Stage set for home-grown solution

Our page one lead news story of yesterday under the exhilarating heading, ‘Sri Lankans uniting against division’, could easily count as one of the most joyous items of information the public has been regaled with over the past few months. There is good reason to look to the future in a spirit of cautious optimism because the TNA leader has reportedly told Indian Lok Sabha Opposition Leader Sushma Swaraj that he wanted the Tamil community to live within a united Sri Lanka. The TNA chief had gone on to say that this process could be facilitated through the evolving of ‘a genuine political settlement.’

This is a most noteworthy development because those sections of the political elite of the North, which have been predominant in the affairs of the relevant public, could be said to be ridding itself of the language of division and separatism. It is a qualitative improvement on the species of policy thinking which has been holding sway thus far. It is not clear whether the totality of the Northern political elite shares the views of TNA leader R. Sampanthan, but in so far as the TNA chief remains in charge of his party and the TNA continues as a principal political formation of the North-East, the seeming change in policy outlook could be said to be remarkable.

We need to stress that we are here speaking in terms of only the North-East political elite because it is not at all clear whether the majority of the North-East population subscribes to the ideology of separatism. The Vadukkodai Declaration of the mid nineteen seventies which laid the basis for the explosive and disastrous separatist brand of politics was an invention of the North-East political elite and it is an open question whether the ordinary people had a decisive voice in the deliberative process which led to the raising of the Eelam slogan.

In other words, it is not at all clear as to what degree the policy-making process which led to the raising of the Eelam cry was democratic and inclusive. Be that as it may, what is beyond dispute is that separatist politics in the North-East only brought immense suffering and turmoil for the ordinary people. Nothing was gained and everyone concerned came out of the conflict badly battered and virtually ruined.

Now that there is a dominant tendency within the TNA to subscribe to a non-separatist platform, the stage could be seen as having been set for the working out of a political solution, premised on a united, geographically whole and intact Sri Lanka. The state should lose no time in making the best out of this situation and launch the Parliamentary Select Committee which would be charged with finding a home-grown solution to the conflict.

As some observers have pointed out, the TNA leader’s statement to the effect that he is for the Tamil people living within a united Sri Lanka is a veritable slap in the face of those separatist forces in Tamil Nadu which are doing their utmost to reintroduce separatist politics to North-East Sri Lanka. These foreign separatist forces are clearly out of step with the times. There are vibrant and youthful sections among the North-East population today, who totally and vehemently reject the Eelam slogan and who are intent on working along with the state for a better tomorrow for the people of their provinces. This, the TNA leader has, perhaps, come to realize but not the fire-breathing separatists of Tamil Nadu.

Therefore, no time should be lost. The political process must be kick-started and a deliberative process which is inclusive of every shade of important political opinion in this country launched to work out a home-grown solution to the issues facing our communities. In this exercise, all eyes that count need to be focused on the issues at hand and negotiations conducted in earnest to resolve them.

An important consideration that needs to be borne in mind is that every effort must be made to prevent our issues from being internationalized. As the TNA must have realized by now, such tendencies could only further complicate the questions to be resolved. Outside interference helped in only deepening the country’s political divisions. Such mistakes must be avoided from now on.