FOREIGN POWERS AND LANKA’S DOMESTIC PROBLEMS

Over the years, Sri Lankan political leaders have been in the habit of approaching the foreign governments when facing essentially domestic problems. Tamil political leaders especially have taken this course of action on many occasions. Sadly, the repercussions of international intervention over the years have never settled any issue.

One of the first problems which comes to mind is that of the Upcountry Tamil community who were referred to those days as ‘Indian Tamils.’ In the 1920’s Sri Lankan political leaders were demanding the British colonial rulers employ Sri Lankans, where hitherto Indians constituted a majority.

Professor Suryanarayan in his article ‘The history behind anti Indian hysteria and rhetoric’ points out that in 1936, Indians constituted 26% of the labour force in all government departments. When in 1939, the Ministry of Communications and Works terminated the services of 2,077 Indian daily paid workers in government departments, the Indian community in then Ceylon was naturally worried.

They got in touch with the Indian leadership instead of taking up the problem with Sri Lanka’s then leaders. In turn this resulted in the All India Congress Committee (AICC) on June 24 expressing its anxiety over the conditions of Indian workers in then Ceylon, and directed Jawaharlal Nehru “to proceed to Ceylon to help in finding a just and honourable settlement of the problems affecting Indians here.

During his visit “Nehru pointed out that his being sent to Ceylon” was proof of the importance attached by the Congress to the status and conditions of Indians abroad.

‘Perhaps’, in innocence, before leaving for Ceylon, Nehru added “every Indian abroad carries a bit of India with him and he has a right to look to his motherland for help and protection in case of need. Today we may not be in a position to give that help fully or to protect him as we should. But we recognize our obligation and will give full effect in times to come...”.

Unsurprisingly, Sri Lankan leaders, most of whom were Sinhalese and Buddhist were alarmed believing, India was arrogating to itself the right to intervene in matters Sri Lankan. From thence, the country’s leaders and Buddhist religious leaders and a majority of its people have looked at Indian actions are Sri Lanka askance. Sadly, the effect of Nehru’s words led on one hand, to not only the upcountry Tamils, but also the Sri Lankan Tamils into mistakenly believing India would act as their protector.

By 1954, times had changed and Nehru himself signed the ‘Nehru-kotelawela Pact’ which accepted in principle the repatriation of the Indian population in Ceylon. By 1962 India denied legal responsibility to the Upcountry Tamils! The term Stateless came into existence and the upcountry Tamils lost out.

Unfortunately we, (Sinhalese and Tamils) have not learned to settle our differences among ourselves. Rather we have tended to seek help from UK, US, Norway, India etc., to sort out our local political problems.

These foreign intervention ultimately led to the 30-year ethnic war which in the end the led to the arrival of Indian troops in the country in the form of the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF). The IPKF which arrived to protect Tamils ended up killing many civillian Tamils during the battle to ‘protect Tamils’, and in the aftermath of India’s pull-out, led to the deaths of more Tamil civillians before the then government defeated the terrorists/insurgents. Unfortunately no Sri Lankan Government has been able to provide a political solution problems of minority communities including the Tamils.

What is more sad is that even today Tamil politicians have failed to recognise the single group in the country with the ability to take a solution forward or block its progress.

The Maha Sangha plays a major role in forming Sri Lankan opinion. Yet, no Tamil political leader has had the courage to involve this biggest change agent in discussions.

The only Tamil political leader to have the political acumen to make such a move was the late PLOTE leader Uma Maheswaran who together with leaders like Rukman Senanayake met the head of the Asgiriya Chapter to discus ways to bring the war to an end. Unfortunately Maheswaran met with an untimely death at the hands of an assassin.

To sway national opinion one way or the other we need, as MP Suren Raghavan said in an interview with a leading Tamil FM Radio network last week, to recognise the value of the Sangha and make them part of the problem-solving process.