pillayan fall under a different category, of defying the LTTE in its active tenure. Barring a handful at the top, now including Northern chief minister nominee, Justice C. V. Wigneswaran, every other TNA leader has had a militant past.

Their differences with the LTTE were not over ideology, or even methodology. It was personal. On the ground, the TNA reacts to individuals, based on the grassroots-level mood. And unseen hand is possibly guiding that mood, and the fate of the Tamils and the course of the TNA – a hidden hand and a troubled mind that have no ‘accountability’ or ‘responsibility’ of the TNA kind, either. The faceless custodian of ‘Tamil conscience’ and ‘ethnic loyalty’ is amorphous at best.

In comparison, the Sri Lankan State and the Sinhala polity to a larger extent, and the TNA to a greater or lesser level, have to own up their mistakes, though not always conferred the credit for doing things right. The TNA will face the music even more, and from all sides, if elected to power in the North. The ‘guiding principle’ was to oppose the Sri Lankan State and the government leadership of the day, and support anyone that opposes that leadership, whatever the reason or cause.

The TNA support and the Tamil vote for Fonseka is a case in point. Before and after that, the Tamil moderates, or even the LTTE, had worked with the mainline Sinhala Opposition of the day, one way or the other. However, they were content with blaming the ‘Sinhala majors’ with doing a merry-go-round with the Tamils’ political fate, whoever grabbed elected political power in Colombo.

Post-poll, a TNA government in the North will have problems on this score. It will be eternally under pressure from the omnipresent ‘Tamil nationalists’, who are otherwise divided over leaderships, methods and issues – and in that order, mostly. For many in the Sinhala polity and society, apart from most of them in the international community, the TNA is the ‘moderate face’ of Tamil politics.

For many in the Sri Lankan government, now or ever, the TULF then, and the TNA now, is the ‘moderate face’ of ‘Tamil separatism’. The TNA, if in power in the North, will be called upon to negotiate this narrow-path, strewn with possibilities and boulders, though not guns and bombs.

The right and simple way will be for it to disavow the past, and start off on a clean slate, yet renegotiating the relevance of the issues flagged decades ago within itself, before taking it up with the government, the Sinhala polity and society.

The readjustment will take time and effort, but the visionary TNA leadership is not incapable of initiating the process – and seeing it through all-round success, if it put its heart in to the mission.
It should co-opt the faceless ‘Tamil nationalists’ and their Diaspora kin, once and for all. In turn, such absorption should be based on issues and specifics, leading to pragmatic proposals for a political solution through negotiations and accommodation with the Sri Lankan government.

In doing so, the TNA should not play the ‘Sinhala polity’ or the Sri Lankan government against itself. Better or worse still, it should be willing to expose the ‘Tamil nationalists’, if they continue to run away from reality, as they have been doing all along. Translated, it’s whenever snow melts in the western hemisphere, and they could take the first flight back to their ‘foster homes’ that the ethnic war and violence had bequeathed them.

(The writer is the Director of the Chennai Chapter of the Observer Research Foundation)