H. L. D. Mahindpala
No Tamil political leader in the
post-Donoughmore period had single-handedly constructed an ideology and changed
the course of national politics, almost overnight, asGanapathipillai Gangaser Ponnambalam (8 November 1901
– 9 February 1977). Not only that, no one else has left such a lasting impact –
albeit a divisive and devastating one — with his ideology on the national
scene as the politics engineered by him. He was, in his own way, an exceptional
figure whose role has been overshadowed by his junior partner, S. J. V.
Chelvanayakam, a charismatic figure who in reality extended and built on the
ideology founded by him. S.W. R. D. Bandaranaike was Ponnambalam’s counterpart
but he did not create the Sinhala-Buddhist ideology. Rather, he adopted
what was already there on the ground and gave leadership to the dormant forces
that were struggling to be born. Ponnambalam, on the other hand, gave
birth to an ideology which he fathered, defined and activated giving
leadership to a political force that entered the blood stream of Tamil
politics. In doing so, he reversed the liberal-democratic movement in Jaffna
and took it back to communalism — a force that dominates the North
to this day.
Ponnambalam arrived on the
political scene just in time to fill the vacuum in the leadership of Jaffna. By
the early thirties the old turbaned Tamil aristocracy was fading away. The last
of the iconic leaders of Jaffna, Sir Ponnambalam Ramanathan, passed away
in 1930. Jaffna was in the grip of the English-educated Tamil youth
who were leading Jaffna up the road of liberal democracy and
comprehensive nationalism without sectionalism. They were virtually laying down
the political agenda of the day. It was a radical movement that went against
the traditional norms of Jaffna political culture. They were the
daring counter force to the dominant Vellala elite which held the reins of
power both as loyal subalterns in the British bureaucracy and as the
traditional supremacists anointed by the Hindu casteism authored by Arumuka Navalar.
It was the Vellalas that dictated and enforced the laws and customs (Tesawalamai)
that guided every aspect of the Jaffna way of life, from the womb
to the tomb. Inside Jaffna the Vellalas ruled with an iron fist to maintain
their supremacy.
Outside Jaffna the
Vellala supremacists campaigned to acquire extra seats in the legislature based
on allotting seats on a communal basis and not on territorial demarcation of
electoral borders. Getting seats on communal representation would
go to maintain their disproportionate share of power in the commanding
heights of the political and administrative institutions. Getting seats
on a territorial basis would not only reflect the will of the people
which is the ultimate goal in any democratic system but would also uphold
the fundamental principles of democracy. The radical Tamil youth of Jaffna
rejected both casteism and communalism and organised their movement to abolish
what they considered to be the two evils of the peninsular political
culture. In the
mid-twenties the Tamil youth of Jaffna were leading Jaffna out of feudalism,
casteism, communalism, dowry-system etc into modernity. When they talked
of nationalism they meant total swaraj for all without narrow domestic
walls” of communalism, or sectionalism”, as the Governor of the day called it
By the late thirties,
however, the Jaffna Tamil Youth Congress had lost its grip. Without the old
turbaned aristocracy and without the radical youth Jaffna fell into a political
vacuum. The political space was open for Ponnambalam to step in as the
anti-thesis of all that was held sacred by the Tamil youth. The political
pendulum swung from liberal-democratic end to naked communalism.
Single-handedly, Ponnambalam reversed the libera-democratic trend and took
Jaffna back to its communalistic and casteist roots. With that he reigned
supreme as the sole representative of Jaffna with no rival in sight until the
arrival of Chelvanayakam. The unique characteristic of his politics is that he
left an indelible legacy which wound its way, through several twists and turns,
until it wound up in its ill-fated historical end in Nandikadal. Chelvanayakam,
though he shone brighter than Ponnambalam as a leader, particularly with
his integrity and commitment to the cause, was merely an ideological
pupil of Ponnambalam. In extending and taking Ponnambalamism to a further
extreme the pupil outshone the teacher.
To get a better view of the
evolving events, it is necessary to step back and take a glance at young
Ponnambalam as he entered the mainstream. Right from the start he was different
from the rest of the pack. To begin with, his contemporaries who went abroad in
the twenties and thirties for studies in leading universities of the West
returned home as committed nationalists imbued with either democratic
liberalism (S.W. R. D. Bandaranaike and Dudley Senanayaker) or Marxism (N. M.
Perera, Philip Gunawardena, Colvin R de Silva, Pieter Keuneman etc). Even the
Tamil students like P. Kandiah and A. Vaidiyalingam returned home from
Cambridge as communists. They were, in fact, the founding members of the Ceylon
Communist Party along with Pieter Keuneman. Only Ponnambalam was the
exception. He went to Cambridge on a scholarship granted by what he
contemptuously called the homogenous state” (i.e., the Sinhala state) and
returned home without embracing either liberal or socialist ideals as
guiding principles for his politics. He opted for a brand of communal politics
minted by him which ran counter to the mainstream politics of the
time.
Nationalists (Nehru) coming
home had to face two enemies : 1. the imperialists and 2. the separatists
(Jinnah) attempting to fragment emerging nations. Ponnambalam,
however, was not inspired by either nationalism for the nation, or
for the Tamils, or by the ideology of separatism / federalism. In fact, he is
on record saying that federalism is bad for Ceylon and worse for the
Tamils.” His formula of 50-50”, or what he called balanced representation”,
was his ideology to revise communalism as the determining force of national
politics, refusing to go along with the prevailing liberal-democratic politics.
His main argument was that 50-50’ would obviate the fears and threats of majoritarianism.
Governor Andrew Caldecott rejected it as a crude arithmetical formula”.
Later Lord Soulbury dismissed it as mockery of democracy”. Jaffna Youth
Congress was most vociferous in condemning his 50-50 ideology.
Faced with an overwhelming
opposition he delivered a marathon speech on March 15, 1939 to the State
Council defending his 50-50” ideology. It was the first time that the Tamil
communalism found a mouthpiece to articulate its seminal ideology that was
afloat in a vague form demanding extra seats for the Tamils to be on par with
the Sinhalese in the Legislative Council. It was seen and rejected as communal
representation by the British and the Jaffna youth. There was a
growing consensus for territorial representation which reflected the democratic
will of the nation.
Ponnambalam’s main
political theme was to focus on evils of the majority oppressing and denying
the rights of the minorities. But Ponnambalam never referred to how the
Vellala majority in Jaffna exploited, oppressed and denied the fundamental
human rights of the non-Vellala castes and slaves, particularly the Nalavars
and the Pallas. He was exploiting the majority-minority theme purely on
communal lines. His main target was the Sinhalese. He did not extend the same
concern for the minority in his own community who were subject to most inhuman
forms of oppression by the majority Vellalas.
To overcome the tag of
communalism Ponnambalam made it an issue between the majority and the minority.
Instead of demanding one or two extra seats like his predecessors he wrapped
the fragmented demands of the old turbaned aristocracy into a consolidated
package of 50-50”. It was communalism on a national scale. He wasn’t asking
for one or two extra seats in the periphery, either in the North or
Western provinces for the Tamils. He was asking for a huge share of power
at the centre to be on par with the majority. In his speech he explored various
theories against majoritarianism and presented his argument as a defence
against the abuses of the majority against the minorities. It was this speech
that made him a figure to reckon with in national politics. Needless to
say, it enhanced his stature in the Tamil community.
In May-June 1939 he shot
into the limelight again with his explosive speech at Navalapitiya
denigrating the Sinhala-Buddhist culture, its history and the people. In the
political heat generated by his 50-50” demand this anti-Sinhala-Buddhist speech
was explosive enough to set the nation on fire. But both events – his marathon
speech and his virulent speech at Navalapitiya – was sufficient to destroy the
communal harmony that prevailed in the colonial and feudal ages. Ponnambalam
ignited the first Tamil-Sinhala riots. The nation that began to bleed in
Navalapitiya in 1939 never stopped until it ended in Nandikadal in 2009.
Ponnambalam’s main theme was on evils of the
majority oppressing and denying the rights of the minorities. But
Ponnambalam never referred to how the Vellala majority in Jaffna exploited,
oppressed and denied the fundamental human rights of the non-Vellala castes and
slaves, particularly the Nalavars and the Pallas. He was focused on communal
politics directed against the Sinhala-Buddhist majority while he was a leader
of the Vellalas who never lifted a finger to liberate the oppressed
Tamils. under his very nose.
Ponnambalam’a success in
reversing the liberal-democratic trend fostered by the Jaffna Youth Congress
was fatal. He was trying to make a case for the Tamils as the victims of the
Sinhala majority. But the ground reality was different. The Sinhala masses were
in the same boat as the masses of the other communities though
Ponnambalam made it look like a Sinhala vs. Tamil issue. The Jaffna Youth
Congress depicted the plight of the Sinhalese succinctly when they wrote
: The
Sinhalese peasantry are suffering from a scarcity of land and are becoming
rapidly pauperised. The business of the island is in the hands of the Europeans
and the Indians. The cocoanut industry is the only industry that remains in the
hands of the Sinhalese. Even in this more than seventy-five percent of the
estates are mortgaged to Indian capitalists. Even in the professions and the
Government service Sinhalese occupy a comparatively inferior place. Whatever
the reason for this state of affairs the Sinhalese are becoming sensitive to
their inferior position and are crudely attempting to reassert their position.
In this delicate state of feeling the granting of the 50–50 demand will make
them feel that they are to be reduced to a state of political helplessness, and
will call forth the most violent reaction. Communal propaganda will be openly
carried on by the Sinhalese… The leadership of the Sinhalese will pass into the
hands of avowedly communal elements [like the Sinhala Maha Sabha].” (Communalism
or Nationalism? – Reply of Jaffna Youth Congress to Ponnambalam’s
speech..)
These two events –his marathon speech and the
Navalapitiya attack on Sinhala-Buddhists, both coming one after the
other — coincided with his cry for 50-50” to give birth to a new
political consciousness in the North and the South. As pointed out by the Youth
Congress, the communalism of one was feeding the other. In fact, Bandaranaike
thanked Ponnambalam for his Navalapitiya tirade against Sinhala-Buddhists
because it helped him to mobilise the Sinhalese to his Sinhala Maha Sabha on a
larger scale. With his words and actions Ponnambalam led Jaffna into a
political cul-de sac from which it never
came out. Ponnambalam’s words and actions, when put together, added up to
an ideology of the Tamils consisting of three major factors : 1.
disproportionate share of power in the centre ; 2. whipping up the cry of
victimology and 3. demonising the Sinhala -Buddhists, their history and their
culture. Though Ponnambalam did not put all three factors together and spell it
out as a cohesive ideology the upshot of his tactics resulted in providing the
framework for his successors to build on this triad to push mono-ethnic
politics of the North to the extreme.
A close examination of Northern politics will
reveal that it never deviated from these three factors
identified by Ponnambalam. First, in the post-Ponnambalam period mono-ethnic
extremism escalated incrementally heading straight towards the Vadukoddai
Resolution which declared war against the democratically elected state
demanding a separate state. Tamil extremism encapsulated in the Vadukoddai
Resolution has its roots in Ponnambalamism, especially his disproportionate
demand for 50-50”. Eelam is an extreme version of 50-50”. Second, the
rationale for this demand was the accusation that the Tamils were the
victims of Sinhala-Buddhist majoritarianism and discrimination. In his second
length speech to the Soulbury Commission in 1945 he made the same accusation.
After examining his claim, the British Commissioners dismissed it as an
accusation unsubstantiated by the weight of evidence. Third, for him to make a
demand of this proportion he had to buttress it with just not yesterday’s
politics but on the entire course of history. To claim 50-50” he had to put
Tamil history on par with that of the Sinhalese. Or better still, to denigrate
it as being almost inferior to that of the Tamils. Demonising the
Sinhala-Buddhists and denigrating their history and culture was a primary tool
of Tamil politics.
History was an indispensable element for the
Tamils to claim equal status – i.e., 50-50 at first and then later,
separatism. Hijacking history to back their claims was an essential source. A
whole new industry sprang up, particularly in academia and the NGOs, to
denigrate Sinhala-Buddhist history, culture and heritage. A classic example
is Buddhism Betrayed? Religion, Politics and Violence in Sri
Lanka – S. J. Tambiah of Harvard University. Though it came with the
with the imprimatur of prestigious Harvard University it lost it credibility
because it was seen as a tendentious tract written to denigrate the
Sinhala-Buddhists – a la Ponnambalam. The cover itself betrayed his political
bias. In it a leading Buddhist monk was portrayed in a
militant pose, indicating clearly the anti-Sinhala-Buddhist mission of
Tambiah. Besides, he begins his book with a stupid question: If Buddhism
preaches nonviolence, why is there so much political violence in Sri Lanka?”
And in the following 203 pages he labours to convince the reader that behind
all the violence were the Sinhala-Buddhists and their ideology.
In other words, he produces a mono-causal thesis
blaming only the Sinhala-Buddhist ignoring the complex of history of
multifarious factors that converged to create the North-South conflict. He
says: …..I have tried to present in narrative form the unfolding of events
over a period of about hundred years …The main question to which I shall probe
is the extent to which, and the manner in which Buddhism as a religion”
espoused by Sri Lankans of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries has
contributed to the current ethnic conflict and collective violence in Sri Lanka.”
( p.3 — Ibid). And then he proceeds to detail how Buddhism has contributed in
a significant way to the current conflict. He takes a blinkered view as if
Buddhism had acted as the sole miscreant that caused the violence. The
dialectics of two forces of the North and the South interacting and clashing
does not enter into his account. It’s Sinhala-Buddhism that is blamed all
the way. The fact that Sinhala-Buddhists were reacting to an inimical,
uncompromising, intransigent force from the North, determined to impose its
minority demands at the expense of the rest of the nation, which can naturally
provoke a reaction, has been ignored. What is implied is that as non-violent
Buddhists their duty was to give in to all the demands of the minority. The crisis
could have been avoided if the Buddhist have been more tolerant and
compromising, according to him.
By omitting the roles played by Northern
actors Tambiah has virtually exonerated the Tamils from any
responsibility for the violence. In any case, it is against common sense to
believe that violence came only from the uncompromising attitude of the
majority. It is like believing in the sound of a clap with one hand.
Besides, this claim is factually wrong. For instance, when Ponnambalam was
demanding 50-50” the Sinhala Board of Minister offered him 43 per cent.
Ponnambalam rejected it. Which majority in the world had given 43% to a
minority of 12% on an issue of so fundamental as power-sharing? The Tamil
leadership blundered and the blame is put on the Sinhala-Buddhists.
In contrast, A. J. Wilson, son-in-law of the father
of Separatism, S. J. V. Chelvanayakam, has commended Sinhala-Buddhist as the
force that has sustained democracy in a pluralistic society. Calvin Woodward,
in his review of Wilson’s book, Politics in Sri Lanka, 1947 – 1973, states:
The uniqueness of Sri Lanka, Wilson points out, is that it (Sri Lanka) has
faced challenges without veering from the democratic path. Certainly then, the
key to the future lies in an understanding of the past. How and
why, in other words, has the democratic experiment been able to work so well in
Sri Lanka? The author investigates this and concludes that the political
stability so far maintained in Sri Lank is due mainly two factors, one of
indigenous origin and the other the result of Western implantation. Primary is
the Buddhist ethos and the doctrine of tolerance. This, according to Wilson,
has acted to dissuade the majority community from unduly imposing itself on the
minorities and encouraged it to respect the fundamental rights and distinctions
of others in the plural society.” (p. 72 – The Ceylon Journal of
Historical and Social Studies – Vol III, July-December, 1973,
No.1.)
Of course, it didn’t take long for Prof. Wilson to
somersault, like most Tamil intellectuals, after the declaration of war
against Sinhala-Buddhist in the Vadukoddai Resolution endorsed by the
Tamil leadership in May 1976. Tamil and pro-Tamil intellectuals fell in line
with Ponnambalam to denigrate Sinhala-Buddhist history and devalue its culture
in order to push their claim for what Bandaranaike called
outrageous demands”. The intellectual fashion was to follow Ponnambalam
every inch of the way. A whole school of Ponnambalayas rose in academia, NGOs
and among pseudo-Marxist pundits / political scientists to defend Tamil
extremism based on the triad outlined above. The irony is that they imagine
themselves to be original thinkers when they are merely aping
Ponnambalam. Dayan Jayatilleka, the self-styled political scientist, for
instance, is wondering why there are no Gramsci’s in Jaffna. Where are the
Gramscis of Jaffna?” he wants to know. He can look till the cows of
Jaffna come home and he will not find any for the simple reason that
Ponnambalayas do not breed Gramscis.
Of course, in his latest Gramscian”
utterance he has predicted the end of the Tamils if they don’t band together
against the armed Dharmapalas”. The Ponnambalayas in the North – there was no
one else in the peninsular landscape – always survived by similar kind of calls
to arms. Dayan Jayatilleka is a Ponnambalaya of the South raising phobias
against the Sinhalese just like the way Ponnambalam did at Navalapitiya in
1939. Clearly, there is nothing original in regurgitating old Ponna”, as he is
known in demotic parlance.. But, according to Dayan’s latest prognosis,
Ponnambalamism has come to a dead-end. So why is it that the Marxists,
the Gramscian, the ex-JVPers and the political scientists behaving like
Ponnayas?
