A review of Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka’s latest book, Long
War, Cold Peace:
Devolution bad for Ceylon and worse for Tamils -- G. G.
Ponnambalam
H. L. D. Mahindapala
My friend Dayan Jayatilleka takes great pride and pleasure in
branding himself as a “political scientist”. That is his right and
privilege. Besides, it is a term very fashionable in academic circles
even though the research in this pseudo-science has not yielded the kind
of positive results like the scientific research that produced aspirin
or viagra. Marx and Engels, the two most influential sociologists of the
20th century, were the first to claim in the 19th century that unlike
other “utopian sociologies” theirs was “scientific socialism”. There is
no need to elaborate on this claim as we all know how it ended in Berlin
and China. That apart, this claim imposes on Dayan certain obligations
to retain that title. A scientist working to establish universal and
unalterable laws of nature /history cannot loosely make assertions which
do not accord with reality. His/her calculations and analyses cannot
brush aside the realities that contradict his/her theses and pretend
that they don’t exist, or can be overlooked.
The absolute test of a scientist is to be dead accurate to the last
decimal point. For instance, Dayan refers constantly to a 30-year-old
war in his book Long War, Cold Peace. That would take him to a date
three years after the war was declared by the Vadukoddians. The
Vadukoddai Resolution which declared war on May 14, 1976 cannot be
erased by the arbitrary dismissals of “political scientists”. The
duration of a war is calculated from the date it was declared officially
to the date on which came to an end. Accordingly, the dating of the
Vadukoddai War should begin from May 14, 1976 and end in May 18, 2009,
which adds up to 33 years, give or take a few days. So on what political
science has Dayan concluded that it is a 30-year-old war and not 33
years?
G. G. Ponnambalam |
Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka |
SWRD Bandaranaike |
However, it must be said that there is total confusion on this date.
BBC says 26 years. Even the Ministry of Defence is not clear when the
war began and when the war ended. This detail may seem rather trivial.
But getting this date correct is important not only for historiographers
(present and future) but also to those who are attempting to bring peace
and reconciliation. Clarity of knowing what happened precisely in the
past is vital for the reconstruction of the future. It also can
determine as to who should be held responsible for unleashing violence
when the options were open for non-violent negotiations as seen in the
case of the other two Tamil-speaking communities -- the Muslims and the
Indians. Besides, at the end of a 33-year-old war -- the longest running
war in Asia -- haven’t the Vadukoddians who opted for the military
solution in 1976 come back to negotiations in the post-Nandikadal phase,
beginning in May 2009?
Two factors are critical in fixing the date at 1976. First,
Velupillai Prabhakaran, restructured and renamed his war machine in
April 1976 as Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) making it the
juggernaut that carried the Vadukoddai violence to its bitter end in
Nandikadal. He became the official war lord of the violence endorsed in
the Vadukoddai Resolution. The resolution called upon the youth to take
up arms and never shirk until they achieved Eelam. It was the ideology
that Prabhakaran pursued to his last waking minute in Nandikadal.
Second, the entire Jaffna elite, led by S. J. Velupillai Chelvanayakam,
the so-called Gandhian, officially endorsed the military solution in
passing the Vadukoddai Resolution in May 1976. Velupillai Chelvanayakam
who led the Federal Party, scrutinised and endorsed every word of the
Vadukoddai Resolution, as stated by his son-in-law, Prof.
LTTE killing machine
A. J. Wilson in his biography of the father of Tamil separatism
(p.128 - S. J. V. Chelvanayakam and the Crisis of Sri Lankan Tamil
Nationalism, 1947 - 1977, A. J. Wilson).
Legitimising Vadukoddai violence officially by Velupillai
Chelvanayakam, “the trousered Gandhi” (Ibid - p.95), is as important as
the LTTE war machine that was launched in the same year. The convergence
of the two forces in 1976 -- one at the top in Vadukoddai and the other
at the lower-level with Prabhakaran carrying out the violence
legitimised by the Vellahla leadership -- cannot be ignored in
determining the the date of the Vadukoddai War. It is true that
Velupillai Prabhakaran began his killings in May 1975 when he gunned
down Alfred Duraiyappah, the mild-mannered Mayor of Jaffna. But the
official endorsement for the Vadukoddai violence and the launching of
the LTTE killing machine for the Vadukoddai violence came within one
month of each other in 1976. It is the convergence of two forces that
over-determined the politics of the post-Vadukoddai period.
What happened in Vadukoddai in 1976 is absolutely critical: the
Vellahla elite handed their power to Velupillai Prabhakaran hoping to
ride on their backs to power. It was the deliberately chosen means of
speeding up “the little now and more later” policy of Velupillai
Chelvanayakam through the guns of Velupillai Prabhakaran. Resorting to
violence in any situation is a huge gamble which could go either way.
And it did turn against the entire Vellahla elite who opted for the
military solution in Vadukoddai.
The Vellahla elite handed the guns to the lower-level to target the
Sinhala south. But the first victims were the fathers of the Vadukoddai
Resolution. Velupillai Prabhakaran, the first born son of Velupillai
Chelvanayakam’s Vadukoddai Resolution, devoured their fathers. Violence
has a way of recoiling and hitting the very sources from which it came.
The Tamil Tigers were the brutal Jacobins who decimated their own
leadership as in the French Revolution. In modern terms, Prabhakaran
became “the latest Pol Pot of Asia” (James Burns, New York Times) -- the
mass murderer of his own people. The Vellahla elite reaped the violence
they sowed.
History records that the two Velupillais jointly took to violence on
an organised scale in 1976. Prof. Wilson concedes that both groups
coalesced in the mid-seventies. (Ibid- 128). Though both took place in
two different dates, within a space of one month, of the same year, the
ideology spun at the top and the execution of it by the lower-level
dovetailed neatly to produce the horrors of the post-Vadukoddai period.
Both groups abandoned mainstream non-violent politics to pursue violence
to the bitter end as laid down in the Vadukoddai Resolution. The
legitimising of mono-ethnic violence at the highest level gave the
required political cover for Velupillai Prabhakaran to perpetrate and
perpetuate his brutal violence.
For the first time in the history of Jaffna the Vellahlas embraced
the non-Vellahlas as their “boys” in Vadukoddai. It was a deadly
combination. Vadukoddai Resolution was the extremist fire that was lit
at one end of a dry rope of mono-ethnic extremism that burnt slowly but
surely until it hit the powder keg packed by Velupillai Prabhakaran.
Appapillai Amirthalingam and his band of Tamil lawyers defended their
“boys” violence in courts. Velupillai Chelvanayakam even garlanded
Sivakumaran’s statue, one of the first militants who attempted to
assassinate a Police Superintendent. He even accepted a human blood mark
placed on his forehead instead of the customary yellow pottu that
represents holiness in Hinduism. (Ibid - 119).
This sketch was outlined to highlight the incorrigible commitment of
the Left-wingers and academics to churn out books on contemporary Sri
Lankan politics without factoring in the dynamics of mono-ethnic
politics that generated extremist violence in peninsular politics. I am
afraid, that is precisely what Dayan has done. He has resorted to the
Vellahla-NGO trick of blaming the Sinhalese. Example: blaming D. S.
Senanayake for rupturing the north-south relations by introducing the
Citizenship Act even though it was done with the consent of all the
leading community leaders, including G. G. Ponnambalam, the sole
representative of the Jaffna Tamils at the time. From the ethnic
leaders, the notable exception was that of Thondaman, who was partly
responsible for the failure of the Indian workers to register in time
for citizenship. In a knee-jerk reaction he first asked the Indian
workers not to register and when he realised his blunder and asked them
to register at the eleventh hour it was rather late and thousands missed
out.
Dayan’s accusation of D. S. Senanayake as the first cause for the
breakdown of inter-ethnic-relations flies in the face of the historical
realities. Velupillai Chelvanayakam was an unknown deputy to prominent
Ponnambalam at the time. When the deputy breaks away from the leader on
grounds of personal rivalry (Chelvanayakam considered Ponnambalam to be
his “implacable foe” (Ibid- p. 46)) why should D. S. Senanayake be
blamed for defining Ceylon citizenship on a solid foundation of
consensual politics? I am revisiting this issue again because it reveals
the habitual tendency of the Left-wing and anti-Sinhala-Buddhist
intellectuals to blame everything on the Sinhalese and exonerate the
Jaffna Tamils.
Jaffna-centric propaganda
Even when the Srima-Shastri agreement accepted the fact that the
stateless Indian estate workers were citizens of India and should be
repatriated to their homeland “Chelvanayakam denounced the deal as “a
pact between racialists”, an overreaction partly explained by his
helplessness in the face of arrangements made between two sovereign
states.” (ibid -p. 102). Then again, nationalisation of the commanding
heights of the economy -- a policy hailed almost universally as a
progressive move to eliminate the ills of capitalism in the post-World
War II phase -- was condemned by Chelvanyakam as “Sinhalisation” (Ibid
-- p. 100 & 121). Earlier, G. G. Ponnambalam went before the Soulbury
Commission and decried the cooperative movement -- a global movement of
grass root people to have a grip on the rapacious market place -- as
discrimination against the Tamil traders. Dayan, unfortunately, has
accepted uncritically this Jaffna-centric propaganda of blaming the
Sinhalese. Surely, the anti-Sinhala paranoia and propaganda, based on
mono-ethnic extremism of the north, cannot be logically and rationally
elevated to the level of “political science”. But that is standard
narrative propagated by “political/social scientists” who occupy chairs
in the universities, both at home and abroad.
I haven’t come across a single anti-Sinhala-Buddhist tract, starting
from Prof. S. J. Tambiah’s Buddhism Betrayed?, that has deviated in any
significant way from the mono-ethnic thrust of Jaffna-centric politics
that demonised the south. This overworked line is perpetuated to this
day to whitewash the oppressive, brutal and violent political culture of
Jaffna. From Tambiah to Dayan the political line has been to rationalise
Jaffna-centric mono-ethnic extremism and blame the Sinhala south for
everything that went awry. The long line of academics argue that if the
Sinhala south had been more accommodating the violence could have been
avoided. But none of them have paused to ask: if the Sinhala south was
that chauvinistic refusing to accommodate the minorities, or to live and
let live in a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic society, how did they
co-exist in relative peace and harmony with the other two Tamil-speaking
Muslims and Indians, resolving differences through negotiations? Why did
the Sinhalese fail only with the Jaffna Tamils of the north? If so what
are the factors that militated against resolving differences
non-violently with the north only?
Take the example of Dayan blaming D.S. Senanayake, accusing him of
striking the first blow against inter-ethnic relations by introducing
the Citizenship Bill. Here again he repeats Jaffna-centric propaganda
without taking into consideration historical realities. Prof. K. M. de
Silva, Sri Lanka’s foremost historian, has outlined in two brilliant
essays (see The Ceylon Journal of Historical and Social Studies Vol II
July -December 1972 and Vol III January June 1973) how Sir. Ponnambalam
Arunachalam left the Ceylon National Congress, causing the first rupture
between the Sinhalese and the Jaffna Tamils. G. C. Mendis, writing in
the era of pre-politicized history, also pointed out that the
communalism, whipped up in the thirties, (by G. G. Ponnambalam), caused
the rising tensions between the two communities in the south. So
according to respected historians it is not the Sinhalese who made the
first move to break up inter-ethnic relations. The root cause has been
invariably the intransigence, arrogance and the short-sighted
calculations of the Jaffna Tamils overestimating their power and
underestimating the power of the Sinhalese.
Devolution of power
D. S. Senanayake, on the contrary, went out of his way to bring all
the communities together in every which way and he proved himself to the
consummate master of consensual politics. If Dayan had done his
homework, as a “political scientist” ought to, he would know that the
following voted for Indian Residents (Citizenship) Bill: G. G.
Ponnambalam, KC., T. B. Jayah, H. Ismail, K. Kanagaratnam, Gate Mudliyar
M. S. Kariyapar, V. Nalliah, Mudliyar M. M. Ebrahim, S. U.
Ethirimannasingham, J. Aubrey Martensz, Maj. J. W. Oldfield, CMG, OBE,
S. A Pakeman, OBE, MC, EB, historian, T.Ramalinkam, A. Sinnalebbe, E. E.
Spencer and A.L. Thambiyah. (Hansard Col. 592 -- December 10, 1948).
Dayan will agree that none of them is a Sinhala-Buddhist chauvinist bent
on rupturing inter-ethnic relations.
Dayan’s surrender to Prof. (Buddhism Betrayed) Tambiah’s line is also
seen in his reference to Anagarika Dharmapala (1864 - 1933) without a
commensurate reference/judgement on Arumuka Navalar (1822 - 1879), the
rabid caste fanatic who consolidated the political power and status of
the Vellahlas -- one of the most decisive factors in peninsular politics
that spilled over to the rest of the nation in the post-independence
period. Like all Left-wing ideologues Dayan is wont to repeat the Jaffna-centric
propaganda rather than analyse critically the divisive and violent
forces that spilled over from the north into the south, exacerbating
inter-ethnic relations beyond redemption. So he merrily repeats the
hacked political propaganda of blaming “chauvinistic” southern politics,
contradicting his own claim that the north-south crisis cannot be
categorised in either/or terms but only as and/and. He repeats how young
S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike championed federalism in the twenties, soon
after he arrived from Oxford. But obviously he does not know that G. G.
Ponnambalam had rejected proposals for district councils -- let alone
provincial councils and federalism -- saying that they were “bad for
Ceylon and worse for Tamils” (Wilson - 108).
So which of the two statements is valid for contemporary times and
for the future as well? Ponnambalam’s rejection of devolution of powers
to the periphery has a greater significance as it comes from a leader
who argued for 50 - 50.The rejection of devolutionary powers even at the
level of district councils by Ponnambalam overrides Bandaranaike’s idea
of federalism. If devolution was bad at the grass root level how can it
be valid at the higher federal level? Ponnambalam rejected the District
Council proposal when the Federal Party was negotiating the modalities
for devolution of power with the Prime Minister, Dudley Senanayake. In
fact, M. Tiruchelvam, who was the Minister for Local Government in
Dudley Senanayake’s National Government, had drafted the legislation for
District Councils. It was a concrete proposal and “Tiruchelvam
acknowledged in the Senate that the Prime Minister had “tried his best
to honour his promise” by introducing the District Council Bill.” (Ibid
- 109). It was at this critical stage that Ponnambalam rejected
devolution. He said that he rejected District Council on the principle
that it was “bad for Ceylon and worse for Tamils”.
Dayan’s text does not reveal any knowledge of these developments when
he quotes only Bandaranaike’s theory of federalism. Nevertheless, he
hangs on to Bandaranaike’s statement obviously because it is favourable
to his pet theory of enforcing the 13th Amendment. In keeping with
academic objectivity, it is imperative that he balances it with
Ponnambalam’s outright rejection of Chelvanayakam’s district councils
and federalism. Ponnambalam even argued that Illankai Tamil Arasu
Kachchi meant a separate state and not federalism. He didn’t see any
advantage in it for the nation or the Tamils. So which leader’s argument
are we to accept?
Ponnambalam and Bandaranaike were contemporaries who set the stage
for the post-independence phase in inter-ethnic relations. They were the
two key pioneers who shaped the ideologies on which the post-independent
nation parted company. After Ponnambalam it was only a hop, step and a
jump for Chelvanayakam, his junior, to take mono-ethnic extremism to the
lowest possible level. Peninsular politics was focused on political
rivals becoming the sole representative of the Jaffnaites. When
Ponnambalam, the new comer to Jaffna politics,arrived on the scene he
took to communalism to beat the established aristocracy of turbaned
Mahadevas (p.327, Communal Politics under the Donoughmore Constitution,
1931 - 1947, Jane Russell,) and he succeeded. Chelvanyakam took the next
step and took 50 - 50 to separatism -- the last step -- to beat
Ponnambalam who dominated Jaffna and he too succeeded. After Ponnambalam
there was no room for mainstream democratic politics to gain the
upperhand. His rejection of all offers pushed Jaffna into a cul-de sac
of mono-ethnic extremism. After the extremism of Ponnambalam and his
junior Chelvanayakam it was one way street all the way to Nandikadal.
Conflict resolution
In settling the old scores in history, or in conflict resolution, it
is neither logical nor valid to pick only on the statements of
Bandaranaike (as usual) to blame everything on the Sinhalese. Twentieth
century history did not begin or end with Bandaranaike. Other actors too
played a dominant role in paving the road from Vadukoddai to Nandikadal.
Any academic scrutiny of the forces that led to the ethnic explosion
must balance the Sinhala reaction with that of the provocative
statements and aggressive and strategic manouevers of the Jaffna
jingoists who pushed peninsular politics to mono-ethnic extremism. To
blame only Bandaranaike without evaluating the role of G.G. Ponnambalam,
Jaffna’s leading racist, is worse than blaming Sri Lanka for India’s
neo-imperialist intrusions.
On balance, shouldn’t more weight be given to Ponnambalam’s rejection
of devolution at all levels in the thirties, forties, fifties, sixties
and seventies than Bandaranaike’s theoretical proposition of federalism
in the twenties? Besides, why should only statements of Banadaranaike be
quoted as valid and not that of Ponnambalam? Put simply, if Ponnambalam
rejected devolution for the north consistently why should the Sinhalese
go for Bandaranaike’s federalism? Also, if devolution was not good
enough for Ponnambalam how can it be good for the Indians, Dayan or
anyone else?
So where does all this leave Dayan’s argument for the 13th Amendment?
To be continued |