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Sampanthan reflects on the ‘great mistake’ of the Tamil people
View(s):Preoccupied as the country is, with the daily unfolding sensationalism that takes centre stage in our media, one of the most significant pronouncements made by a politician in recent times, has escaped attention.
Leader of the Opposition and TNA Leader R. Sampanthan speaking in Parliament on October 12, during the adjournment debate to commemorate Mahatma Gandhi’s 150th birth anniversary, reflected on the Mahatma’s nonviolent approach to resolve problems and its lessons for the Tamil community.
In the course of his speech, the veteran Parliamentarian made 3 significant observations:
1. Sri Lanka could have averted an armed struggle, had the Tamil political representatives taken a lesson from the late Mahatma Gandhi and launched a ‘Satyagraha’ campaign in 1977, on the basis of truth, civil disobedience and‘ Ahimsa’. He observed that it was a ‘great mistake’ they did not engage in such a nonviolent course of action in 1977, against the Sri Lanka Government.
He went on to support his claim by pointing out that, “the Tamil political representation was strong in Parliament at that time, as a large number of their members had been elected to Parliament from the North and the East of the country.”
The Opposition Leader added, “I have often thought that, in 1977, when there was a UNP Government elected under President J. R. Jayewardene, we could have averted an armed struggle in this country. Had we done that, we could have won our own self-rule in our areas, without violence. It is my hope that we will never have violence in this country again.”
2. He stated that, they must all be grateful to this great son of India for the concept of nonviolence, Ahimsa, Satyagraha, truth and civil disobedience, which he introduced as an instrument to fight injustice, inequality and subservience. “Despite India being a large country, he unified India,” said Mr. Sampanthan.
He went on to point out that the Mahatma preserved the identity of all the people in India. Every Indian, whether he was a Bengali, Punjabi, Telugu, Malayali or Tamil, first called himself an Indian. He made India ‘one country’ in which Indian people lived with self respect.
He brought India together, not merely by recognising linguistic identity and carving out states on the basis of linguistic identity, but also by ensuring this linguistic identity did not surpass the Indian identity.
3. Sampanthan appealed to the Tamil people to abide by the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi, to win their rights without resorting to violence, if the Government fails to deliver on its commitments to find an adequate solution to the national question.
Mr Sampanthan, despite being one of the most experienced Parliamentarians in the country, hardly ever makes a speech in Parliament without the benefit of a prepared set of notes, which indicates he hads given deep thought to what he was going to state to the august Assembly. Therefore, it is safe to assume that his observations on the need to avoid violence, in pursuit of justice, are the result of a great deal of reflection with regard to the past experiences of the Tamil community.
Contrast this with Parliamentarian Vijaykala Maheswaran’s outburst with regard to the LTTE, which is clearly driven by emotion and hardly likely to have resonance among a conflict weary Tamil people struggling to get on with their lives
Yet both, politicians and the media, created disproportionate hype over Vijaykala Maheswaran’s speech, while Mr. Sampanthan’s speech, which was more nationally significant, was largely ignored and did not attract adequate attention.
This is not the only significant stance that the Opposition Leader has taken in recent times. His position that the TNA is willing to opt for an indivisible, united and undivided Sri Lanka, in any new Constitutional arrangement, provides an opportunity for forward movement in the efforts to resolve the ethnic conflict.
If one looks at what happened during the armed conflict, as well as the situation that occurred after the conflict, it is evident there are many lessons in it for the Tamil community, as well as for the country as a whole.
Any perception of being treated unjustly, by any group of people, must be addressed speedily and effectively. Otherwise, extraneous factors and individuals or groups, lacking foresight, can harness and channel such discontent into destructive paths which cause harm to all sections of society.
In the mid fifties, the late SJV Chelvanayagam did give leadership to a nonviolent campaign to win Tamil demands, but subsequent events escalated into violent campaigns, which cost the Tamil community and the country dear. Today, the armed conflict has ended and progress is being made in dealing with the issues surrounding the ethnic conflict, albeit slowly, without LTTE guns hovering in the background.
The cost of an armed conflict is enormous, as the country has realised. Those who suffer are not only the direct protagonists, but innocent civilians, as well as communities not directly involved, as the Muslims learned to their cost.
Many leaders of the country realized this, and that was why they tried various strategies to persuade the LTTE to pursue the path of a negotiated settlement. This was predicated in the belief that, even if one life could be saved through a process of negotiation, rather than a military solution, it would benefit the country.
The LTTE, however, never understood the value of such an approach, and virtually committed suicide by continuous intransigence. Even the Mahinda Rajapaksa government first opted to have talks with the LTTE, but the latter misjudged the situation and came a cropper, and were completely vanquished in May 2009.
The LTTE’s behaviour also provided an insight into the mistakes made by those who pursue armed violence as a means of achieving political goals. While the armed campaign may have started off with the goal of addressing Tamil grievances, it thereafter developed an ideology of its own, which was dismissive of dissident voices and crushed any democratic discourse.
This in itself should have been a precursor of what was in store for the Tamil people, if the LTTE achieved its objectives. The Tamil community could certainly not have been liberated and would have been subject to all sorts of atrocities by those who assumed office.
Additionally, if a separate state of Eelam was created, after achieving victory in an armed struggle, it would have caused resentment in the minds of the people in the rest of the country and probably, caused the shedding of a great deal of bloodshed in order to claim resources on either side of the borders. None of these would have enured to the benefit of the Tamil people.
Mr Sampanthan’s observations should also give food for thought to progressive elements in the South, to pursue, with renewed vigour, the resolution of the ethnic problem, which can result in a peaceful and prosperous Sri Lanka. Such a solution must, to use Mr. Sampanthan’s own words, “satisfy and be acceptable to all 3 communities, Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim.
The challenge for the small but vocal sections of the community in the South, who raise the bogey of separation, at every effort to resolve the ethnic problem, which has both literally and metaphorically bled the country, is to rise above such narrow rhetoric and work in the national interest.
Otherwise, we will only help to validate the saying that, “The lessons we learn from history is that no one learns from history”.
(javidyusuf@gmail.com)