Even though the present elections are imposed ones and are deviation tactics of the oppressors, if it is properly understood where the game is heading for, Eezham Tamils will know to whom should they vote to keep their aspirations alive. Despite all odds, the TNA line of politics has to be challenged by the Tamil national cause, at least in some token constituencies, to send the message loud and clear to India and to the outside world. Such a challenge only can be the inspiration for Tamils to eventually evolve the much needed new genre of polity of their own to meet the local and global scenario and once again, such a challenge only can nullify forces conspiring to divide Eezham Tamils in the diaspora and at home, writes TamilNet political commentator in Colombo.
The political commentator further writes:
In the elections scheduled to April 8th for the parliament of Sri Lanka, nearly 1813 candidates contest for 31 seats in the northern and eastern provinces alone.
In fact now it is an army of candidates engaged in the plunder of votes from people striped of every right, hunted openly in their own land and are incarcerated in open and closed prisons by the occupying forces of Sri Lanka.
Tamils don’t need this army of candidates for their political organization. What they actually need in structuring their polity is a new generation of an inspiring few who don’t really care for the elections and the parliament of the genocidal State.
But everybody knows that the present series of elections are not conducted either from the purview of Tamils or for their benefit.
The purposes of the elections are (a) to demonstrate the ‘success’ – to what extent brutal means of a genocidal State could make its victims politically surrender their cause, (b) to fortify the Colombo-centric State with the semblance of a ‘democratically elected government’, so that powers backing it will be comfortable in their pursuits in the island and above all (c) to ‘democratically’ institute an all-Rajapaksa-controlled dictatorship of the ‘Asian model,’ sponsored by some Asian powers.
It is an open secret that many in the ‘army of candidates’ in the north and east are either ‘forced recruits’ or are provided with incentives as petty as 200,000 rupees (1800 US dollars) by the Rajapaksa establishment to psychologically break up as much as possible the idea of Eezham Tamil nation.
In some cases, 10 to 20 million rupees are spent on each independent group contesting to disperse votes. The chief candidate is provided with 5 million rupees and the remaining to be divided among 12 members and to campaign activities.
The money is said to have come from plundering Tamils through abductions and contracts. The ruling family person behind the political engineering is well known by the nickname Mr. Ten Percent, for his achievements in coercive corruption.
The SLFP candidates in Jaffna are provided with pistols and are openly seen carrying small weapons.
While such is the scenario, Tamils have taken a particular note of the ‘praise’ that has come from Nirupama Menon Rao, the Foreign Secretary of the largest democratic establishment of the world, attributing the turnout of large number of candidates in the north and east to the free atmosphere created by Colombo for Tamils.
If the approach of Chinese is through arms, money and investments, the Indian establishment is harping on its dirty politics in grooming the chauvinistic cum dictatorial state in the island.
Beneath the camouflage of pointing to China to the people of Tamil Nadu, for its inability to do anything to Eezham Tamils, the Indian establishment has actually made a strategic partnership with China on the island. Because, to Congress-led New Delhi, the Eezham Tamil independence through a liberation movement is more precarious and challenging than Chinese inroads into its backyard.
In the height of the Cold War between1950s and 70s, in the name of protecting ‘democracy’ it was the US government that brought in military dictatorship governments everywhere.
Now, making use of West’s entrapment in the so-called War against Terror, the economic recession in the West and the failure of the West in delivering liberal democracy, India and China are engaged in a hectic programme before the West recovers.
The balance thus affected in the global scenario is reflecting in the island in favour of Rajapaksa dictatorship. While translating the imbalance into ‘Asian model’ of dictatorship in the island, making that imbalance particularly unfavourable to the national question of Eezham Tamils has become an obsession with Colombo and New Delhi.
Despite its serious war crimes against Eezham Tamils in 1987 and in 2009, the Indian Establishment, like Rajapaksa, wants to probe in the present elections, how many Tamils it can rope in, or can be denied of any option other than self-nullification of the liberation of their nation.
The bold and unwarranted ways in which the TNA has dropped the national question of Eezham Tamils, dropped even their status as a nation reducing them to ‘minorities,’ and has dissented with the aspirations expressed in the diaspora, have to be understood in this context.
A luring campaign says that even less than a half-backed solution to Eezham Tamil paupers will not come without India. Therefore listen to it, compromise as it says and prepare the socio political grounds of north and east for Indian investment so that solution, which ‘India only’ can provide, will eventually come. Development before politics is the deviating paradigm of corporate colonialism nowadays.
In a world where villains and heroes are indistinguishable, it is also said that India has made a deal with elements in the West having ‘no appetite for new nation states,’ to take care of the diaspora while it takes care of the polity in the island.
At the moment the India-China orchestrated programme for the island is to see that no one exists in the island without being a supporter of Mahinda Rajapaksa and his dictatorship.
Besides what media like The Hindu is up to, the shade of opinion of some Eezham Tamil elements recently imported from India, like Chandrahasan and Varatharaja Perumal, are best examples of this polity. Varatharaja Perumal, who was disillusioned by the 13th Amendment and declared Tamil Eelam before his exit along with the IPKF, now comes back with praises to Rajapaksa to tell Tamils to play springboard with the 13th Amendment.
What Tamils have to deduce is that in the provincial elections coming next, they can expect seeing a set of elements including that of some former members of the LTTE succumbing to the arrogance of India and dictatorship of Colombo, by accepting the rotten 13th Amendment. A new ‘protection force’ also may come to serve the Indo-Lanka agenda.
Already there are signs that the existing paramilitaries have become a spent force and their fate is sealed. After serving oppressors they will have no place in the society. Escalation of crimes and robberies is an index telling that some people are trying to escape. But sadly the lesson is not learnt by the successors who don’t base their polity on their people but pawn it to others.
Even though the present elections are imposed ones and are deviation tactics of the oppressors, if it is properly understood where the game is heading for, Eezham Tamils will know to whom should they vote to keep their aspirations high.
Despite all odds, the TNA line of politics has to be challenged by the Tamil national cause at least in some token constituencies to send the message loud and clear to India and to the outside world.
Such a challenge only can be the inspiration for Tamils to eventually evolve the much needed new genre of polity of their own, to meet local and global scenario. Once again, such a challenge only can nullify forces conspiring to divide Eezham Tamils in the diaspora and at home.
Deprivation of time didn’t permit Tamils to organize the challenge in Batticaloa and Ampaa’rai districts and TNA is the sole symbol of Tamil representation in these districts.
All communities show extra keenness in upholding their identities through representation in the East. Understandably, the region is a special case for Tamil speaking Muslims in asserting to their identity.
While acknowledging the identity of Muslims and their special needs, what Tamils expect from Muslims is that both should jointly take care of the national question of all Tamil-speaking people by not allowing the Sri Lankan State to weaken the national question through the paradigm of ‘minorities.’
As re-structure of the Sri Lankan State into a multi-ethnic one is increasingly becoming an illusion, Tamils and Muslims especially in the East need to evolve fresh thinking in organizing themselves for the alternative.
The Asian model of dictatorship, which may get silent nod even from corporate colonialism in the West, is not going to be the solution to any of the peoples in the island. The majority Sinhalese who failed in accepting the reality of nations in the island are not going to escape the brunt of the crisis.
Armed uprising crushed in India in 1857 was demeaned by Britain as a mere Sepoy Mutiny. But there was a Karl Marks to tell at that time itself that it was India’s First War of Independence. That may be History to India, but not so to Eezham Tamils.
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