Tamil leaders should first bridge their credibility gap
First days of the Civil Disobedience Campaign in February 1961 opposite the Jaffna Kachcheri –
“A major alliance of Tamil political parties in North-East is expected to be launched by business tycoon Subashkaran Allirajah, chairman, British Lyca Mobile. He is reported to have had discussions with former Jaffna district MP and ITAK President Sritharan Sivagnanam in bringing together fractured and divided Tamil politics together.” Sinhala news report on 02 October, 2024
Large, new alliances do not mean they are “People centric”. They only mean few new faces at press conferences with the same rickety old political parties sitting in a different arrangement with new nameboards. In the South they remain as racial as anytime before or even more aggressive, if they believe that would draw more votes.
To say the Sinhala South rejected traditional political parties at the 2024 presidential elections is a big lie. The JVP/NPP platform was traditional in form and content. They stand for the 45-year-old “free market economy” and will be adopting the same IMF programme, the most conventional “free market” formula that had been proved a failure. Their politics based on historically dominant Sinhala-Buddhist politics of the SLFP and the UNP, is traditionally racist. They are firm on “Unitary” State, and would not allow even full implementation of 13A.
In Sri Lanka, when the “Voter” is the same politically illiterate voter, with no idea what the vote is for, traditional electoral politics can only change colour, change faces and political slogans to look novel. The SL voter does not want to know the vote is meant to elect a “government with a development programme for the country” and is not for them to elect any particular individual of their fancy.
Traditional politics can only be challenged with a clearly designed programme for the benefit of the People. What is nevertheless seen even in Northern Tamil politics is “urgent” discussions among marginalised “traditional” leaders as in the South, in putting together a “large alliance” with “big money” for campaigning.
North-East leaderships should accept, their major issue is the large credibility gap between them and the People in post-war politics. Political leaders in North-East rarely identified themselves with victimised and agitating People in post-war politics. They were comfortable supporting the 2015 Sirisena-Wickramasinghe “yahapalana” government on anti-Rajapaksa slogans. ITAK as the dominating leadership in the TNA, backed the Wickramasinghe led government on a false belief, they could draft a “new Constitution” as they wish. Living in such illogical assumptions, the ITAK leadership avoided protests and agitations not wanting to make the Wickramasinghe government uncomfortable.
The result was, between 2015 August and 2020 elections the TNA lost almost 200,000 votes and 06 of the 16 seats they won in 2015. Nearly 30,000 of them voted EPDP. The TNPF increased its total by nearly 50,000 votes electing one MP and another from the National List. TMVP that was not in the previous parliament collected 67,000 plus votes and a MP seat. Wigneswaran’s new TPNA collected over 50,000 votes and a seat from Jaffna district.
What is also important to note is, Ariyanethiran as the Tamil Common Candidate this 2024 presidential elections, though polling a significant 226,000 plus votes backed by 06 political parties, could not top Jaffna district coming second to Southern Sinhala candidate SP and was unable to poll even half of what SP polled in Vanni district. He was 100,000 plus votes less than SP in his own Batticaloa district polling less than 37,000 votes.
This is the tragedy of a Tamil leadership that took over representing the North-East by default, after the LTTE was wiped out in 2009 May. They took People for granted. Yet in a battered and a tattered society, with People compelled to find answers for their immediate and sensitive issues, integrity of leaderships is tested not at elections but on the ground where People agitate for answers.
Most important lesson the North-East Tamil political leadership should learn from this debacle therefore is, they have to first bridge this credibility gap between them and the still victimized People in N&E. Political credibility does not come with new alliances, new name boards and campaign money. Credibility comes with a program that address the issues of N&E People. It’s about a people-centric campaign on People’s issues.
A fortnight ago, I proposed a detailed discussion on “1961 Civil Disobedience Campaign” in N&E led by “Thanthai” Chelva and his ITAK, for present generations to learn what “People’s Politics” is. It was a wholly peaceful one moth long protest begun in February 1961 that brought all State departments and institutes in North & East to a complete halt by ordinary People sitting in front of them. On 02 March, when PM Madam Bandaranayake was questioned in the Senate, why the military has to be deployed in North & East, she accepted “There is no government in North-East.”
Having gone through 02 decades of politics by guns and grenades, I doubt present day Tamil politics understand the strength of such People’s participation in politics. It is rather late, but as the saying goes, it is “better late than ever” to bridge the credibility gap between political leadership and the People on a campaign program that can be the basis of lobbying and pressurizing the elected government to address People’s issues, post-elections. It should therefore include the LLRC recommendation of urgently and completely “demilitarizing North-East and establishing an independent civil administration”, immediate repeal of the PTA and withdrawal of the proposed Anti-Terrorism Bill, land disputes to be settled through an independent provincial civil committee and to reconstitute the OMP to provide answers within a year to agitating wives and parents on enforced disappearances.
If that is not what Tamil leaders want, People may go for different options that I do not think would be worth discussing here.
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