(MENAFN- Colombo Gazette)
By N Sathiya Moorthy
Credit it to China-centric geo-politics in the immediate IOR or the more recent Ukraine War at a distant or the even more critical economic-cum-forex crisis nearer home, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa's first-ever meeting with a TNA delegation since assuming office seems to have started off well. A lot would depend on how far the government is willing to address the Tamils' continuing core concerns pertaining to power-devolution and also 'accountability issues', which remains on the agenda of the 'international community' (read: West), a decade after they took it to the UNHRC.
In a way, Gota's prescription for the Tamil Diaspora to invest big in the Tamil North and the East, with personal guarantees for fast-tracked clearance, can be interpreted as giving a personal touch to his developmental agenda, by expanding the scope of the Rajapaksas' post-war development agenda to include private players, this one specifically from the Tamil Diaspora community. Alternatively, it could mean that he has grasped the full scope of devolution without as yet acknowledging freedom for the Provinces to attract overseas investments directly – at least until his promised new Constitution takes some shape.
The latter is far-fetched as yet, but the former is palpable. It can prove to be a test for Gota's credibility in the interim, at times for the President to understand where the cogs of his governmental administration lags or gets clogged. For instance, TNA parliamentarian M A Sumanthiran, in his telephonic conversations with
Army chief, Gen Shavendra Silva, for the forces to release Tamil private lands in their possessions, reportedly came across a flat denial. Though they have reportedly decided to exchange detailed notes on the subject, instances such as these need to be sorted out if the two sides have to move forward.
Likewise, on the Tamil demand for the release of long-held political prisoners, especially those being held without trial or the trial not reaching anywhere near finality, the two sides decided for Sumanthiran, and Justice Minister Ali Sabry, both competent lawyers with mutual respect, to propose ways for the President handling individual cases within the limits and limitations imposed by law. Hopefully such paper-work should take a few weeks, not certainly months and years. How the government acts and/or reacts would shape the future course of the talks.
Rajapaksa double-speak
At the talks, TNA leader R Sampanthan and other alliance MPs who spoke, delivered speeches typical of them, hence expected of them. That may have been for the record, yes. But ground conditions have changed, and they do not seem to have acknowledged it. Barring Sumanthiran, who according to newspaper reports was invited by the President to share his views, other TNA parliamentarians, which included Sampanthan and PLOTE's Dharmalingam Sidharthan, seemed to have delivered long and eloquent speeches of the kind even at the All-Party Conference (APC) that President Gota called earlier to discuss the prevailing economic situation.
Sumanthiran reportedly outlined his initiatives of hosting two all-party meetings of the kind in the previous months, with the same agenda on the table. That most major Sinhala parties and leaders, barring UNP's former Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, stayed away may be the reason why the APC did not get the desired national attention – but then participation by the main Opposition SJB and its allies could have helped lay out a future road-map for the nation's economy, or to expose the 'Rajapaksa double-speak', as they are wont to say.
This may be the last generation of Tamil political leaders – with the TNA and outside – who may have linkages to the politics of ethnic war and the pre-war politics of the Tamil community. From among them, TELO's Selvam Adaikalanathan at 59, and non-TNA leader, Gajendra Kumar Ponnambalam, 48, are the only two relatively face-recognisable Tamil leaders still have their one foot each in the past and the present. But neither seem to be living in the present.
Lost opportunities
Those like Sumanthiran, and another TNA parliamentarian, Rasamanickam Shanakiya from the eastern Batticaloa district, are post-war finds. They all have future roles to play in Tamil politics, but they should not be bogged down by the past, as with those in the decade after the end of the ethnic war are. The TNA and non-TNA Tamil politicos would have to thank the pandemic for more of their constituents not risking their lives in the rough seas for greener pastures in Australia and elsewhere.
Post-pandemic, post-forex crisis, there are those who have begun trickling towards the neighbouring Indian coast in Tamil Nadu – but again, they are their constituents. No one is talking about any southern Sinhala or eastern Muslim taking a leap of faith in the midst of the economic crisis that has hit the poor harder, harsher. Definitely, they are not the types to jump the ship when it develops a leak, this time an economic leak.
At the end of the day, the Tamil leaders are bound to curse their fate and that of their people, rather than themselves, for the 'lost opportunities' in their talks for a political solution with successive governments. They have made a fine-art of locking the stables after the opportunities had passed by. This time round, talks with President Gota may be the one last opportunity for the passing-on generation of Tamil leaders – Sampanthan is not the only one, as some may think without looking themselves up on the mirror – to put a stop to all that.
They can then and then alone take credit for ushering in new politics, new economics to their Tamil people. Or, at least attempting to do so. For those that may subconsciously recall the great contributions of the late 'Tamil Gandhi', S J V Chelvanayagam, should also remember how he might have unwittingly contributed to the pile-up of ethnic miseries on his Tamil population, decade after decade, generation after generation.
Addressing a Batticaloa rally only days after signing the Bandaranaike-Selva Pact, or BC Pact, which many fellow-Tamils saw as a give-away, SJV reportedly declared that it was 'only the first step…' (to self-determination or a 'Tamil homeland'). That was also the last nail on the Tamil ethnic question, which Tamil historians and contemporary analysts conveniently forget – and their overseas counterpart seldom got to know.
Take-it-or-leave-it
Today, Tamil politics is perched on a similar, take-it-or-leave-it situation. After the LTTE's decimation, it makes no sense for the Tamils to sit back and expect the Diaspora and the international community to do their bidding, and as they alone wanted. In Colombo last fortnight for the US-Sri Lanka Partnership Dialogue (?), Victoria Nuland, the US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, reportedly welcomed the 'action taken by Sri Lanka to promote reconciliation'.
The Gota-TNA talks were days away at the time and had not produced anything for the US to sound positive on 'reconciliation' as Tamils back home understand. That depends on how much the Gota Government is willing to yield and how much the TNA and other Tamil parties are ready to scale-down from either side's indeterminable positions on specifics, more so of the latter.
There are Tamil leaders and Tamil leaders who may not mind a perfect solution missing the deadline until their own time had arrived. There are others who might have concluded that their time was up and so was that of a political solution to the ethnic issue. Octogenarian Sampanthan seems to be an incorrigible optimistic as much as he is an indefatigable parliamentarian and alliance leader.
Time, tide and Tamil politics
But all sides need to remember only one thing. That time, tide and Tamil politics does not wait for anyone. They missed the bus when post-war Rajapaksa regime of President Mahinda, now Prime Minister, was known to have offered honourable terms. That had reportedly included freedom for a Tamil Province to attract direct overseas investments (from the Diaspora?) with sovereign guarantees from the Sri Lankan State. But they lost sight of their own limitations and that of the West on which they leaned on overmuch.
Today, they have got yet another opportunity, though not exactly knocking at their doors, as earlier. But they need to remember the bottom-line. That if the Rajapaksas, however weak in office as presumed now, cannot offer an acceptable political solution, no one in the immediate to faraway future would want to take the huge risk – that is from a southern Sinhala heartland perspective.
In context, they only need to remember how Ranil as UNP Opposition Leader tore down the very respectable 'Chandrika Package' inside Parliament Chamber and set it ablaze years ago, and talked about a solution with the TNA in all seriousness as PM in more recent times (2015-19), without actually delivering on the new Constitution that he vowed mainly aimed at resolving the 'national problem' – but did simply nothing in effect!
(The writer is Distinguished Fellow and Head-Chennai Initiative, Observer Research Foundation, the multi-disciplinary Indian public-policy think-tank, headquartered in New Delhi. email: )
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