The challenge before the Tamils...!!!

The challenge before the Tamils................By S. Sivathasan

In the context of a presidential election just concluded and a general election in the offing, there lies a great challenge before the Tamils. Throwing up a leadership enlightened in every respect and sensitive to what the Tamils look forward to, is the immediate imperative. Their political ideas are crystallising in a situation totally without precedent. The future will be distinctly different from the past. Will the leadership measure up to the challenges that have changed dramatically after the end of the war and consequent to the presidential election?

From 1931 to 2009, a multitude of weapons was used by the Tamils as their political stance. At times they were adversarial and at times conciliatory. Boycott politics, lukewarm collaboration, nonviolent non-cooperation and violent direct action were among them. With objectives unrealized, what is left in the armoury of options is the politics of pragmatism.

At the presidential election, an assortment of political formations disagreeable for all appearance came together as a strange amalgam. It was an incredible phenomenon and yet a visible reality. The country would look forward to this medley growing in cohesiveness. It is in such a situation that the Tamil leadership has to fashion its strategies so as to make itself effective and wanted. What is the primary prerequisite to realise this?

The new leadership that emerges to meet the new challenge should be able to match its strength against all other formations. This would mean that those in parliament representing the Tamils should stand preeminent in intellectual calibre and erudition. With confidence deriving from superior knowledge they should be able to stand their ground against their peers in other parties. Their credentials should be so unimpeachable that the Tamil voter should unreservedly support their candidature. The leadership of the Tamil party has the responsibility of judicious selection of its candidates to meet such norms.

May 18th 2009 is a watershed in the nation’s history. Politics of the past is totally untenable for the present and the future. What the Tamils need is the authority to shape their destiny. People’s representatives capable of shouldering this responsibility should come to the fore. Churchill won the war in 1945. He lost the elections held immediately thereafter. This was not ingratitude, but political maturity. Sensing unerringly that the challenges of reconstruction were different from war time operations, a new leadership was selected by the British electorate.

The Tamil polity is placed in a similar situation. It has to select a leadership to take on a sustained programme of redevelopment and a rebuilding of relationships both ethnic and political. These needs are at variance with merely echoing the voice of a formation at a time of confrontation. The Tamils have a sense of the practicable. They would want of their representatives to make a serious study of politics, encompassing economic issues, social demands and ethnic compulsions.

Destruction occasioned by war has been highest in the Northern Province. Provincial GDP of the North is the lowest at 2.9 percent. The Eastern Province is a shade better at 5.0%.In contrast, the Western Province has 48.4%. Economic and social infrastructure needed in the North East merely to be on par with the rest of the country as of now, requires a massive resource flow of $ 6 billion in the next 10 years. Development at frenetic speed till 2020, is required to reach Sri Lanka’s level of 2010. To provide the direction for this gigantic leap, the political leadership should demonstrate its capacity and capability convincingly. Both the Tamil electorate as well as the Government should be able to place their trust on such leadership. It is such a leadership that should seek the people’s mandate.

For credibility and acceptability very strong attributes should compose the credentials of the prospective members of Parliament. Character that is steadfast, probity beyond suspicion, intellectual honesty of the highest, capacity for study and objective analysis, a good command of both Tamil and English with at least a smattering knowledge of Sinhalese, a fair understanding of development imperatives and above all empathy for the people are qualities that the people would expect from their representatives. Needless to say the altruistic inclinations together with austere lifestyle of the parliamentary candidates should draw the voter towards them. This is the need of the hour. Do the current MPs fit the bill? A treatise on Tamil grammar, Nannool, written several centuries ago, says "Palaiyana kalithalum puthiyana puhuthalum valuvala, kaala vahaiyinane". This rule of grammar applies to political leadership very aptly. "There is nothing faulty in the old order yielding place to the new. It is consonant with the times." So may it be with the Tamils of Sri Lanka and their political transformation.

The presidential election proved a few points. The Tamils destroyed their enemy within. Some versions of disaster were averted. They were calls for miserable boycott, frivolous contest, ballot spoilage and voting for a nonexistent left. Tamils who have incurred the worst have the heaviest share now in the reconstruction effort. Dynamic elements in the community have to come to the fore and take the reconstruction effort relentlessly forward. Population profiles have changed dramatically in the post war world including in Sri Lanka. The younger elements are by far the largest. Representation in parliament reflects the change very poorly. The correspondence is poorer still for the Sri Lankan Tamils. The generational imbalances connote stagnation in political thinking. Redress would demand an induced change for a preponderance of younger elements. A Kamaraj Plan can see the induction of a fresh generation.

Nehru’s first cabinet saw quite a few non-congressmen in the cabinet. This is a lesson for all countries. The French revolutionaries in the Constituent Assembly came forward with a self denial clause, excluding themselves from government office in the new dispensation. If three fourths of our Tamil MPs can voluntarily and happily relinquish their positions in favour of a new generation of learned people, the Tamils can look forward to an era of hope.


The author is Rtd. Secretary, Ministry of Livestock Development.

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