Chanaka Bandarage
The British ruled Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) for 150 years. During that period both the Sinhalese and the Tamils lived as British subjects. There are no records that the Tamils like now were then demanding more power for themselves.
When Sri Lanka received independence in 1948, the British acknowledged that the North and the East are parts of the Sri Lankan state and never contemplated an India/Pakistan type partition to give the North to the Tamils (this was their unequivocal acknowledgement that Sri Lanka has always been a One Nation). The Tamils never made such a demand – that the North be given exclusively to them. Though they now make a loud claim that they want more power, the Tamils knew it was a futile attempt to demand special powers or a separate state from the British (in a letter dated 30 April 1964 to his Tamil friend C Suntharalingam, Lord Saulbury (Sri Lankan government minister between 1931 and 1941, architect of the Ceylonese Constitution in 1944 and the Governor-General of Ceylon between 1949 and 1954) stated …. I do not believe that other federal or autonomous Tamil State will work. Federation is cumbersome and difficult to operate – and an autonomous Tamil State would not be viable.”
Historically, the Sinhalese have shown that they are brilliant in defending their land, culture and religion from various enemy powers. That is why powerful foreign invaders have been chased away by the Sinhalese to where they originally came from.
Most recently we defeated the most powerful terrorist outfit of the recent world, the LTTE.
Since about 275 BC we have been subjected to Tamilnadu invasions, commencing from Elara. We suffered terribly under Soli (සොලී), Pallava and Kalinga-Magha invasions. They caused enormous destruction to the country. The Sinhalese civilizations in the North, North Central, Wayamba and Eastern provinces were decimated by these invading forces.
The irony is that we Sinhalese tend to show lethargy in safeguarding our existing rights and privileges. We tend to act only after something adverse had happened to us. Until then we would act as if no harm would come to us. Any impending dangers, we consider them as trivial and/or unimportant. Seldom would we take precautions before an adverse outcome. This is a marked contrast to how the West acts, especially the English speaking West. They plan and act well in advance, so when conflicts, calamities arrive, they are well prepared.
We tend to accommodate unfair requests made to us by mischievous forces. We tend to blindly believe in false promises made to us by different elements. Due to this, we often make our own downfall.
Sadly, we have shown an inferiority complex to western cultures; and we tend to belittle our own rich Sinhalese, Buddhist culture. The whole world is amazed by our rich Sinhalese civilization (our hydraulic engineering technology was such that we were able to pump water to top of the Sigiriya rock), but, we underestimate and care less about our own marvels/achievements. In the recent past we deliberately omitted our rich history from our school history books. To please some, we purposely distorted versions of our own history; for example, to say that we are not descendants of Vijaya and the Ramayanaya mythology is a truth (this allowed the separatists to claim that King Ravana was a Tamil and that he existed before Vijaya in Sri Lanka). Some of our leaders have publicly despised the country and the people. Even today when two upper middle class Sinhalese meet for the first time, they tend to talk to each other in English. There seems to be shame attached to talk in Sinhalese.
We have developed these bad habits due to the ‘brain washing’ of us by the British imperialists. The British were adamant that after they left the island there will be a band of ‘Kalu Suddos’ who will continue with their way of thinking and living. It is the ‘Kalu Suddos’ who dwell on class distinctions to garner unfair upper hand for themselves over others. They work against treating people based on merit. Most of the time these people are less patriotic.
We are well aware that there were Sinhalese, sometimes Sinhalese leaders, who connived with the Tamil Tigers. As a result our brave armed forces suffered.
In regards to overseas enemy forces, when we realise that we have been tricked by them, it had often been too late. By then, we had paid a huge price for our mistakes.
This rationale applies to the current proposals to amend the Constitution. The Sinhalese have still not understood the danger of giving Land and Police powers to the racist Northern Provincial Government. There are several other dangerous elements in the current proposals, but giving away these two powers is the most dangerous.
It is important to bear in mind that giving such important powers to the racist Northern Provincial Council would amount to assisting them in creating the Tamil Eelam. They are patiently waiting for that opportunity to arise.
Why should we knowingly participate in such a ‘suicidal’ act? Once the country is divided, unlike in the past, it will be impossible to claim it back (our sovereignty and territorial integrity).
These dangers have been well articulated in the writer’s recent articles published in this website.
Some of the ‘foolish’ past exercises by the Sinhalese are:
- Gave away our land to the Portuguese
The king of Kotte, Dharma Parakramabahu (6th Parakramabahu), wanted to be too nice to the sea warrior Lorenzo De Almeida; he was extremely anxious to enter into a treaty with the Portuguese. Upon the Portuguese’s first arrival in the country, he immediately allowed them to establish settlements in Colombo including erecting a Catholic chapel inside the Colombo Port, and he agreed to gift a large quantity of cinnamon every year to Portugal (about 200,000 pounds). The King gifted two tusked calf elephants to the Portuguese King. To consume during their return voyage to Portugal, the King gave them large numbers of live fowl and fresh fruit that included bananas, mangoes, pineapple and king coconuts. (the king’s cabinet comprised of four of his brothers).
It is reported that Lorenzo De Almeida could not believe what they achieved in their first trip. To celebrate, he ordered the firing of several rounds of ships’ artillery into the air. The Colombo residents were so terrified about the gunfire; it was for the first time they had experienced anything like that. They fled their dwellings in large numbers and hid in bushlands.
The upshot of the King’s good gesture was that the Portuguese soon established power in parts of the country and ruled us for nearly 150 years.
The Portuguese during their reign burnt down Buddhist temples, pirivenas, and libraries and Catholicism was basically forcibly imposed upon the coastal Buddhists. Lots of inducements were given to people who converted themselves from Buddhism to Catholicism; and to those who took up Portuguese names.
- Handed over the Kandyan kingdom to the British on a platter
Despite vehement attempts, for over 300 years, the Portuguese and the Dutch failed to conquer the Kandyan kingdom.
For closer to 20 years, hundreds of British troops sacrificed their lives in several of their unsuccessful attempts to capture the Kandyan kingdom. Each of their attempts was unsuccessful. But, in 1815, the aristocratic Sinhala, Buddhist leaders of the Upcountry conspired with the British and brought down their own rule in Kandy. The foolish Sinhalese leaders thought that after removing the Thelengu King, the British would hand power to them. The British always had other ideas.
The Sinhala-British pact that was signed (the Kandyan Convention), the British did not respect/honour the document; one could say they regarded it useless than the paper it was written on. When the Sinhalese realised the mistake and their foolish act, all was too late. We had to wait for a further 133 years to regain the freedom.
The Kandyan aristocrats did not seem to have the intelligence/wisdom to fathom that the British rule would be more torturous than that of the King’s. When they realised the real brutality of the British immediately after the pact, all was too late. Many thousands of innocent Sinhala Buddhists, notably in Wellassa (current Uva province), were massacred by the British from 1815 to 1818. They even killed some of the aristocrats who helped them to capture power, including Weera Keppetipola, who was a signatory to the Kandyan Convention. Keppetipola, albeit too late, led a spectacular rebellion against the British in 1818. When he had initial victories, he handed the captured British weaponry back to the British (this is something a military leader would never do). The British accepted their weapons back and used them to suppress the Sinhalese rebellion. Even the main aristocratic leader, Ehelepola, was captured and imprisoned in Mauritius by the British.
The British ruthlessly repulsed a 2nd Sinhalese rebellion spearheaded by Weera Puran Appu, in 1848 (the then Governor Viscount Torrington in a letter to Earl Grey, the Secretary of State for War and the Colonies in London dated 9 October 9 1849 stated I remind you of the last words of Puranappu. He held up his hands and said if there had been half a dozen such men as me to lead, there would not be a white man living in the Kandyan Province. This is true. If there had been such leaders, without doubt for a time we should have lost the country.”
- The manner and way which the ‘Sinhala Only’ policy was enacted in 1956
Until 1956 the Tamils did not make major demands from the Sinhalese demanding more power etc. They knew they had no standing to make a claim for more power.
Until SWRD Bandaranaike crossed over from the UNP and formed the SLFP in 1952, the Sinhalese had only one main political party – the UNP (true there were minor parties like LSSP and CP, but they were insignificant).
The creation of the SLFP marked the beginning of the infighting between the Sinhala people– the continuous fights/killings between them – ‘the Green shirts’ and ‘the Blue shirts’.
As a result, the Sinhala vote was divided into two, favouring the minorities who reaped the benefits at elections.
In 1952, Bandaranike was already 53 years old. An extremely ambitious man from an extremely powerful family (his father, Sir Solomon Bandaranaike, was the ‘Maha Mudliyar’ under the British. After the British Governor, he held the highest and most powerful position in the country). Bandaranaike realised that he had no chance of becoming the Prime Minister if he stayed in the UNP. At that time DS Senananayake was well liked by the people and his son, Dudley (41), was groomed as the next Prime Minister.
In the 1956 general election SWRD Bandaranike exclusively used the ‘race card’ to come to power. He knew by causing a division in the Sinhala electorate, he could win the election; and so he did win.
Bandaranike’s main election promise was that he will make Sinhala the official language if he won power.
But, after he won the election, he ‘forgot’ his promise. When staunch protests were initiated by Sinhala nationalists, especially by the Buddhist monks, Bandaranaike had no other alternative but to introduce legislation to legalise his ‘Sinhala Only’ policy. The Act was passed by a majority in the parliament in 1956. But, Bandaranaike could not live with his nationalist policy for too long. The pressure put on him by SJV Chelvanayakam (Leader of the Illankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi) was too much, he signed the Bandaranike – Chelvanayakam pact (Banda – Chelva pact) in 1957. This gave equal status to both Sinhala and Tamil languages and covered a broad range of areas. Effectively, what the two leaders consented was to have a federal administrative system in Sri Lanka.
The Banda – Chelva pact infuriated the Sinhala Buddhists. When there were mass protests in the country against the pact and hundreds of Buddhist monks camped outside of Bandaranike’s Rosmead Place residence, he went out of his house and met the monks and promised them that he will abrogate the Banda-Chelva pact. He tore a document before the monks.
However, the Banda – Chelva pact resurfaced in 1959 and there were rumors that he was going to implement it. On 26 September 1959 Ven Thalduwe Somarama (47) shot dead Bandaranaike. Some believe Somarama killed Bandaranike due to the latter’s ‘treacherous act’ and there is justification to hold this belief. After shooting Bandaranaike, Somarama is alleged to have uttered the words ‘රට, ජාතිය, ආගම’ (‘country, race and religion’) several times. These were the words of an extreme nationalist.
It may perhaps be that Bandaranaike implemented the ‘Sinhala Only’ policy in good faith, but, he did it in such a hasty, insensitive manner without giving regard to the concerns of the minority. He had no idea how the minorities will accept and react to his most controversial policy.
When he realised that he had erred, he backtracked and promised federalism to Tamils. This was moving from one extreme, to another, within a short period of time.
Basically, it was a policy that bungled from the very beginning. For this, the country has paid a huge price.
As can be understood, the new policy infuriated the minorities. The hardest hit community was the Burghers. They had good positions before, they knew that they will have no future under the new policy and sought ways to leave the country. Many migrated to various European countries, especially to Australia. Today, we have a very few Burghurs living in the country. The Bhoras, Parsis, Sinds and the few Jews who tremendously contributed to the country’s economy also left the country.
The Tamils began to think that they were being treated as 2nd class citizens by the Sinhalese. There was justification to that belief. Tamil leaders like Chelvanayakam and GG Ponnambalam who were waiting for mistakes to be caused by the Sinhalese leaders used the opportunity to their maximum advantage – to fight for their new demand, federalism.
The first Sinhala Tamil riots happened in 1958, under Bandaranaike’s watch.
The Muslims were also affected by the new policy, but like the Tamils they did not react to it aggressively.
We are today giving too much deference to a ‘Vadukoddai Resolution’ which was a Chelvanayakam gimmick. Any adult who lived in 1976 would say that such a Resolution was unheard of at that time. In 1976 we had the Nonaligned summit conference, the then Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike would not have allowed Chelvanayakam to run amok during that time.
Chelvanayakam who was only an MP (leader of the TULF) at that time had no power to pass a Resolution. Such a Resolution has no legal validity in Sri Lanka. It is true Chelvanayakam met few people under a tree in Vadukoddai and discussed things – it is us, the Sinhalese including some patriots, who try to give enormous significance to this minor event.
Prabhakaran who was setting up his organisation to create a separate state shot dead Alfred Durraiappah, the Mayor Jaffna, in 1975 – before the Chelvanayakam’ s Resolution in 1976.
Chelvanayakam, born in Malaysia, was a shrewd, manipulative campaigner. Cunning to the core, he used the mistakes that the Sinhalese leaders did to his maximum advantage – to work towards federalism and since 1976 to achieve a separate state. He died in 1977.
Chelvanayakam’ s teaching to his subordinates was ‘little now, more later’. This has been practised by all democratically elected Tamil leaders, including the present Tamil leaders.
After 1956, the mild mannered Sinhalese leaders did not know how to handle Chelvanayakam and the most aggressive Tamil leaders who followed him, most of them made most unfair demands.
But, the Sinhalese leaders were always very capable in suppressing the Sinhalese dissent, sometimes most ruthlessly and brutally (eg in 1971 and 1988 – 91). This trend in the South continues to this day.
In mid 1970s and in early 1980s the Sri Lankan armed forces arrested Prabhakaran few times (at least on two occasions). It was our own leaders who allowed him to slip away to India. No serious attempts were made to demand his extradition to Sri Lanka. The price that the country paid for these foolish mistakes is enormous.
This Constitution effectively gave dictatorial type powers to the country’s head of state. Since 1978, the Office of the Executive President has grown up to become a gigantic establishment. It is a white elephant in its own right. Billions of rupees are allocated every year to maintain the Office.
There is a wrong perception among the populace that to curb future terrorism we must have an executive president in the country and there is no other solution . Mrs Sirimavo Bandaranike crushed the 1971 insurgency without having Presidential powers.
What Sri Lanka needs is a strong central government. The Current executive Presidency should be abolished and the position of a non -executive President should be created. He/she should be elected by the vote of the Parliament. The power to dismiss a provincial government should be vested with the non-executive President (not the Prime Minister), upon considering a report submitted to him/her by the Governor of the province in question. Appointment of Governors to the provinces must be made concurrently by the Prime Minister and the non-executive President.
Ideally, all the provincial councils should be abolished (repeal the 13th Amendment). This is difficult now given that the Northern Provincial Council is created and well established. But, for a brave, intelligent and a visionary leader, this task is still possible. It is a matter of convincing the citizens, India and the international community as to why this must happen.
- Re Amending the Constitution, the following must also be followed
+ Scrap the current preferential voting system and re-introduce the ‘one person one vote’ system (scrap the ‘Manapa’ system and allow each voter to elect their own Member of the Parliament based on Constituency)
+ Abolish the anti-democratic Chit MP system (National List)
+ Scrap the proposal to introduce a new Constitutional Court; the current powers of the Supreme Court should not be curtailed
+ Must not meddle with the current Chapter II, Article 9 of the Constitution that gives prominence to Buddhism (‘The Republic of Sri Lanka shall give to Buddhism the foremost place and accordingly it shall be the duty of the State to protect and foster the Buddha Sasana, while assuring to all religions the rights granted by Articles 10 and 14(1)(e).’).
+ Scrap any intention to hold a Referendum on the Constitutional proposals as the separatists will use the result to form a new country based on customary international law (eg. East Timor, South Sudan examples and now Catalonia).
In 1983 the then government paid a blind eye allowing race riots against our Tamil brethren to spread.
Separatist Tamils capitalised and created a massive worldwide wrongful perception against the Sinhalese – that they are mongrels who brutalise the innocent Tamils in Sri Lanka. The governments failed to clear their names from these most serious allegations.
In July 1983, it is the Sinhalese who rescued and helped Tamils. There is hardly a Sinhala family that did not sympathize and/or assisted the Tamils. But, we failed to ‘market’ the noble deeds of the Sinhalese. We allowed a bad perception to be created and spread.
In fact, it is the Sinhalese who invented the terminology – Black July’, now universally accepted as the term to refer the ‘massacre of innocent Tamils by the Sinhalese in 1983’. The Sinhalese continuously use the terminology giving it more legitimacy – that they butchered innocent Tamils, when what they actually did was rescuing the innocent Tamils from trouble. Greedy mobs consisted of Sinhalese, Tamil and Muslims robbed and looted Tamil shops and houses in various parts of the country.
We have not been successful in articulating to the world that since 1983 there were so many terrorism related incidents in Sri Lanka, including the killing of the country’s head of state, the Sinhalese did not harm a single Tamil over those incidents.
In 1986 during Vadamarachchi operation we almost defeated the LTTE with Prabhakaran being cornered in his native Valvetithurai. But, the then leadership panicked due to a foreign government threat and disbanded the entire operation, allowing Prabhakaran and his cohorts to escape.
In 1987 the country signed the Indo Lanka Accord, a stupid move by the then leadership. Therein, we foolishly acknowledged that the North and East are traditional Tamil areas, and agreed to the merger of the North and the Eastern provinces. The merger was removed by the bold judgement of Sarath N Silva (the Chief Justice in 2006).
This was a foolish exercise. The Agreement executed between the government and the LTTE was extremely detrimental to the country. It threatened the country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
The fear is that some of the same architects are now involved in promoting the proposed amendments to the Constitution.
- Failure to disband the 13th Amendment
When there were opportunities available to disband the provincial council system, especially in 2009 (soon after the war) and 2012, our leaderships failed to use those situations and disband them. The leaderships have failed to acknowledge that the useless provincial councils are huge white elephants that the country cannot afford to sustain.
It is clear that the country’s leaders want the provincial councils to stay and prosper. They can then nominate their family members and henchmen to run for the offices. The provincial councils are a good platform for corruptors who are eager to make money by hook or by crook.
Now, there is the attempt to double the number of members of the Provincial Councils, Pradeshiya Sabhas and Municipal councils, without giving regard to the enormous costs that these changes would affect the country.
Sri Lanka has too many layers of governments; it is one the highest governed nations of the world.
- Unfair criticism of Sri Lanka in regards to the last stages of the war
The then government failed to rebut the fabricated war crimes allegations that were made against Sri Lanka including the allegation that Sri Lanka killed 40,000 Tamil civilians during the last stages of the war. These allegations still stand and are alive. The government between 2007 – 2009 conducted the war so well and totally annihilated the Tamil Tiger terrorists, but it simply did not know how to handle/respond to the most unfair and adverse criticisms that were made against it by the West. One of the strangest things is as to why the then government failed to promptly respond to the serious, wrongful accusations made against it by the Darusman Report.
It is a fact that our armed forces did not indiscriminately kill innocent Tamil civilians.
What is difficult to fathom is why our governments are so scared to tell this truth to the whole world loudly and clearly.
According to the North’s grama sevaka reports, the 7,000 odd civilians who are recorded as dead during the last stages of the war period were those who died of natural reasons.
This writer’s organisation made initiatives to challenge the lies propagated by Channel 4 of the UK in foreign courts, they were not provided with the necessary evidential support that the government initially promised. We were basically left helpless after so much work was undertaken.
- Release of the deadly LTTE cadres to the society, closing of military camps in the North and the East
After the war, governments in the name of reconciliation have released deadly ex terrorists to the society and have closed or reduced many military camps in the North and the East. Some of the tasks have been carried out recklessly. The fundamental responsibility of the governments is to provide protection to its innocent citizens and to ensure that a terrorist war that was just completed would never emerge. The governments have not acted responsibly in this matter.
We should not be surprised if majority of the military camps in the North are shut down in the foreseeable future.
What should have been done was to establish a Criminal Justice Commission to prosecute both ex tigers and errant military personnel (if any). We are paying a huge price for this lapse.
Foolishly we continue to believe that the TNA is genuine when they say they want to live in One Sri Lanka. These leaders when overseas speak in a different language and tone. They talk against the country. When overseas they espouse separation. They make fabricated claims that Tamils are being discriminated in Sri Lanka (this writer has confronted them in foreign western forums, the TNA leaders have then retracted). Even most recently, when Prince Al Hussein, head of OHCHR visited Sri Lanka, the TNA remonstrated to him that a separate entity should be created for them in the North and the East.
It seems we have forgotten that during the war years, it is the TNA that acted as the LTTE proxy in the parliament.
We have failed to allow the Sinhalese to live in the North and the East. The South has become extremely crowded with growing populations. In the City of Colombo the three major communities live almost in equal numbers now (it used to be about 70% Sinhala). Plenty of habitable land for all the people is located in the North and the East (1/3 of the country and 2/3 of the country’s sea coast). But, the Sinhalese are denied of settling in those areas. Even the traditional Sinhalese settlers (eg 2nd generation Tamil speaking Sinhalese of Jaffna) have not been allowed to resettle in the North and the East.
The Tamils live in all parts of the country. It is very discriminatory to disallow the Sinhalese from living in the North and the East.
The Sinhalese parliamentarians have kept silent on this most important issue.
Please refer to the writer’s recent articles about this, published in this website.
- Sinhala Diaspora and the Sinhalese in the South
When Tamil diaspora in their thousands flock in western countries to promote their separatist cause, very few Sinhalese diaspora come to voice the Sinhala side of the story. Sinhalese living in the western world would flock in thousands to a Buddhist temple for an event, but only a handful of them would attend a patriotic function. Most of the Sinhalese living in the West are not concerned about the importance of articulating the truth to the world. For excuse they say they cannot sanction the actions of the Sri Lankan governments that are predominantly corrupt; this is not a good excuse to not come in support of one’s mother country. The Sinhalese living in the country seem disinterested about the proposals to amend the Constitution. There is very little discourse among them about the subject. It seems they are content that the war is now over and that they are safe from bombs. The fact that there is a real chance that a Tamil Eelam could be created as a result of the current proposals to amend the Constitution has not yet invaded their psyche. This is a serious and a sad situation.
The writer is a Lawyer. srilankasupportgroup@bigpond.com
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