TNA revisiting Tamil Chauvinism’s game plan of May 14, 1976?

 by Malinda Seneviratne

 The 30-year old conflict, like all conflicts, was a monumental tragedy.  Like all tragedies it came with costs.  People died.  Property was destroyed. Hundreds of thousands were displaced. Thousands were maimed. Some scars healed, some never will.  No community in this island was spared.  No one, however, suffered as much as the Tamils, i.e. those who lived in the primary conflict zone (those who fled these areas to Colombo and preferred destination in Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand can’t claim to be too unhappy – they are not returning in droves to the ‘traditional homelands’ now that the guns have gone silent). 

 There’s a pathway to war.  There are contributors. There are co-conspirators. They are those who give two-cents and those who give millions. They are those learn and those who repeat error.  There are those who are ignorant and those who are persuaded by mal-intent.  There are those who have aspirations, who take legitimate grievance, pad it up, dress it in the colours of aspiration and based on this monumental lie that has been carefully constructed declare war for non-addressing of ‘grievance’, even long after the original issue has been resolved. 

It is no secret that Tamil politicians wanted a separate state. Such ‘wanting’ is not illegitimate.  The Vadukoddai Resolution of May 14, 1976, authored by S.J.V. Chelvanayakam is a classic expression of dressing up aspiration as grievance.  This piece of paper does not require fresh rubbishing.  What is important is the fact that it contributed in great part to creating ‘need’ for a separate state among Tamil people, fed ‘logic’ to this newly constructed need and shamelessly preyed on the emotions of the ill-informed. 

‘And this Convention calls upon the Tamil Nation in general and the Tamil youth in particular

to come forward to throw themselves fully into the sacred fight for freedom and to flinch not

till the goal of a sovereign state of TAMIL EELAM is reached.’

There was ‘flourish’ in that conclusion.  There was no flourish when the script was played to its logical end.  It was a recipe for a tragic outcome.  This particular delicacy was consumed for the next thirty 33  years.  It was all done on May 18, 2009.  There is only one lesson that is relevant: that path leads to Nandikadal Lagoon. 

I re-read the Vadukkoddai Resolution a short while ago after I heard that the Tamil National Alliance was calling for a re-merger of the Northern and Eastern Provinces.   M.K. Sivajilingam is the TNA candidate for the Velvittithurai Urban Council.  He’s a politician and he’s playing the part to perfection. That’s the kindest interpretation I can think of at this point.  I don’t know whether he speaks for the TNA.  He has stated that the North-East merger had not been mentioned in the proposals submitted by the TNA to the Government regarding reconciliation. 

The Tamil National Alliance has a history.  It was birthed, bathed, baptized, fed, breathed and lived Tamil chauvinism and separatism.  Its manifesto in 2001 was a wishy-washy re-hash of the Vadukoddai Resolution. The 2004 manifesto was an unabashed expression of servility to the LTTE.  To this date, the TNA has not engaged in any self-criticism over its past including its shameless ‘tongue-tiedness’ regarding atrocities committed by the LTTE.  To this date, the official website of the TNA carries the ‘Eelam Map’ that was on the LTTE flag. To this date, the TNA fails to acknowledge that history, demography and geography (never mind political ‘doability’ and economic sense) rebel against separatism, including devolution of power to existing provincial boundaries. To this date, the TNA has not worked out the logic of devolution (with or without re-merger) when more than half the Tamil population lives outside the North and East, large swathes of the Eastern Province remain non-Tamil etc.

The TNA has not, will not and cannot deal with the objections to the assertions of the Vadukoddai Resolution, its unadulterated chauvinism, intellectual dishonesty and political demagoguery. 

All this may be ‘so-what’ as far as the TNA is concerned, I concede.  Politicians and political parties are seldom interested in truth and honesty.  They prey on insecurity and innocence.   The TNA forgets that the path that Chelvanayakam chartered for Tamil chauvinism not only saw its key articulators such as A. Amirthalingam being slaughtered by Chelvanayakam’s political heirs, but many Tamil politicians found it impossible to live, die or even be buried in the so-called ‘traditional homelands’. 

A lot of Sinhalese people died over the past 30 years.  Some 27,000 combatants died.  Thousands perished in terrorist attacks carried out by the sons and daughters of the Vadukoddai Resolution.  More Tamils died.  More Tamil civilians were killed by the LTTE than by the Sri Lankan security forces.  One in every ten Muslim in this island became an IDP.   That’s the end-count of the process that the Vadukoddai Resolution precipitated.  And that’s where the TNA insists we should all travel towards, a second time! 

Sivajilingam talks about re-merging the North and East.  The 13th Amendment carved this country into 8 parts. The Supreme Court made it 9.  The security forces turned it back to ONE COUNTRY.  Considering the costs incurred by us all, I doubt any one will want a re-playing of this terrible, terrible tragedy.  That, however, seems to be what the TNA wants. 

There are some numbers the TNA must not forget.  They are asking for control of ONE-THIRD the land mass and HALF the coastline for SIX PERCENT of the population!  Even if every Tamil in this country decides to go live in the so-called ‘traditional homelands’ this still amounts to LAND THEFT.  Sivajilingam just cannot expect the peace-loving people of this country (many of whom have lost loved ones in the struggle to eliminate the terrorist threat and many who have suffered immense deprivations courtesy of their self-appointed representatives)  not to object and, if it comes to that, to fight. 

I am wondering what Mathiaparanan Abraham Sumanthiran has to say about all this.