SHEER FOLLY

Those who opt out of the participatory aspect of the democratic process are the ultimate losers, and those who are unwilling to learn from this historical verity suffer serially. Take the JVP which turned its back on democracy, eschewed the political mainstream, indulged in bouts of blood-letting and lost wholesale its credibility among the masses ...

Democracy may not be perfect and parliamentary process may not yield all the answers, but is better than any of the alternatives, and the people know that. This is why the TNA's decision to boycott the Parliamentary Select Committee process on constitutional change and its decision to run to Delhi instead, is perhaps the worst politics we Sri Lankans have seen in decades.

The TNA's position is antagonistic, and openly in lockstep with the stand of the strident anti-Sri Lankan forces of these times in the Tamil diaspora so-called, and in other quarters including the so called international community. Will that be taken to kindly by the people of the North and the East?

Those who are recovering after years of war are not bound to be kind to those who subvert the peace dividend. The TNA is advancing its fiercely intimidating agenda. Small wonder the people of the North sometimes feel too cowed to oppose this combine of Tamil political parties due to the peer pressure of the moment, but this is a position that's going to change fast. The people of Jaffna and the Northern Province have not forgotten the IPKF, and the carnage that resulted from its adventure in the North.

When the TNA leadership slinks into New Delhi after announcing their rejection of the PSC process, the signals would be clear to the Tamil people of the North. The TNA wishes for the dark past of intervention, intimidation, and armed confrontation.

The people are cowed. They will feel that the TNA diktat backed up by a thinly veiled threat to invite back in those who bear arms, is far too intimidating for them to ruminate on independently. They are used to these people's proxy role for the LTTE under whose jackboot they suffered for years. They are bound to be intimidated into doing anything if the TNA backs it up with the threat of 'Delhi.'

That's on the surface. But otherwise, in their hearts of hearts they are also bound to frown on the TNA's decision to eschew the democratic process. The message sent by opting out of the PSC process is that the TNA is afraid of consensus, and intimidated by the consequences it may bring about.

In other words the TNA wants to have its way and have its way notwithstanding all else -- and that's reminiscent of that other outfit that was similarly disposed, by the name of the LTTE.

The mass of people in India understand this too -- at least the mass of people who care and know enough about Sri Lankan politics to understand what's happening in this Indian Ocean Island.

For example the visiting Bharatheeya Janatha Party MPs of the India opposition concluded that the TNA was dictated to by the Tamil diaspora and the considerable heft that the diaspora commands in money terms. These MPs were bold enough to put pen to paper on this issue, and make their view to that effect known in the open.

Lesson number one: The TNA can fool some of the people all the time but not all the people all the time. What is the long term political prognosis for the Tamil National Alliance as a result of this evasive and irresponsible behaviour? It's bound to become a political irrelevancy soon - and go the way of the JVP. The JVP, it is seen can never recover for the party's experiments with fanatical anti-people adventurism in the past. Parties that try their constituencies' patience one too many times, do so at their peril -- and history has repeatedly and abundantly proved that.