N Sathiya Moorthy

Chennai 3 February 2025

Presidents before him may have visited the strife-torn Northern Province and political headquarters, Jaffna earlier than incumbent Anura Kumara Dissanayake (AKD). Yet, for the delay accompanying his maiden visit as President, he had more time than those others to extend a hand of friendship and care to the war-ravaged people, who are still licking their scars amidst fading memories — or, those section of the people there, who felt so a full decade and a half after the end of the ethnic war.

Among the presidential candidates, both before and after the conclusion of the decades-old ethnic war, only Gotabaya Rajapaksa in 2019 ‘took bold’ to ‘boycott’ the Tamil-majority Northern Province during his otherwise victorious poll campaign, claiming that he did not want to ‘waste time, knowing full well that they won’t be voting for me’. His post-election preparations to roll out a new Constitution in fulfilment of one of his many un-kept election promises gave clear indications that he was not in a mood to compromise on his war-time position on a political settlement as defence secretary.

Worse still from a Tamil perception, the Gota government launched a ‘cultural offensive’ on their socio-political existence, when Buddhist nationalist monks claimed tracts of Tamil/Hindu holy places in the North and the East as theirs. Where the monks did not lay claim, the government’s archaeology and/or forest departments stepped in, that too without possibly convincing an independent authority that those lands were ‘illegally occupied’, even if for decades and centuries.

All of it happened when the Tamils’ long-term demands and protests for the return of their lands that were in the ‘occupation of the military’, which had taken possession to run their camps and headquarters, through the war years and decades. In Jaffna, where he chaired the district coordination committee meeting, President Dissanayake declared that ‘lands would be returned to their rightful owners’, or words to that effect.

Hair-splitting, as the Tamils are bound to do, sooner than later, the question will be raised if the President meant only the private lands in the military’s possession or those of temples and other cultural markers from the Gota era. Of course, even then, private lands that are dear to individuals and families, and whose ‘possession’ by the armed forces pre-dates the Gota era initiatives by decades would get precedence even in the Tamil mind-set, but they are not going to leave out their cultural identities, too far away.

As it turned out, Dissayanake’s pre-scheduled Jaffna visit came a day after the death of former ITAK president Maavai Senathiraja, 83, following a brain-haemorrhage. Needless to say, the President visited his house and paid respects to the mortal remains of the departed leader. However, the leader’s death did not preclude the highly-politicised and ethnically-sensitive local Tamil media from giving substantial coverage to the presidential visit, which included other official engagements, too.

Most Tamil newspapers and TV news channels covered Dissanayake’s meet-the-people programme, too. None of them missed how the local people, both at the venue of the programme and also in the neighbourhood of a party functionary in whose house the President had his afternoon lunch, rushed to click selfies with him.  

It is true that even in the past, when ‘Tamil nationalism’ and ‘nationalist militancy’ especially of the LTTE’s terrorist kind had peaked, sections of the local voters had favoured the so-called ‘national parties’, mainly of Sinhala-Buddhist origin and leadership. The UNP and the SLFP had their vote-shares, however substantial or minimal, until the end of the war, when most of them voted against the ‘war victorious’ Rajapaksas, as if by vengeance.

In the presidential polls last year, there was a ‘nationalist Tamil candidate’, who was believed to have chipped away some votes from the UNP and the stronger breakaway SJB, not to leave out the SLFP and the breakaway SLPP of the Rajapaksas. But in the parliamentary elections only weeks later, the ruling JVP-NPP made an electoral point, especially in the Jaffna electoral district by polling the highest number of 82,000 votes and won three of the six seats, including one ‘bonus seat’.

Back of the envelope calculations showed that most JVP-NPP votes might have come from former fisheries minister Douglas Devananda’s EPDP and the sole SLFP parliamentarian Angajan Ramanathan’s  vote-share of 32,000, which was the highest number of ‘preferential votes’ in the electoral district in 2020. That is to say, there was a consolidation of ‘non-nationalist’ Tamil votes in favour of the ruling combine. This however should not be misconstrued as being ‘anti-nationalist’ Tamil votes.

Federal solution, re-merger

If Dissanayake’s Jaffna visit was aimed at convincing the Tamil voters that he was as much their President as for the rest of the nation’s population, he might not have achieved it. If anything, there is already a vague feeling even in the Sinhala-South, if the new President and his new government have measured up to the tasks on hand, and could convince those voters that they are still worthy of the votes that those people had given the party, combine and the leader, not necessarily in that order.

In this background, questions will definitely be asked about the government’s approach to a political solution to the ethnic problem, and allied issues of ‘accountability’ at the UNHRC and ‘missing persons’ nearer home. Anticipating a difficult terrain for the government in matters of daily governance like prices, tariffs and taxes in the run-up to the twin elections this year, some Tamil nationalist parties and their leaders have been talking nothing but a ‘federal solution’ to the ethnic issue and also re-merger of the North and the East.

The Tamil thinking on a ‘federal’ solution is rather confused after all leaders from every one of the self-styled ‘nationalist’ parties, barring the EPDP in the North and Karuna & Pillaiyan in the East, had written together a letter to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, urging him to ensure the full and speedy implementation of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Sri Lankan Constitution, facilitated by New Delhi, as far back as 1987. Of course, the final draft of the missive still made a non-serious reference of sorts to the ‘federal’ solution. How the issue pans out remains to be seen.

On the other key issue of ‘re-merger’ of the North and the East, the ruling JVP would find it even more embarrassing to revert its past position, as the party had obtained a Supreme Court order nullifying the ‘merger’ in the first place, facilitated again through the India-Sri Lanka Accord, 1987.  Apart from the ideological issues attending on the JVP reversing its stand, in southern Sri Lanka, especially the party’s traditional ‘Sinhala-Buddhist nationalist’ hard-core, such a course will be seen as a huge let-down.

Statutory pass-word

Be it as it may, Dissanayake and the ruling combine can breathe easy for now, as the President is clear not to stir the hornet’s nest anytime soon. Even towards the closing days of his campaign for the victorious presidential poll, he had clarified that he was not going to take up his promise to frame a new Constitution for the country not before the third year in office. He had a point as he was clear that the first two years would be consumed by managing the economy that was still likely to falter. 

Presidents Chandrika Kumaratunga, Mahinda Rajapaksa, Maithripala Sirisena, Gota R and Ranil Wickremesinghe before the incumbent too had promised a new Constitution. Barring Gota’s others centred their promises around a political solution to the ethnic issue, and proposed various options/formulae, none of which really found the light of the day. Gota was vague about why he needed a new Constitution, so is Dissanayake. Both seemed to mouth the phrase as if it was a statutory pass-word for contesting/winning the presidency.

During his three visits to the North and a couple of more to the mixed-ethnic East during the run-up to the presidential election, Dissanayake did make positive references to finding an amicable/absolute solution to the ethnic issue, if elected to power. Though neither he, nor his party colleagues made any direct linkage to such a promise and the other one hinging on a new Constitution, oftentimes in Colombo, they became vaguer and non-committal than before.

In this background, the efforts of ‘Tamil nationalist’ leaders like Gajaendra Kumar Ponnambalam, Selvam Adaikalanathan and all-important ITAK’s elected president-in-waiting, Sritharan, all of them MPs, to keep the ‘federal’ pot on fame, through constant conversations and consultations, should not be ignored. Fair enough, the Tamil voters are as vexed as they were during the presidential poll, and still upset and angry with their own leaders, for continuing on their individualist ego trips, which in turn had cost them dearly in electoral terms.

At present, the personality clash involving Sritharan and ITAK’s legal brain-trust in M A Sumanthiran, who could not retain his parliamentary seat, has fallen so low that a motivated section of the social media, blamed the latter for the late Senathiraja suffering a brain injury that cost him his life. Thankfully, however, better counsel seemed to have prevailed (also because of uncompromising editorial positions by powerful Tamil media) and Sumanthiran was belatedly allowed to pay his last respects to the departed leader.

Think beyond, below

However, that may not have solved the problem for the ‘Tamil nationalists’, who want to fast-track their ‘federal-cum-re-merger’ agenda faster than the government and President Dissanayake are ready for. It also begs the question why a new Constitution at all if some of the larger concerns, including the ethnic issue and not excluding the promise to remove the ‘Executive Presidency’ cannot be addressed through specific amendments, at times, requiring a public referendum, as mandated.

On the specifics of a political solution to the ethnic issue, whatever that be, already ‘Tamil nationalist’ social media activists have begun talking about their ancestors enthusiastically participating in district development council elections of 1981, under the first Executive President, the late J R Jayewardene (JRJ). Some of them have claimed that by presiding over the district coordination committee in the Tamils’ cultural capital of Jaffna, incumbent President Dissanayake might have wanted to subconsciously influence the present-day Tamils, starting with those that have since voted the JVP-NPP, to think beyond and below the Provincial Councils under 13-A.

The government is enthusiastic about early elections to the local government institutions, which is mandated by the Supreme Court, too. Prior to the twin elections last year, media speculation even had it that Dissanayake, if elected, would initiate legal action for ‘contempt of court’ against predecessor Wickremesinghe for not allocating funds for the local government polls, despite the specific orders of the nation’s top court.

Detractors have begun claiming, often unjustifiably, that the same enthusiasm is not found any more in the government circles, about conducting the equally delayed elections to the nine Provincial Councils (PC). The construct revolves around the JVP’s ideological and political criticism of the PCs, as derived from the 13th Amendment, as their early opposition to the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord that facilitated the same.

Rational thinking

Though past governments and previous Presidents had made similar commitments on the full implementation of 13-A, not all of them could go beyond the conceptual commitments, not months after assuming office. This owed to other administrative issues that overawed and overwhelmed them in the course of their government’s administration, making any rational thinking on 13-A and Provincial Councils as constitutional institutions, impossible. Together, the two became the inevitable casualty. With it, their promise of abolishing the Executive Presidency, too, became a political burden as they convinced themselves that for retaining powers, they needed those powers.

In this background, campaigning for the local government elections in the Tamil areas, especially the North, is going to be difficult for the President and his party. If they stir the hopes of the Tamils, they will be damned in the rest of the country, especially in the Sinhala South majority. If they say ‘no’ to the Tamil hopes, then they could well lose their electoral primacy from the parliamentary polls in the North, when they claim their ‘dominant national presence’ as their USP, compared to their better-established southern competitors in the North, especially.

In between, there is the larger issue of the Dissanayake government being able to address the issues of price and availability, especially for staple food items like rice, coconut and salt. Whether or not the local government polls are held immediately before or soon after the twin national festivities of the Sinhala New Year, Avarudu, and the Tamil New Year, both in mid-April, shortages, black-marketing and sky-rocketing prices, could upset the ruler’s calculations for a ‘clean sweep’ across the country – and the North and the rest of the Tamil areas would not be alone, either.

At the end of it all, whatever the reason for such poll reversal in the North, if at all it came to it, then, the JVP-NPP leadership might have lost the script then and there. Their ‘Tamil nationalist’ detractors would ‘feel vindicated’ and try to consolidate their hold over their populace, whether or not the PC polls follow soon thereafter. This way, especially, their campaign-call for the PC polls especially in the Tamil North will centre on the ethnic issue, not stopping with bread-and-butter concerns of their people. Independent of other causes, the present-day Tamil leadership wants it back on the table, and more prominently so than in the twin-polls of last year.

This may be one and possibly the only way to achieve their immediate goal, whatever the final outcome of their demand for a ‘political solution’, that too one based on federalism and re-merger and going beyond the full/fuller implementation of the 13-A, for which no political leadership in the South has the stomach to grant!

(The writer is a Chennai-based Policy Analyst & Political Commentator. Email: sathiyam54@nsathiyamoorthy.com)

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