Forget Prabhakaran. What about the Tamils?

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What “Tamil cause” is the LTTE fighting for? Of all the horrifying TV footage of recent days, one was heartrending: Decrepit Tamils in their hundreds trying to escape from the war zone and a few LTTE cadres shooting at them to keep them hostage.

A lakh and half had already escaped. If a few thousand of the remaining population were retained as human shield, Prabhakaran could hope for international opinion to force a slowing of Sri Lankan military operations on humanitarian grounds. In his desperation he forgot that Mahinda Rajapakse was as ruthless as he himself. If the leader of the Tamils could cynically sacrifice a few thousand Tamils, the Sri Lankan President could do so with greater cynicism, international opinion or no international opinion.

Rajapakse may be answerable for a great many criminalities including the murder of Sinhalese public figures who criticised his dictatorial ways. But he cannot be faulted for seeking the elimination of the LTTE, for LTTE’s aim was to partition the country. In 1962, C.N. Annadurai asked in Parliament for “ a separate country for southern India”. A shocked Parliament passed the 16th Amendment (popularly called the anti-secessionist bill) which banned any party with sectarian principles from contesting elections.

Annadurai was statesman enough to accept the reality and adjust his party objectives accordingly. What would have happened if he had insisted on an independent Tamil Nadu, eliminated the leaders of all other Tamil parties and taken to arms and suicide squads? Prabhakaran harmed his own cause by asking for the impossible.

Prabhakaran’s end may give the Sri Lankan Government a sense of triumph. In fact, President Rajapakse’s challenge only begins now. If he rough-handles the Tamils as a defeated people, he will be proving himself no better than Prabhakaran. Of Sri Lanka’s 20 million citizens, as many as 18 percent are Tamil. They have legitimate rights. It will be folly to ignore these.

Language is too powerful a political factor for politicians to play with. Pakistan suppressed the legitimate sentiments of its Bengali citizens and the result was the breakup of Pakistan. The pulls of language were stronger than those of religion. Even in today’s Pakistan, the rivalries between Sindhis and Punjabis and Baluchis are serious enough to threaten the nation’s future. There were language riots in Karachi in 1972 when the Sindh Assembly made Sindhi the official language of the province alongside Urdu.

There were language riots in Nepal in 2008 over a silly issue. The new Vice President Parmanand Jha, being a native of southern Nepalese plains adjoining India, took his oath in Hindi. The highland Nepalese took that as an affront to their national language. The violence lasted a week.



Language patriotism can sometimes be stupidly emotional. Tarring English signboards is one example. A more sinister example was witnessed in Assam in the early 1960s when there was an agitation for the inclusion of Assamese in the 8th Schedule of the Constitution. One of the methods the more radical agitators adopted was killing of Bengali settlers in Assam, often brutally.

Compared to the Assamese and the Nepalese, the Tamils of Sri Lanka have a strong case. For them it is their educational and job opportunities that are at stake. If these are wisely handled, the Rajapakse Government may yet gain a mention among the makers of Asia. If not, it will be a footnote among the wreckers. And Sri Lanka will become a duplicate of the Israel-Gaza calamity.

The double tragedy of Lankan Tamils

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The real failure of the LTTE is that, instead of furthering the cause of the Lankan Tamils, it actually spoiled it. When the war was on, the majority of the Tamil population was either fleeing the country or held hostage by the militants. Now that the LTTE has lost the war, the Tamils as a whole will have to wear the badge of a defeated people – and face the consequences.

This is a double tragedy. First, the Tamils have a just cause. For half a century they have been victims of injustice and discrimination of a kind that no civilised society can justify. It began with Solomon Bandaranaike who, despite his left-wing claims, was a cheap populist. As Prime Minister in 1956 he proclaimed Sinhalese as the only recognised language of the country. As if to demonstrate the futility of vote-bank gimmicks, he was shot dead by a Sinhala extremist, even as language riots rocked the country.

Instead of learning some quick lessons, Sirimavo Bandaranaike made her husband’s blunder worse. She passed an education law in 1973 which effectively denied college admissions to Tamils even if they scored higher marks than Sinhalese students. Never was discrimination so blatant in a democracy.

Driven to the wall, Tamils revolted. But where could they turn? Sri Lanka was a functioning parliamentary system. Many Tamil leaders were active in the system. But the Sirimavo brand of foolish insensitivity snuffed out democratic hopes. This was where the second tragedy unfolded for the Tamils. With all future prospects barred to them through the education law, young Tamils were ready and willing to take to armed militancy. Enter Velupillai Prabhakaran. Evidently he was an excellent organiser and capable military strategist. But his political strategy was doomed from the start.

No sovereign country in today’s world will accept the idea of partition. Yet, that was the sole, non-negotiable goal Prabhakaran set for himself. He went further and insisted that he would be the sole, non-negotiable leader of all Tamils.

The result was serial murders that shocked Tamils as well as others. Prabhakaran’s agents relentlessly tracked down and killed leaders of Lankan Tamil groups one after another. Among them were Ministers, MPs, Mayors of Jaffna. Some were killed on Indian soil. Some of his own military commanders were shot for disagreeing with him. It was over the corpses of his fellow Tamils that Prabhakaran established his dictatorial hegemony.

One day or other this politically unviable rebel group was bound to be called to account by the full power of the Sri Lankan state. The present state, headed by President Mahinda Rajapaksa has succeeded because its own ways are quite ruthless. Even Sinhalese citizens who questioned some of the activities of the Government were summarily liquidated. Sri Lanka is known for a free press. Many journalists, including some leading editors, have been murdered after they reported high-level corruption by people close to the President.

Will this be the approach as the Government now turns to the problem of the Tamil population? Obviously discrimination must end and Tamil citizens of Lanka must have the rights and freedoms others enjoy. Otherwise the country will become a permanent guerilla war zone.

The Prabhakaran problem could be solved by armed might. The Tamil problem can be solved only by wisdom and statesmanship. If the Government tries to win by killing its opponents, it will only be flattering Prabhakaran by imitation.