By Ana Pararajasingam "The Sri Lankan Government's strategy of bringing peace through war was wrecked by Wednesday's bomb ... The net result of Mrs Kumaratunge's failed policy is clear. The epicentre of the war has moved from the remote and economically unimportant North to the capital", said the London Times of February 1, referring to the bomb blast which devastated Sri Lanka's financial district and killed over 70 people the previous day. The bomb blast in Colombo was yet another incident in the cycle of violence which had engulfed the island since 1956 — barely eight years after the British (the European colonial power which had ruled the island since 1796) departed. On February 4, 1948, exactly 48 years ago, the British departed having "granted" the island of Sri Lanka (then known as Ceylon) its independence. Indications then were that the island-state was poised to become a model to other Asian and African states which were about to become independent of their colonial masters. At this time, Ceylon enjoyed the highest literacy rate in Asia (65% in 1945); was not plagued by over-population; her per capita income was the envy of neighbouring Asian countries; her educational and transportation systems were well advanced, and her people certainly seemed ready for self-rule having enjoyed universal franchise since 1931 — long before any of the other colonies. For some years after Ceylon became independent it was held up as a model, for all the world, of the way in which a colony might peacefully and by easy stages attain full independence without suffering those communal tensions that severed Pakistan from the Republic of India. In fact, when the British Institute of Race Relations proposed a documentary about the island in 1948, they could find nothing more sensational than titling it "Ceylon: Island without Problems". But, today, almost half a century later, it is an island known for its problems, and its reputation as a killing field only matched by that of Bosnia, Liberia, Rwanda and Angola. How did this come about? How did the Sinhalese, well-known for their spontaneity, generosity and hospitality, become capable of spawning the kind of anti-Tamil violence described as "demonic"? (This interpretation is by Bruce Kapferrer in
Legends of People, Myths of State published by the Smithsonian Institute in 1988). Why did the Tamils, who until 1948 had thought they were an integral part of the "Ceylonese" nation, now regard themselves as a nation distinct from the ruling Sinhala nation? The answer to these questions can be found in part in the unitary constitution, under which the island was granted its independence by Britain in 1948. This constitution ignored the multi-national character of the island by allowing political power to be exercised through a unitary form of government. The net result was that political power was vested with the numerically larger Sinhala nation. It was mainly because the British architects of the unitary constitution under which the island was to be "granted its independence" had been persuaded by the Sinhala politicians to ignore the reality that Sri Lanka was an island of two nations. It was, however, a reality that the British rulers had been aware of for over 150 years. In 1799 Hugh Cleghorn, the first British colonial secretary had noted that: "Two different nations, from a very ancient period, had divided between them the possession of the Island. First the Cinhalese [Sinhalese] inhabiting the interior of the country, in its southern and western parts, from the River Wallowe to that of Chillaw, and secondly the Malabars [Tamils], who posses the northern and eastern districts. These two nations differ entirely in their religions, language and manners." The other aspect was the mind-set of the Sinhala elite who replaced the British as the island's rulers under the unitary constitution. Best described as the "Mahavamsa mind-set", it is an attitude deeply influenced by the way in which the Mahavamsa (an ancient chronicle of Sinhala history believed to have been written in the late sixth century AD by an unknown Buddhist monk) has been interpreted by Sinhala nationalists over the years. According to Kumari Jayawardne, a Sinhalese social scientist, the main theme underpinning the ideology born of this attitude is the doctrine of primacy and superiority of the Sinhala "race", the members of which claim to be the original, true inhabitants of the island. This is based on the myth that the Sinhalese are the descendants of Aryan migrants from Bengal and the belief that the Sinhala race has been placed in a special relationship to Buddhism as its protector. This led to Sinhala politicians, elected to office under the unitary constitution, using their numbers in parliament to perpetuate Sinhala hegemony through legislative and administrative measures. These measures included:
- Disenfranchisement of 825,000 Tamils in 1948, thereby halving the Tamil presence in parliament;
- Passing a law in 1956 making Sinhala the only official language of the island and thereby depriving Tamils of equal employment opportunities in the public sector. The implementation of highly discriminatory educational policies make it mandatory for Tamil students to score much higher marks to enter the same courses in universities; and
- The deliberate state-aided Sinhala colonisation of the Tamil homeland in the north east since 1970s.
The immediate response of the Tamils to these measures was a demand for a federal constitution under which the largely middle-class Tamil politicians envisaged a sharing of political power with their Sinhalese counterparts. For almost 30 years this demand was pursued by the Tamil politicians through peaceful means involving sit-ins and protest marches in the Mahatma Gandhian mode of Satyagraha. By the mid 1970s the Tamils, tired of the Sinhala politicians's unwillingness to share political power, had begun to seriously consider staking their claim to an independent state comprising the northern and eastern provinces of the island — the Tamil homeland. At the 1977 general elections, the Tamil United Liberation Front contested the elections on the platform of restoring the Tamil nation its sovereignty. It won 18 of the 22 seats it contested, emerging in the process as the national opposition party. The Sinhala response to these moves was often brutal, taking the form of state orchestrated pogroms during which "goon" squads terrorised Tamils living in the south amongst the Sinhalese. According to Havard professor of anthropology Dr Tambiah there were seven such pogroms between 1956 and 1983. The last one, in July 1983, was the worst; it resulted in the deaths of over 3000 Tamils, which in turn led to thousands of young Tamils taking up arms. It is, however, not surprising that politicians infected with the "Mahavamsa mind-set" should have responded violently whenever Tamils protested against the unjust laws and discriminatory policies of the Sinhala-dominated governments. After all, it is a policy which not only regards its position as pre-ordained, but also regards the Tamils as interlopers and descendants of invaders. Thus it can be seen that the Tamils' resort to an armed struggle is the direct consequence of the Sinhala policy to refuse to share political power, and instead suppress legitimate Tamil rights by violent means.
[Ana Pararajasingam is the secretary of the Australasian Federation of Tamil Associations and editor of
Tamil Monitor.]