{"id":107284,"date":"2020-10-05T00:07:40","date_gmt":"2020-10-05T06:07:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=107284"},"modified":"2020-10-04T17:07:01","modified_gmt":"2020-10-05T00:07:01","slug":"mahinda-rajapaksas-appropriate-counter-to-modis-thirteenth-amendment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/10\/05\/mahinda-rajapaksas-appropriate-counter-to-modis-thirteenth-amendment\/","title":{"rendered":"Mahinda Rajapaksa\u2019s appropriate counter to Modi\u2019s Thirteenth Amendment"},"content":{"rendered":"

H. L. D. Mahindapala<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

Managing Indo-Sri Lanka relations is prioritised as\nthe most important item in the agenda of the Sri Lankan Foreign Ministry. In\nfact, the President and the Prime Minister have stretched every nerve since\nthey came into power to go beyond the official diplomatic interactions to\nmaintain a personal rapport of the best kind with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.\nThe recent meeting between the two prime  ministers was meant to smoothen\nthe rough patches and reinforce the good relations between the two heads of\nstates. The official communique of the Indian Ministry of External Affairs\n(26\/9\/2020) has classified the meeting as a Virtual Summit\u201d between the two\nPrime Ministers. Indo-Sri Lanka relations could not have been considered at a\nlevel higher than this Virtual Summit\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Joint\nStatement on Virtual Bilateral Summit\u201d issued by the Ministry of External\nAffairs in Delhi should be read against this background of both parties\nwanting  to emphasize the importance of each other in formulating policies\nfor mutual benefit in a region  that has been hotting up, slowly but\nsurely, with China muscling in to remind that two tigers cannot hunt in \none mountain. With China maintaining its steady pace in the region the question\nfor India is quite straightforward: Can India match the Chinese art of winning\nand influencing friends  in  the region?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For instance,\nin the  Virtual Summit\u201d in Delhi has India taken any new initiatives,\nbreaking  away from  its failed policies in the past, to pave the\npath for peace and reconciliation to the North-South crisis which was fuelled\nto a critical extent by India\u2019s interventionist policies? India has a serious\nmoral and political duty to play a positive role \u2013 not a partisan  one \u2013\nhaving been a part of the problem from the early days. Though India has been\nparading as the solution it has, in reality, been a provocative source of\ncausing, worsening  and perpetuating the problem. It has been consistently\nrocking the cradle and pinching the baby.  For how long can India \nkeep going down this track without destabilising  its own  position\nin the region? How many more Rajiv Gandhis and professional soldiers must\nsacrifice their lives for India to regain its common sense? When  will\nIndia realise that a failed policy\/strategy, laid to rest by the people, cannot\nbe  resuscitated to do a Lazarus even if they had Jesus or Sai Baba\nrunning the Indian Foreign Office. In any case, how long  did Lazarus last\nafter he was revived?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most of all,\nIndia\u2019s diplomats \u2013 some of whom are brilliant — must ask seriously whether\nthe time hasn\u2019t come for them to revisit the failed past and learn lessons for\na constructive and  meaningful future? Or is  India doomed to be\nstuck in the failed past (e.g., Kashmir) and take the  whole region into a\ndeep black hole from which none cannot get out?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Take the case\nof the Joint Statement on  the \u201dVirtual Summit\u201d. It sums up the\nconclusions of the two prime ministers. It has many positives but one critical\nlapse makes  it look like a pail of sweet white milk with a smidgin of cow\ndung thrown into it. It is Clause 7 of the Joint Statement that sours the whole\ntext.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It says: 7. Prime\nMinister Modi called on the Government of Sri Lanka to address the aspirations\nof the Tamil people for equality, justice, peace and respect within a united\nSri Lanka, including by carrying forward the process of reconciliation with the\nimplementation of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution of Sri Lanka.\nPrime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa expressed the confidence that Sri Lanka will\nwork towards realizing the expectations of all ethnic groups, including Tamils,\nby achieving reconciliation nurtured as per the mandate of the people of Sri\nLanka and implementation of the Constitutional provisions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this para\nthe two contradictory positions have been juxtaposed in precise terms bringing\nout the stark differences in the approach to the vexed issue of Tamil\naspirations\u201d and India\u2019s interventionist role in it. For his  part,\nNarendra Modi is talking only of the aspirations of the Tamil people\u201d. Mahinda\nRajapakse, on the contrary, is responsible for all the communities \u2013 just \nnot the Tamils \u2013 and he focuses on the expectations of all ethnic groups,\nincluding the Tamils.\u201d It is in the interests of Modi domestic politics to plug\nthe narrow interests of the Tamils only. Mahinda has a larger constituency. His\nconstituency is the whole nation and he  has a clearly defined mandate to\nlook after the interests of all communities. Modi cares only for his Indian\ninterests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the Joint\nStatement Modi is reiterating the failed policy of India that (1) destabilised\nthe oldest democracy in Asia, (2) reinforced the fascist power of a Tamil Pol\nPot in the North of Sri Lanka and (3) led to the defeat of the fourth largest\nin  the world\u201d, as claimed by the LTTE, which had the  power to even\nassassinate Rajiv Gandhi, the Prime  Minister, humiliating  India\nin  the eyes of  the world. Indian strategists should also realise by\nnow that the Thirteenth Amendment has not worked for the Tamils who were\nsupposed to benefit most by it, and to India\u2019s status as a mighty force in the\nIndian Ocean Rim, (the fourth  largest army could not even disarm\nPrabhakaran as promised in the Indo\u2014Sri Lanka Agreement), or protect its own\nPrime Minister within its own borders. At best, reiterating the Thirteenth\nAmendment (i.e., the Tamil issue) gives India an opening to interfere in the\ndomestic politics of Sri Lanka. The Thirteenth Amendment is stoked from time to\ntime to sustain and protect Indian interests in the Southern flank which can\u2019t\nbe left open for rivals to exploit. It is also one of the tools in the\nneo-imperialist armoury of India which is yet to learn that imperialism is a\nforce that can ricochet and  the destroy the imperialists  more \nthan their victims. India is a tragedy surrounded by the angry victims of the\n(unintended) consequences of its arrogant and short-sighted foreign\npolicies.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pushing the\nfailed Indian line, Modi has once again called on the Government of Sri Lanka\nto implement the Thirteenth Amendment\u201d. It is, as everyone knows, an Indian\ncreation to further Indian interests.  Moreover, it is raised as a\nreminder to impress that it is India\u2019s prerogative to  dictate what is\ngood and  bad for Sri Lanka. Mahinda Rajapakse, quite rightly, has\ncountered this exhortation\u201d by emphasizing reconciliation as per the mandate\nof the people of Sri Lanka and  implementation of the Constitutional\nprovisions.\u201d These are two conflicting positions. The Thirteenth Amendment project\ndirectly the Indian interests. And Mahinda Rajapakse is saying, quite bluntly,\nthat he is there to protect the Sri Lankan interests. He is insisting \nthat he has a mandate to fulfil and that is to obey the will of the people and\nnot the will of a foreign power. Also, with the additional rulings from the\nSupreme Court he has obligations  to the Constitution and he cannot\noverride those to satisfy foreign interventionists pursuing their interests.\nBesides, the mandate of the people of Sri Lanka\u201d given to him this time round\nhas, more than at other times, rejected any external interventions in the\ndomestic affairs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In short, the\nThirteenth Amendment remains as a pathetic monument to India\u2019s diplomatic\nfolly. It has been rejected by the Sri Lankan minorities and the majority. It\nwas meant to solve mainly the problem of Prabhakaran. He brazenly rejected it\nand took the next step of assassinating the Indian  Prime Minister who\nimposed it against his will. It was supposed to satisfy the political aspirations\u201d\nof the Tamils. But to this day it stands as the most dysfunctional solution \u2013\nas dysfunctional as the Americans planting Din Diem, a Catholic in Buddhist\nVietnam, as their puppet. A common feature of imperialists is  to plant\ntheir puppets and solutions in foreign\/occupied territory which invariably drag\nthem into black holes. Sri Lanka, in short, was India\u2019s Vietnam. India gained\nnothing. India saved nothing. Modi\u2019s latest statement is a confession of the\nfact that its Thirteenth  Amendment has failed. If it was successful there\nwould have been no necessity to raise it again. Adding insult to Indian injury,\nthe people in all the provinces have been functioning happily without the\nProvincial Councils for the last two years. So, what is the use of a solution\nthat is superfluous and unwanted by the  majority and  the minority?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Indian\nexperience of dealing with its own major minority is also instructive in\ndealing with Modi\u2019s insistence on the full implementation of the Thirteenth\nAmendment. Let us, for instance, restate the formula in the Joint Statement\nsubstituting the Muslims in India to that  of the Tamils in Sri Lanka. Let\nus consider a similar  summit meeting with Modi, and Imran Khan, the\nPakistani Prime Minister, who recently twittered that the Muslims in India are\nworse than the Jews in Hitler\u2019s Germany. Let us imagine that Imran Khan had\nsaid that  India  should  address the\naspirations of the Muslim people for equality, justice, peace and respect\nwithin a united India, including by carrying forward the process of\nreconciliation with the implementation of the countless UN Resolutions on\nKashmir\u201d. Well, how would India react to this counter move by Pakistan? If Modi\nthinks that his  solution  is good for Sri Lanka why isn\u2019t the same\nsolution good for India to solve he longest running international crisis point\nin Kashmir? Wouldn\u2019t India consider that to be a direct intervention in its the\ndomestic affairs?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Besides,\nIndia has applied all its diplomatic, political, international and military forces\nto resolve the issue of Tamil aspirations\u201d which has several layers of\nmeaning, including separation, and failed. If India with all its might could\nnot implement its own formula for the  betterment  of the Tamil\npeople, disarm the Tamil terrorists they armed, and stabilise the  region\nfor its own interest  what is the purpose of going  down the failed\ntrack again and again?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Above all,\nthe rationale on which Modi\u2019s argument for the implementation of the Thirteenth\nAmendment is coloured by a political narrative overloaded with distortions,\nfiction, and concoctions. There would have been some justification for the\nclaim of the Tamils to be the victims of the Sinhala-Buddhist majority if, as\nthey claim, the Sinhala-Buddhist had done one  fraction of what the Tamil\nVellalas and the ruling elite of Jaffna had done to the oppressed outcasts who\nwere treated as despised pariahs kept outside their  sacred domains of<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jaffna. Any\naccusation against the Sinhala-Buddhist must be compared with the subhuman\ntreatment of the Tamil minority by the Vellala majority. The  high-caste\nVellala elite ruled Jaffna with an iron-fist, overseeing every aspect of Jaffna\nsociety from the womb to the tomb. The low-caste Tamils were not allowed to\nwalk in God-given sunlight. They could not bury their dead if they did so\naccording to Hindu rites \u2013 privileged ritual reserved only for the high caste.\nThey could not worship  the same God in the Hindu  places of worship.\nThey couldn\u2019t drink a sip of water from Vellala wells. Their schools were\nburnt. Vellala caste fascism bred the political fascism of Prabhakaran who\nkilled more Tamils than all the other forces  put together.  Killing\nTamils by Tamils was a part of Tamil culture ever since Sankili marched down to\nMannar on the  eve of Christmas 1654 and massacred 600 Tamil Christians\nfor owing allegiance to the Portuguese king. Prabhakaran was his avatar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Vellalas\nwere the most privileged caste\/class in Jaffna. They dominated Jaffna society\nfrom  feudal times. They did not given inch to any other rival caste. They\nwere the  owners of land, temples and schools \u2013 three of the commanding\nheights of Jaffna society. With their education  they occupied key\npositions in the colonial administrations. They had the ear of the colonial\nmasters and as their subagents in the colonial administrations they had the\npower of the state behind them. Maintaining the caste supremacy was their\nprimary political mission. One of the last acts of Sir. Ponnambalam Ramanathan\nwas to go on a mission  to the Colonial Secretariat to urge the\npreservation of the existing caste system that enthroned the Vellalas as the\nsupreme masters of  Jaffna. He argued that it was a system necessary for\nthe maintenance of law and order.  In other words, on the eve of independence\nthey were the most privileged community in Sri Lanka., sitting on the\nright-hand side of the ruling British gods. When G. G. Ponnambalam went before\nthe Soulbury Commissioners and complained of discrimination by the Sinhalese\nagainst the Tamils, the British Commissioners who examined the details\ndismissed it as having no validity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In essence,\nthe Vellala Tamils, who were also the political masters of Jaffna, were the\nmost privileged community in Sri Lanka. For them to claim to be the\ndiscriminated victims of the majority Sinhalese has been a common political\nploy to gain political sympathy and through that political mileage. It is a\nnarrative that they sold successfully round the world, including the Foreign\noffices of India and, believe it or not, Sri Lanka too. This ideology of\nvictimology has been  used to great advantage by the Vellala Tamils to\nproject themselves as the victims of the Sinhala-Buddhist majority. It is this\nideology that has influenced the foreign policies of ill-informed global foreign\noffices. So, when Modi called on the Government of Sri Lanka to address the\naspirations of the Tamil people for equality, justice, peace and respect within\na united Sri Lanka,\u201d he was parroting the usual litany of complaints of the\nmost privileged community in Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking back\nat the history of the Vellalas (aka, the Tamils), it can be asserted\nincontrovertibly that never in the  history of Jaffna has the  Tamils\n(meaning all layers of Jaffna  society) ever reached the heights of\nequality, justice, respect and dignity as in the post-independent years of what\nthey call the Sinhala state\u201d. Take, for instance, the national flag. There are\n193 flags flying at the UN. Never in the history of Jaffna Tamils did they ever\nhave a place of recognition and respect internationally as in the Sri Lankan\nflag. Not even in the Indian flag \u2013 the one  and  only homeland of\nthe Tamils. When the  heads of states stand up for the Sri Lankan flag they\nalso stand up for the Muslims and Tamils. Under which Tamil ruler did the\nTamils receive this honour?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Take also the\nnational currency, stamps, and other national symbols. Tamils have been \ngiven their due place of respect in every respect. But the reality has been\ndistorted to demonise the Sinhala state\u2019\u201d. R. Sampanthan goes around  the\nworld complaining that the Tamils have lost  their dignity, respect,\nequality and justice under the Sinhala state. What respect and dignity did he\nget from the one and  only Tamil state established by the Tamil Pol Pot?\nDid he ever have the right to act on his own in his  Tamil state? In which\nstate did he find the right to dissent and  act independently with\ndignity? When he and his fellow MPs were taking orders from his Tamil Thallivar\nwhich state gave him his due dignity and the respect that any individual\ndeserves? Did he feel like a better human being  when he was in\nPrabhakaran\u2019s state or in the \u2019Sinhala state\u201d? Oh, by the way, when the Vellala\ngangs cracked the heads of the protesting low-caste with bottles filled with\nsand in Maviddipuram when they were demanding the right to worship their God in\nthe Hindu temples where was he? Did he fight for the dignity and the rights of\nthe Tamils who were oppressed and kicked around as a subhuman species? The\nTamils also talk of peace. Who declared the war in Vadukoddai and ran it for 33\nyears, causing untold suffering to the Tamil people?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Consider also\nthe case of R. Sampanthan who is a lawyer. Did he find justice in the Tamil\ncourts of Prabhakaran or in the courts of the Sinhala state\u201d  presided,\nsometimes by his fellow-Tamils like Justice C. V. Wigneswaram? Did he ever as a\nlawyer fight for justice in Prabhakaran\u2019s courts? Did he ever fight for the\nrights of the abducted Tamil children  in  the  courts in\nVanni?  Did he ever complain to the Indian Prime Minister or the American\nAmbassador that there is no justice in Prabhakaran\u2019s courts? That narrative was\nnever told. Only the Sinhala state\u201d was demonised. The list is unending. As I\nsaid earlier, there has not been a period in the history of Tamils better than\nthe last 72 years under the Sinhala state\u201d. Yes, there were horrendous\nand  condemnable periods during which the Sinhalese behaved like beasts.\nNo decent Sinhalese is proud of those instances. Without making excuses, all\nthose instances have been a part of human history. No community is exempt \nfrom violence. But, on balance, judgments are passed on the greater evil.\nInvariably , fallible and fallen man has to be judged not on the blameless\nideal but on the lesser evil which is the fairest judgement available to us\nall. On that score, the Sinhalese have strived to build a culture that should\nprovide a fit-dwelling for all men\u201d (Mahavamsa). And that includes the Tamils.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mahinda Rajapakse\nhas reiterated that message at the Summit  in India. His act in India at\nthe Summit was on a low key than the time he was confronted by David Milliband\nand Richard Kouchener, the two foreign ministers of UK and France respectively.\nBut the message was the same and couched in diplomatic terms. While  cheap\npoliticians go for the size of coconuts in the  market place the people\ntake the measure of their leaders by the size of the giants they take on in\ndefending the nation. It is acts like this, where he  stands up for the\nnation, that makes him  the most popular leader.  Who can blame him\nfor winning  votes without trying?,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

H. L. D. Mahindapala Managing Indo-Sri Lanka relations is prioritised as the most important item in the agenda of the Sri Lankan Foreign Ministry. In fact, the President and the Prime Minister have stretched every nerve since they came into power to go beyond the official diplomatic interactions to maintain a personal rapport of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-107284","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-h-l-d-mahindapala"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107284"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107284\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}