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Selected Writings by
Sachi Sri Kantha
Tamil Mind and Tiger Mind:
A 1994 Debate between S.Sivanayagam and Ketheesh Loganathan
5 September 2006
Front Note by Sachi Sri Kantha
In late 1994, the Sunday Observer of Colombo published three
features (two by distinguished
journalist S.Sivanayagam and one by the then EPRLF theoretician
Ketheesh Loganathan) on the theme of ‘Tamil
Mind and Tiger Mind’. Shortly afterwards, I received copies of these three
articles from Sivanayagam himself, and I reproduce these below for their topical
interest.
These three features appeared at a time, when the then ‘fresh moon’ of Colombo’s
political landscape, Chandrika Kumaratunga, was having a ‘wave’ with her
‘Peace with Tamils’ pledge. The UNP’s
fortunes (then having been in power from 1977 to 1994) were in decline. As such,
some of the comments relating to Chandrika Kumaratunga in these three features
have to be gulped with nostalgia now. Sivanayagam aptly ended the debate (in his
rebuttal to Loganathan’s critique) with a conditional yearning, “If she can roll
back the political history of the island by forty years…” But, it was never to
be. Chandrika Kumaratunga’s
political
reign from 1994 to 2005, turned out to be nothing but a damp squib.
Loganathan’s pet peeve for nearly two decades (from 1983 to 2006) has been,
whether LTTE deserves the ‘sole, legitimate representative’ status for Eelam
Tamils. I personally view this peeve as nothing but an example of ‘sour grape
syndrome’ of a so-called ex-militant who had hitched his stars to a
Marxist-Leninist EPRLF group which had confused objectives and convoluted plans.
Sivanayagam’s rebuke to Loganathan’s critique on LTTE was unambiguous and
endearing. After listing the alphabet soup of Eelam Tamil entities which have
‘Liberation’ in their names (TULF, PLOTE, TELO, ENDLF and EPRLF), Sivanayagam’s
smashing return was,
“Tamil people have never been short of liberators. What
seems to be the difference between the ‘self-proclaimed liberators’ in the
LTTE and other self-proclaimed liberators is that the former is at least in
the liberation business!”
While Chandrika Kumaratunga of SLFP has been replaced by Mahinda
Rajapakse of SLFP in November 2005, the political personalities who embedded
themselves to Chandrika’s political vehicle and named by Sivanayagam in his two
articles, still linger on personally or via their clones. The death of Thondaman
Sr. of CWC in 1999 saw his grandson Arumugam Thondaman replacing him. SLMC’s
Mohammed Ashraff’s accidental death in 2000 has promoted his wife Ferial Ashraff
into political arena. P.Chandrasekaran of UPF, who was with Chandrika then, is
now with Rajapakse. A.Thangathurai of TULF was killed in 1997. But one of his
TULF parliamentary colleagues, V.Anandasangaree is still pursuing unsavory
political business, and pretends to lead a rump TULF, via rib-tickling media
releases and unsolicited “letters”. Its unfortunate that Ketheesh Loganathan,
who had aligned himself to President Mahinda Rajapakse’s political agenda early
this year, also had an untimely death on August
12th.
War and Peace and the Tamil Mind -
S.Sivanayagam [Sunday Observer, Colombo, Oct.16, 1994]
On
Reading the Tamil Mind - Ketheeswaran Loganathan [Sunday Observer, Colombo,
Nov.6, 1994]
On
Reading the Tamil Mind - S.Sivanayagam [Sunday Observer, Colombo, Nov.27,
1994]
War and Peace and the Tamil Mind
by S.Sivanayagam [Sunday Observer, Colombo, Oct.16, 1994]
The biggest testimony to the leadership quality of Prime Minister Chandrika
Kumaratunga lies undoubtedly in the fact that she has created a climate for
peace. It might not be an easy thing to make it endure while the war continues
to take its toll. But it has to be realised that a 11-year old war, which has
its roots in history, cannot end suddenly particularly a war of secession. Nor
can a peace settlement, however high the popular expectations are, be gone
through like a shot-gun wedding. Sustaining the climate of peace has therefore
become the need of the hour, with no major developments likely to take place
until after the presidential election. After all, an enduring climate of peace
has its other uses as well. It could be a time for a sober review of the past,
for cold, clinical analyses, objective assessments and introspection, on the
part of people and politicians alike.
Even semantics have a part to play in a peace process. There are several words
and phrases that had been overworked in Sri Lankan political usage – words like
Federalism, Terrorism, North-East merger, traditional Tamil homeland – and as a
result they have been loaded with emotive content, triggering instant knee-jerk
reactions. Prime Minister Chandrika Kumaratunga’s reported idea for a
re-demarcation of provincial boundaries was useful lateral thinking on her part
to skirt the use of words like North-East merger and Tamil homeland, while at
the same time going some way in meeting Tamil aspirations. Whether she succeeds
in it or not is another matter, but in trying to smooth out intractable
problems, there is no point in covering the same ground over and over again,
employing the same trite expressions. It would be as much an unwinnable debate,
as an unwinnable war, with every one taking fixed positions on every word and
phrase.
Unfortunately toway, even the word democracy has become a tired expression, with
no one pausing to define what it implies. For far too long, the Sri Lankan voter
has been asked to chase the shadow of democracy. Does democracy merely mean
going to the polling booth, and voting parties in and out of power? Even if it
does, where do the Tamils come into the picture? If at all they do, it would be
only to enable a Thondaman, or an Ashraff or a Chandrasekaran to tilt the
balance in favour of one or other of the majority Sinhalese parties. Electoral
arithmetic may have everything to do with sanctioning the right to rule, or the
right to be an MP but not necessarily with quantifying the democratic content of
the elections.
For example, the recent Parliamentary elections in some parts of
the North have been widely accepted asa farce, but the farce continues under the
shell of democracy. An illegitimate face of democracy has been given legitimacy.
Those who benefitted by this continue to prospect; their views are being sought
by the Colombo Press. There are others who have not won a single seat and they
too are being consulted by the Prime Minister. How far, in such circumstances,
is the popular allegation that the Tigers are unwilling to come into the
democratic mainstream valid? Before one gets puzzled by the Tiger mind, it would
be useful to understand the Tamil mind. After all, even the Tigers are creatures
of history, both ancient and contemporary.
Let us start with the process of history. When the first western invaders, the
Portuguese, came to the island at the beginning of the 16th century, there was
in existence an independent Tamil kingdom in Jaffna, co-existing with the Kotte
and Kandyan kingdoms. That was of course the era of kingdoms, when nations were
yet unborn. Both the Kotte and the Jaffna kingdoms were overrun by the
Portuguese in 1597 and 1619, and thereafter the Dutch wrested power and
controlled the maritime areas. But neither the Portuguese nor the Dutch did ever
try to merge the Sinhalese and Tamil-populated areas. The Dutch, in fact,
divided the entire maritime areas into three jurisdictions – Jaffna, Colombo and
Galle, and controlled the present northern and eastern provinces as one single
unit. Even the British, after the fall of the Kandyan kingdom in 1815 and the
decline of the Vanni chieftains by 1818, did not disturb the original
territorial divisions. Instead of exercising a single composite rule, they
administered the Colombo, Kandy and Jaffna territorial limits separately and
independently. In an oft-quoted minute, Sir Hugh Cleghorn wrote to the British
government in June 1799,
“Two different nations from a very ancient period have
divided between them the possession of the island. First the Sinhalese,
inhabiting the interior of the country in its southern and western parts,
and secondly the Malabars who possess the northern and eastern districts.
These two nations differ entirely in their religion, language, and manners.”
(Malabar meaning Tamil).
Later, in 1827, the Chief Justice of the time, Sir Alexander
Johnstone said in a communication to the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain
and Ireland:
“…I think it may safely be concluded both from them and from
all the different histories which I have in my possession, that the race of
people who inhabited the whole of the Northern and Eastern provinces at the
period of their greatest agricultural prosperity, spoke the same language,
used the same written character, and had the same origin, religion, castes,
laws and manners, as that race of people who at the same period inhabited
the southern peninsula of India…”
It was only in 1833, following the Colebrooke Commission
recommendations that the British rulers brought the entire island into a unitary
form of government, while incorporating the native administrative structures
that existed earlier. So it would seem that there is nothing sacrosanct about
changing or preserving administrative or political structures of boundaries.
They are dictated by the prevalent wisdom and needs of the times.
There is another aspect of Tamil history that is worth recalling. At a time when
the Sinhalese and Tamil elder statesmen of the 1920s (including the Ponnambalam
brothers, Ramanathan and
Arunachalam) were nibbling at
the goal of constitutional reform, there grew up in Jaffna, the Youth Congress,
imbued with the idea of total freedom for the country. Men like Handy
Perinbanayagam, influenced by the freedom movement in neighbouring India,
invited Indian leaders like Mahatma Gandhi, Kamaladevi Chattopadhya, Satyamurti
to preside over the annual sessions of the Youth Congress in Jaffna. They
planted a tricolour flag at the Jaffna esplanade and agitated for ‘Purna Swaraj’,
for the country. They organised a boycott of the elections under the Donoughmore
Constitution reforms, saying it did not go far enough towards the goal of
independence.
Elections to the Tamil seats went uncontested, until the boycott was lifted in
1934. These aspects of history are recalled, in order to show that until
independence in 1948, the Tamils had a continuous historical past in which they
were left unhampered to determine their own future, carry on with their own
lifestyles, conduct their affairs in peace, while at no time letting go their
spirit of freedom. Even during 450 years of western colonialism, they were able
to live safely in areas where they had lived for centuries.
If independence from alien rule
means something for the Sinhalese people, should it mean the same for the Tamils
as well? But what has it meant for them these past 46 years? Let alone become
victims of legislative and constitutional discrimination, and continuous State
repression, they were to be beaten up and killed, and made refugees in their own
country within ten years of independence. That was long before the cry for
separation came, and long before the present generation of Tigrs were born!
And look at the progression that the Tamil struggle had taken
over these 46 years – assertion of ‘minority rights’ (G.G.Ponnambalam),
pacts, understanding, satyagraha and demand for federalism (S.J.V.Chelvanayakam),
the seeking
of a mandate for separation (TULF), State repression, extra-parliamentary
struggle, acts of terrorism, Indian military intervention, guerrilla warfare,
and now come to the point of open combat between two armies and two navies(!).
Where were the Sinhalese leaders and the Sinhalese people during this 46-year
deterioration? As an American writer once said,
‘Far from being a stumbling block in the path of
democracy, nationalism provided its building blocks; democracy did not
sprout at random among consenting adults, but in nation states. There has
been lots of nationalism without democracy, but there has been precious
little democracy without nationalism.’
While the South was recently pre-occupied with the question
whether President Wijetunga was right or
wrong in saying that there was no ethnic problem but only a question of
terrorism, that line was crossed much earlier as far as the Tamils were
concerned. It was no longer an ethnic problem, anyway, it was one of
nationality! In short, history was leaving behind the thinking in the South.
Clinging on to the concept of a
multi-ethnic, multi-lingual, multi-religious entity, however noble it
sounds, would appear to be a case of closing the stable door after the horse had
bolted. Even
Prime Minister Chandrika Kumaratunga’s well-intentioned peace moves could be
in danger of falling into, what Professor A.J.Wilson once termed as, the ‘too
little too late’ syndrome. In which case, even an acceptable emissary to Jaffna
like Lionel Fernando could end up as ‘the last train to Jaffna’.
But having said that, one need not give away entirely to pessimism. There is
tremendous hope and expectation on both sides of the ethnic fence that a peace
settlement is not only much-needed but is within the realm of possibility. There
is an unobtrusive power behind human urges that shapes political action on the
part of leaders. Ending the war and channelling the peace dividend towards
balancing the budget, or routing it towards development and welfare measures
could be a tempting proposition. Or, relaxing the economic embargo and promising
electricity and telephones could be useful strategy in winning the hearts and
minds of the people in the North. But to bring about a durable political
settlement, a government has to look beyond self-interest and strategies. There
has to be a genuine urge to understand the Tamil mind. What makes it tick? What
is behind the Tiger phenomenon?
One hears of social scientists addressing their minds on the question of Asian
women in a male dominated region, wearing the pants in the corridors of
political power – Sirima Bandaranaike, Indira Gandhi, Corazon Aquino, Benazir
Bhutto, Khalida Zia and now Chandrika Kumaratunga, all political widows and
beneficiaries. How come a more startling scenario closer home, the activities of
women Tigers, young virgins at
that, had escaped the notice of those social scientists? A case of slective
perception obviously.
These women do actually wear pants! They drive vehicles and handle powerful
weapons. They swim and dive in the sea. They are in the forefront of battles,
with no ambitions of acquiring political power; on the contrary, they are ready
to give up their lives. They had emerged from a conservative Tamil society that
was riddled with cultural taboos only a few years ago. How did this strange
transformation take place? And why? What has driven them into such fierce
motivation? This is one aspect of the Tamil mind that needs serious inquiry. But
it is too vital a task to be left to social scientists. The onus of empathy and
a search for understanding is on the Sinhalese people, mothers, sisters and
daughters, politicians, media people and primarily on the Prime Minister, a
woman herself. In such understanding, may one submit, lies the key to peace and
a worthwhile settlement.
On Reading the Tamil Mind
by Ketheeswaran Loganathan [Sunday Observer, Colombo, Nov.6, 1994]
It is, indeed, a great pleasure that
S.Sivanayagam, former Editor
of the prestigious Jaffna-based Saturday Review during the late 70s and early
80s, and later the Editor of the pro-LTTE Tamil Nation during the late 80s,
should once again take to his mighty pen. And, I wish to say, ‘Siva, welcome
back – but, I am not surprised!’ With these homilies out of the way, let me now
proceed to place some comments on the more substantive issues raised by
Mr.Sivanayagam in his article ‘War and Peace and the Tamil Mind’ (Sunday
Observer, October 16, 1994).
Firstly, I do not consider as significant, Sivanayagam’s hackneyed reference to
the ‘Cleghorn Minutes’ which is often cited by most Tamil nationalists to
substantiate the ‘Two National Theory’ (i.e. ‘Two different nations from a very
ancient period have divided between them the possession of the Island’ – Sir
Hugh Cleghorn, 1799). The mere impressions of a colonialist penned down two
centuries ago is hardly adequate to support the case for a separate entity for
the Tamil people – or for that matter, the secessionist demand for ‘Tamil
Eelam’.
What is undeniable is that the Tamil people do have their own distinct identity
and it is because they were oppressed as a People and excluded from the process
of nation-building of a unified Sri Lanka, that the demand for secession began
to gain validity. Not otherwise – and certainly not as a result of an emotive
and an abstract ‘birth right’ based on the ‘glories of the past’.
Further, even this does not in anyway invalidate another truism, namely, that
Sri Lanka is also multi-ethnic,
multi-lingual and a multi-religious society bound together by a common
destiny. This is a contemporary reality that S.Sivanayagam cannot ignore or wish
away. Instead, he is of the opinion that, to quote, ‘clinging on to the concept
of a multi-ethnic, multi-lingual, multi-religious entity, however, noble it
sounds, would appear to be a cae of closing the stable door after the horse has
bolted.’ He then proceeds to argue, ‘to bring about a durable political
settlement, a government has to look beyond self-interest and strategies. There
has to be a genuine urge to understand the Tamil mind. What makes it tick? What
is behind the Tiger phenomenon?’
Yes! Any government of a multi-ethnic or a multi-national state, such as Sri
Lanka, that is serious about nation building on the basis of secularism and
pluralist democracy, must necessarily rise above narrow sectarian and parochial
interests. In our particular context, such a government must come to grips with
the legitimate aspirations and grievances of the Tamil people and other national
minorities. Unfortunately, our past experiences have been otherwise. And I
totally accept, without any reservations, Sivanayagam’s sketch of the
experiences of the Tamil people with
broken pacts and unkept
promises.
But, the past is there for lessons to be learnt from, so that mistakes are not
repeated. The past cannot and must not be allowed to stand in the way of any
sincere attempts at seeking a rational, equitable and a durable solution to the
ethnic question – just as much as the colonial legacy should not be allowed to
shape the destiny of post-colonial socio-economic formation of Sri Lanka. We owe
this to our future generation. I trust that the present PA government, under the
leadership of Chandrika, has the courage and the political will to reshape the
future – a future where diversity is perceived as a source of national strength,
not as a threat to national unity.
But, the question that I wish to pose to Sivanayagam is what has the ‘Tamil
mind’ got to do with the ‘Tiger phenomenon’? Sivanayagam repeats this curious
combination later in his article when he argues that: ‘Before one gets puzzled
by the Tiger mind, it would be useful to understand the Tamil mind’. There can
be no doubt that Sivanayagam is presenting a case for equating the Tiger
interests with Tamil interests. If so, then the only interpretation that could
be given to Sivanayagam’s veiled and laboured argument is that whether the
Tiger’s do right or wrong, that is what the Tamil people deserve. In short, the
Tigers are the sole representative and the sole arbiter of the Tamil interests.
And if the Tigers end up as the destroyers of Tamil interests, then that is
their sole right! The ‘Tamil mind’ is stuck with this ‘Tiger phenomenon’,
whether that homogenous and holistic concepts that Sivanayagam calls the ‘Tamil
mind’, likes it or not!
All that I can say is that as a Tamil, with a mind of his own and the interests
of the Tamil people at heart, I find this argument reprehensible and repugnant.
The LTTE leadership’s drive for hegemony through the process of physical
elimination of Tamil leaders, political cadres, and intellectuals, who refuse to
accept their blood-soaked pursuit of hegemony, and culminating in their penchant
for keeping the people in areas under their control in a perpetual state of war
and fear psychosis, in my opinion, disqualifies the LTTE from being labelled the
sole, legitimate representative of the Tamil people. Further, the terror tactics
adopted by the LTTE against Sinhalese and Muslim civilians, as well as their
political leadership, is neither supported by the majority of the Tamil people –
nor is it the product of the ‘Tamil mind’.
Of course, there is no denying the long history of State terrorism and the role
played by successive governments in Colombo turning a blind eye to, or even
sponsoring, atrocities against the Tamil people as a means of terrorizing them
into submission. But the Tamil Resistance that emerged as a result, initially as
a non-violent movement and later as an armed struggle, had nothing to do with
the ‘Tiger phenomenon’. On the contrary, it was much later that the ‘Tiger
phenomenon’ was to introduce into the Tamil resistance, as whole, certain
distortions and aberrations which eventually led to the Tamil people being
emasculated in a vice grip by self-proclaimed ‘liberators’.
But, Sivanayagam is entitled to his opinion – and his democratic right to
espouse that opinion. Likewise, I reserve the right to exercise my democratic
right and espouse my opinion irrespective of whether it is consonant with the
‘Tiger phenomenon’ or not. I know for certain, that my opinion is shared by
other ‘Tamil minds’ – and so does Sivanayagam. That in itself is sufficient to
explode the myth of the homogenous ‘Tamil mind’.
Another argument advanced by Sivanayagam is that if the Tigers refuse to come
into the democratic process, they are not to be blamed since the electoral
processes in Sri Lanka is a farce. While it cannot be disputed that the
electoral processes in Sri Lanka is far from perfect and the recent polls in the
North (i.e. Vanni and Jaffna) an unmitigated farce, that is no justification to
turn a blind eye to the violations of fundamental democratic and human rights by
the Tigers against the very people that they claim to solely represent. When the
LTTE is called upon to enter the democratic process, it is not just elections
one is talking about. Instead, one is talking about the political dissidents who
are languishing in LTTE torture chambers! One is also talking about the
hegemonic control that the LTTE has established, over mind and matter, which
determine the day to day existence of the people of Jaffna.
Sivanayagam concludes his article by placing an immense burden on the ‘Sinhalese
people, mothers, sisters and daughters, politicians, media people and
primarily…The Prime Minister’ to come to grips with, in his words, the ‘firece
motivation of the women Tigers, young virgins at that…who are in the forefront
of battles with no ambitions of acquiring political power’. He labels this
process a ‘startling transformation’, while simultaneously engaging in unabashed
glorification.
It occurs to me that the burden of explaining this ‘startling transformation’
lies with Sivanayagam himself. If the Tiger cadres, male or female, have no
ambitions of acquiring political power, then who has these ambitions? The Tiger
leadership and their ‘cheer leaders’ who glorify death and destruction? If Tamil
Eelam is the objective, how then is that possible without capturing political
power?
If ‘Tamil Eelam’ is not the objective, what then does the
Tiger leadership tell the cadres, male or female, who are sent on suicide
missions? What does the LTTE leadership tell the fathers, mothers, sisters and
brothers of the martyrs who were driven by a ‘fierce motivation’ to kill and to
die? That their siblings and loved ones were merely carrying out orders of their
Supremo and that they had no visions, ambitions, goals or objectives – only a
‘fierce motivation’ to die for their leader? If that is so, is not the ‘Tiger
phenomenon’ a simple leader? If that is so, is not the ‘Tiger phenomenon’ a
simple case of nihilism that has become internalized at the level of the
leadership, with the Tiger cadres merely constituting its external
manifestation? Are not the Tiger cadres, then, as much victims as those at the
receiving end of this senseless bloodletting?
These are questions to which Mr.Sivanayagam has to provide an answer. There is
no point in mystifying the ‘Tiger phenomenon’ by placing the burden on the
‘Tamil mind’ or, for that matter, the ‘Sinhala mind’! What we need to know is
what is in your own mind?
On Reading the Tamil Mind
by S.Sivanayagam [Sunday Observer, Colombo, Nov.27, 1994]
While it is hoped that President Chandrika’s emphatic victory would bring about
a sea [of] change in the political outlook of the country, one cannot meanwhile
let Ketheeswaran Loganathan’s polite response (Sunday Observer, Nov.6) to my
article, ‘War and Peace and the Tamil Mind’ (Sunday Observer, Oct.16) pass by
without an equally polite rejoinder.
Ketheeswaran says: ‘First, I do not consider as significant Sivanayagam’s
hackneyed reference to the Cleghorn Minute which is often cited by most Tamil
nationalists to substantiate the ‘two nation theory’. If 200 years ago, at the
very advent of British rule, a colonial governor saw ‘two different nations’
‘who had divided between them the possession of the island’, that was
significant in itself. But my reference to the Cleghorn Minute was only one of
several sign-posts of history that I cited in order to show in what direction
Tamil history in this island had evolved. It would be ludicrous for anyone to
hold up the Cleghorn Minute of 1799 as the basis for making a case for a
separate Tamil entity circa 1994. I did not do so in my article, so Ketheeswaran
was wasting his breath in shooting down a clay pigeon which he himself tossed in
the air.
Ketheeswaran gets on to slippery ground when he refers to a ‘truism’ and
‘contemporary reality’ which he says I cannot ignore or wish away. What is this
‘contemporary reality’? ‘Sri Lanka’, he says,
‘is a multi-ethnic, multi-lingual,
multi-religious society bound together by a common destiny’. One certainly
wishes it was true, but some pertinent questions arise. If Sri Lanka was truly a
multi-ethnic society bound together by a common destiny, what was the need for
the ethnic cleansing in the East
that has been going on since independence, forcing Tamils bred there for
centuries, to evacuate their habitats to make way for state-aided Sinhalese
colonisation? If Sri Lanka was a multi-lingual society, what was the need in
1956 to make Sinhalese the sole
official language? If Sri Lanka is a multi-religious society, where was the
need to give Buddhism a
privileged position in the 1972 constitution?
A unity built on diversity becomes a society, as in the United States, for
example. Ketheeswaran himself quite correctly points out ‘Tamils were
oppressed as a people and excluded from
the process of nation-building of a unified Sri Lanka’. Once a section of the
people are excluded on ethnic, linguistic and religious grounds, it ceases to be
a unified society. What it merely means is that there are people of differing
ethnicity, language and religion who constitute the population of this island –
‘hardly adequate to support the case’ (in Ketheeswaran’s own words) for a
unified nation.
It was Nelson Mandela who said ‘Societies that make diversity a strength
prosper; and those that don’t will be the new Bosnias’. Mandela should have said
this to the Ceylonese politicians in the mid fifties. Indeed,
Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew
offered similar advice later, but there was no one to listen.
What has evidently soured Ketheeswaran’s mind, is my reference to the ‘Tiger
mind’ and the ‘Tamil mind’. He gets on to a futuristic plane and a
self-inflicted nightmare in which he envisages the Tigers ending up as ‘the
destroyers of Tamil interests’. If they do so, they certainly do not deserve
sympathy. But as a detached observer, as an optimist by nature, and not
belonging to any militant or political group or party, I have no vested
interests; and hence no need to take a roller-coaster dive and foresee a
destruction of Tamil interests. He says the Tigers are ‘self proclaimed
liberators’. But are they the only ones?
I find that my old friend Thangathurai is the organisational secretary of the
Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF). There is the People’s Liberation
Organisation of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE), whatever that might mean. There is the
Tamil Eelam Liberation Organisation (TELO). There is the Eelam National
Democratic Liberation Front (ENDLF). Ketheeswaran himself is an able
theoretician of the EPRLF, which is not only revolutionary but a Liberation
Front. In fact, the Tamil people have never been short of liberators. What seems
to be the difference between the ‘self-proclaimed liberators’ in the LTTE and
other self-proclaimed liberators is that the former is at least in the
liberation business!
Ketheeswaran says he has a mind of his own, that there are also others with
minds of their own, different from mine. What he probably means is, he has views
and opinions of his own and so have other Tamils. Good, let a thousand opinions
bloom! It used to be said of Irishmen – banteringly of course – that when ten of
them met, there is bound to be eleven opinions on any given subject! We Tamils
too have that Irish streak in us. We are rugged individualists with born
critical minds; particularly the academic ‘intellectual species’ among us, who
could be depended on to be far more tolerant of an identifiable enemy than their
fellow Tamils. We like to be our own leaders. But when I wrote of the ‘Tamil
Mind’, that is not what I meant. It is the distilled reservoir of a cumulative
Tamil thought – process, shaped by their past history, their experiences,
suffering and aspirations, and eventually finding voice in one single call for
action.
The Tamil United Liberation Front
reached that
point, perhaps unwittingly, in 1976, but
retraced its steps soon after the
1977 elections. The LTTE as I see it, is only
trying to carry forward the mandate the Tamil people gave the TULF in 1977, with
the difference that they have taken recourse to an extra-parliamentary armed
struggle. But for that difference (to which other Tamil liberation groups did
also subscribe at one time) I don’t see, in terms of political objective, any
difference between the ‘Tiger mind’ and the ‘Tamil mind’.
Ketheeswaran is also disturbed by what he thinks are LTTE tactics and strategies
in the process of carrying forward the struggle to which they are committed, in
commenting about which he uses harsh words. Those alas, need the verdict of
history. We have witnessed in recent memory epoch-making developments in the
world outside, particularly in Europe and the Middle East, that compel us to
revise our mind-sets. In Sri Lanka itself, within the last six months, we have
seen developments that were both shattering as well as pathfinding ones.
In Mrs.Chandrika Kumaratunga, Sri Lanka has a President who is not only endowed
with several ‘C’s – Conviction, Commitment, Charisma, Courage, but an unswerving
dedication towards finding a peaceful political settlement. If she can roll back
the political history of the island by forty years, she would have made true
what Ketheeswaran incorrectly referred to as ‘a contemporary reality’,
notwithstanding what her own father the late S.W.R.D.Bandaranaike who once said,
‘Rivers never flow backwards.’ But they could always be diverted! |
