{"id":107675,"date":"2020-10-16T17:19:59","date_gmt":"2020-10-17T00:19:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=107675"},"modified":"2020-10-16T17:20:35","modified_gmt":"2020-10-17T00:20:35","slug":"indian-morality-is-fuelled-by-tamil-humbuggery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/10\/16\/indian-morality-is-fuelled-by-tamil-humbuggery\/","title":{"rendered":"Indian morality is fuelled by Tamil humbuggery"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

The Indian Government has\nrepeatedly intervened in the domestic affairs of Sri Lanka based on the\nassumption that the policies of Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) needs correction\nby the Big Brother, using the cane if necessary. This interventionist policy continues\nto prevail  even though the overall Indian experience as a regional power\nhas proved that it is not  the best policy for building up trust and\neasing tensions and confrontations among neighbours. In the latest summit\nbetween the two heads of statesPrime\nMinister Narendra Modi and Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse the usual\ninterventionist exhortations were reiterated with neither party shifting from\ntheir standard positions, or benefiting from it. It is now a predictable \nritual at Indo-Sri Lanka meetings for  India to chant the usual mantra\nin  which India calls on the GOSL to address the aspirations of the Tamil\npeople for equality, justice, peace and respect \u2026\u2026\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pushing the\npolitical claims of Tamils of the North has been primarily India\u2019s entry point\nto intervene in the domestic politics of Sri Lanka. In a multi-ethnic,\nmulti-cultural society where there are rival claims  of competing\ncommunities, India has taken only the side of the Tamils of the  North.\nFor instance, India has not backed  the claims of  the Muslims stated\nin the Oluvil Declaration of January 29, 2003. It has, however, backed the\nVadkoddai Resolution (May 14, 1976) and actively intervened to extract\nconcessions from the Sri Lankan government to consolidate the mono-ethnic extremism\nof the Northern Tamils. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This\nintervention on behalf of the Tamils of the North alone, which, of course, can\ncome only at the expense of other communities, happens to be the main\nbone  of contention. The rationale for the intervention too is based on\nthe litany of complaints listed in the Vadukoddai Resolution. Exhorting the\nGOSL to address the aspirations of the Tamil people for equality, justice,\npeace and respect \u2026\u2026\u201d comes directly from the political agenda of the\nVadukoddai Resolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is this\npremise that gives the leverage India  needs to intervene, assuming the\nrole of the highly moral Big Brother ever willing to bring the little brother\ninto line. Whether the blaming of only the GOSL\n(aka \u2018the Sinhala state\u201d) for  the\ninevitable clashes of multi-factorial socio-economic forces competing in rival\nfields of multi-ethnic conditions is valid or not has not been examined\ncritically, either to understand the problem  in all its dimensions or to\nwork out a viable solution. In hindsight, it can be argued that it is the\nblind-sided acceptance of a mono-causal theory, blaming only the\nSinhala-Buddhists in a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural and, hence,\nmulti-dimensional political environment, that distorted the rational\nperspectives necessary to generate conditions for peaceful coexistence. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Particularly\nin the post-Donoughmore period when the Tamil Vellala elite that dominated\nJaffna politics realised that they were losing  their dominance in the\nentrenched colonial administrative and legislative seats, they laboured\nincessantly to manufacture a history to boost their claim to be the founders\nand the  masters of nation from the dawn of time\u201d. (Vadukoddai\nResolution). Their tactic was to rewrite yesterday\u2019s history to fill in the\nyawning gaps to boost today\u2019s politics. Above all, in the absence of a\nsubstantial history, they felt the  need to pose as a superior breed,\nstanding heads and shoulders above the rest, including  the regional and\nTamil-speaking Muslims. It is the self-serving conclusions derived from\ndistorted historical realities that led to the worsening of North-South \nrelations \u2013 a tragic logic that ran all the way to Nandikadal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Tamil Vellala elite had nothing to offer by way of a political\nprogram except their claim  to be superior human beings because (1) they\nspeak Tamil, one  of the  oldest languages in the world  (2)\nthey were in Sri Lanka from the dawn  of time\u201d and (3) they are the\nGod-anointed caste, in the absence of the Brahmins in Jaffna, chosen to rule\nJaffna, as defined by Saivite  casteist guru, Arumuka Navalar ( 1822 –\n1879 ). It is Arumuka Navalar who played the decisive role of defining\nthe superior status of the Vellalas. He is the most\nrevered religious guru of Jaffna mainly because he has been the patron saint of\nthe Vellalas, the dominant majority in the peninsula. It was his revisionist\nHinduism that elevated the Vellalas to the highest caste in Jaffna hierarchy.\nThough he attained the status of a demi-God in the eyes of Vellalas the\nlow-caste stoned his statue when it was taken round Jaffna by V. Navaratnam in\nthe sixties. The Sinhala state\u201d had to send Police from the South to protect\nthe right of the Vellalas to honour their guru. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The arrogant sense of Vellala supremacy was taken to extreme ends. They\nwent to the obnoxious extreme of restricting the membership of the Tamil\ncommunity only to the Vellalas. They denied the low-caste Nalavar and Pallar\nslaves as being Tamils. They were excluded from the Tamil community. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prof.\nBryan Pfaffenberger, a leading authority on the Jaffna caste system, wrote: To\nmaintain the social boundary between Vellalars and untouchables, Vellalas\nemploy ritual to sustain a belief that Minority Tamils (low-castes) are a\nnon-Tamilian, “aboriginal” people of a despicably low status\u2026.\nAccording to extreme Vellalar thinking, this stigma denies Minority Tamils full\nmembership in the Tamil community. The Nalavars’ and Pallars’ recent historical\norigins in Dutch-sponsored immigrations from South India and their putatively\ndarker skin serve to deepen the Vellalar sense that the Minority Tamils are a\npeople apart from the mainstream\u2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If\nVellalars deny that Nalavars and Pallalars are Tamils, as some indeed did in\nthe early 1970s, where are the grounds for unifying the Tamil community? The\nMinority Tamils have long laid claim to full membership in the Tamil community,\nbut in a way that could not fail to alarm Vellalars and stimulate a defensive\nreaction. As Kenneth David has noted, the Pallars of Jaffna expressly conceive\nthemselves to be descended from one of two Vellalar brothers; after the older\nbrother’s death, the widow-a “bad woman,” according to the tale-made\nthe younger one into a landless slave (David 1976: 189-90). Thus, Minority\nTamils’ claim to full membership in the Tamil community is also a claim to\nVellalar status-which is precisely why Vellalars have fought their mobility\ncampaigns with such vehemence.\u201d (Bryan Pfaffenberger: Political Construction\nof Defensive Nationalism: The 1968 Temple-Entry Crisis in Northern Sri Lanka<\/em>).\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Religion, casteism intertwined inextricably with religion, and the Tamil\nlanguage borrowed from S. India, were the three main strands that were rolled\ninto one ideology\u2013 three inter-meshing forces that went to make the Tamil\nidentity in the twentieth century. The identity politics of Jaffna was based\nprimarily on this ideology. In the twentieth century when the Vellalas were\nturning  into a class from being dominant caste in feudal and colonial\ntimes they had no progressive ideology \u2013 liberalism, socialism, democratic pluralism\netc — to justify their supremacy. Every one of those  ideologies would\nhave undermined their casteist supremacy. So the Vellalas manufactured Tamil\nidentitarian  politics as a vital for their own survival. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their initial struggle to preserve their supremacy was based on casteist\nSaivism of Arumuka Navalar which they did with extra-legal force against the\nlow-castes when necessary. But invading market forces, democratisation of the\npolitical system and modernity were undermining their casteist supremacy. It\nwas when the outdated Vellala feudal fortress was crumbling that they took to\nthe Tamil identitarian politics to unite Jaffna fragmented on casteist\nfaultlines. It was also the last defence available to  them to retain\ntheir supremacy. Sir Ponnambalam Ramanathan\u2019s last mission to the Colonial\nSecretary in the late twenties was to persuade the colonial masters on the\nnecessity of maintaining the caste system for the preservation  of law and\norder. Every aspect of Jaffna society, everything from the womb to the tomb,\nwas determined and enforced by the Vellala norms, ranks and gangs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Any threat to the universe of the Vellala supremacists was seen as\nchaos. To maintain their supremacy they did not hesitate to reduce the\nlow-caste slaves to subhuman conditions. In Jaffna,\u201d wrote\nPfaffenberger, in the 1940s and 1950s, for instance, Minority Tamils were\nforbidden to enter or live near temples; to draw water from the wells of\nhigh-caste families; to enter laundries, barber shops, cafes, or taxis; to keep\nwomen in seclusion and protect them by enacting domestic rituals; to wear\nshoes; to sit on bus seats; to register their names properly so that social\nbenefits could be obtained; to attend school; to cover the upper part of the\nbody; to wear gold earrings; if male, to cut their hair; to use umbrellas; to\nown bicycles or cars; to cremate the dead; or to convert to Christianity or\nBuddhism (Holmes1980:232-34). To enforce these restrictions extralegally,\nVellalars have fielded gangs of thugs to punish upwardly mobile Pallars or\nNalavars. These gangs pollute untouchable wells with dead dogs, fecal matter,\nor garbage; burn down untouchable fences or houses; physically assault and beat\nMinority Tamils, and sometimes kill them. Preceding the Maviddapuram crisis there\nhad been several altercations in which Minority Tamils died (Times of\nCeylon, <\/em>Feb. 17, 1968, p. 1).\u201d (Ibid).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One\nmore critical issue that reveals the inhuman way in which the Tamil leadership\ntreated their own people down the ages. It was demonstrated in 1968 when the\nlow-castes staged a non-violent protest at the Maviddipuram Temple to gain\nadmittance. Here\u2019s the description  of the events that followed by Prof.\nPfaffenberger: After days of tense but peaceful confrontation, the\ndemonstration turned violent as dozens of self-styled “Defenders of\nSaivism,” Hindus of high-caste rank (Vellalars and their domestic\nservants, the Koviyars), beat back the Minority Tamils with iron rods and\nsand-filled bottles. Feelings ran very high throughout the peninsula, and there\nwere many incidents of violence, some lethal.\u201d (Ibid). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nobscene record of Tamils massacring Tamils, of Tamil oppressing Tamils, of\nTamils dehumanising Tamils is the darkest chapter in Sri Lankan history. No\nother community was  treated with utter contempt by their leaders as the\nTamils. No other community was persecuted, tortured, oppressed and reduced to\nsubhuman slaves as the Tamils of Jaffna. It was a haven for the Vellala\nsupremacists who ran Jaffna with an iron-fist. It was also a glorious regime\nfor the  Tamil Tigers who turned the peninsula into a fascist gulag. But\nto the victims of these fascist leaders it was a hell-hole. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is against\nthis background that the accusation of blaming the Sinhala state\u201d should be\njudged. Any judgement or accusation levelled against the GOSL must be\ncompared  with the treatment meted out to the Tamils by the Tamil leaders.\nBefore pointing the accusing finger at the Sinhala state\u201d isn\u2019t it only fair\nthat there should be a fair and objective assessment of the manner in which the\nTamil leaders treated the Tamils? After all, the Sinhala state\u201d had  been\nthere  only for the last 72 years. The Tamils of the North were ruled by\ntheir Tamils leaders during the feudal and colonial periods. Besides, the Tamils\nalso  came under the rule of a Tamil leader from around 1976, after the\nDeclaration of War by the Tamil leaders at Vadukoddai,  when the North and\nthe East were occupied by the de facto state run by the Tamil Tigers. What kind\nof treatment  did the Tamils get under Velupillai Prabhakaran, their\nSurya Devan\u201d? How does the treatment meted out to the Tamils by the Tamil\nleaders compare with the treatment they received under the Sinhala state? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, when the\nIndian panjandrums pressure Sri Lanka to address the aspirations of the Tamil\npeople for equality, justice, peace and respect \u2026\u2026\u201d have they ever paused to\nask what degree of equality, justice, peace and respect was given to  the\nTamils by the Tamil regimes \/ leaders throughout their history? In comparison,\nthe historical record proves that the Tamils never had it so good as under the\nSinhala states\u201d. For instance, no Tamil residing in other  parts of the\nworld, including India, their one and only homeland, has had the privilege of\nbeing represented in  the national flag \u2013 the highest symbol of\nrecognition and respect given to any community. The Tamils fly high among \nthe 193 flags at the UN because the Sinhala state\u201d has given them their due\nrespect and place.  Their language and their equal status have  been\nrecognised and honoured in  the currency, the stamps and all official\nrecords of the Sinhala state\u201d. No Tamil regime in  the past or in\ncontemporary times  have delivered justice, however, flawed it may be, as\nthe Sinhala state\u201d. In fact, the best of Tamil lawyers practiced law in the\ncourts of the Sinhala state\u201d and not in the  Tamil courts of the de facto\nstate of Prabhakaran. What justice was given to the low-castes Tamils\nprotesting non-violently at the Maviddipuram Temple by the Vellalas? What equality\ndid the Vellalas grant to the Tamil protestors when they cracked their heads\nwith  iron rod and bottles filled with sand merely because they asked for\npermission to pray to the same God\/s in the same  temple?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is the\nVellala leadership which dehumanised their fellow-Tamils and treated them as\noutcasts. It is the same leaderrship that is going behind India to put pressure\non the GOSL to address the aspirations of the Tamil people for equality,\njustice, peace and respect.\u201d The Tamil community will agree, if they are honest\nenough, that the record of their leaders treating their fellow-Tamils stinks to\nhigh heaven. Again, they will agree, if they are honest enough, that on balance\nthe Sinhala state\u201d has applied the principles of equality, justice and peace\nin dealing with all communities. There are, of course, instances of deviating\nfrom this norm. But any judgment on an historical scale will confirm that\nthe  Sinhala state\u201d have been far fairer and just to the Tamils than the\nTamils have been to the Tamils. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, where\ndoes this leave the Indians who are asking the Sinhala state\u201d to address the\naspirations of the Tamil people for equality, justice, peace and respect\u201d? What\njustification is there for India to lecture to GOSL in dealing with only the\nTamil minority who, tragically,  has been the perennial victims of their\nfascist leaders? The GOSL which has been in search of peaceful coexistence has\ngone a long distance to ameliorate the conditions of the Tamils. For instance,\nthe first ever legal step to dismantle the fascist  caste structure was\ntaken by S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike who passed the Prevention of Social\nDisabilities Act of 1957. In 2009 it was Mahinda Rajapakse who  liberated\nthe Tamils from the fascist tyranny of the Tamil Pol Pot. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Tamil leaders\nof Jaffna, of course, have been shedding  crocodile tears for the\noppressed Tamils. Their humbuggery in blaming the Sinhala state\u201d for their\nfailure to deliver  their  people from the systemic evils of casteism\nis unforgiveable. Jaffna political class has survived by passing the buck to\nthe Sinhala state. They never took responsibility for the consequences of the\ndecadent and evil caste system that enslaved the Tamil people from the Dutch\nperiod to modern times. What is worse is the Indian morality that goes along\nwith the Tamil humbuggery. They know what is happening under their noses. And\nyet they opt to go along  with Tamil humbuggery. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tamil leaders\nof Jaffna are the last whingers who are entitled to complain about the denial\nof  equality, justice, peace and respect\u201d to the Tamil people. Would\nPrabhakaran ever have invited R. Sampanthan to be his  leader of the\nOpposition? Would India  have allowed Muthiah Muralidharan to step into\nany part of Indian territory if he was throwing hand grenades for Prabhakaran?\nWasn\u2019t it because Murali was given respect and  treated equally that he\nbecame a famous Tamilian? India, on the contrary, trained Prabhakaran to throw\nhand grenades in Sirumalai, near Madurai and paid for it dearly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, when\nIndia accepts the humbuggery of the Tamil oppressors and  lectures to the\nGOSL on how to deal with its most privileged minority it degrades its claim to\nbe a moral leader. It deviates from  the Gandhi-Nehruvian morality that\nmade it a shining star, pointing the way to peace and security in a troubled\nworld. Following the Tamil accusations blindly has given  India a moral\nveneer in the past to (1) violate international law (air space), (2) train\nTamil terrorists to subvert and destabilise a  democratically elected\nneighbour, (3) send its military forces in the guise of disarming  the\nTamil terrorists it trained, financed and exported to Sri Lanka and (4)\ngenerally twist the arm of GOSL to thrust the 13th Amendment down the\nthroat  of Sri Lanka devolving power to the Tamils \u2013 its main objective \u2013\nand (5) leave Sri Lanka achieving nothing to resolve the problem after beating\nSri Lanka with its Big  Brother stick. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After\nthrowing in  all its resources, after mobilising all its diplomatic,\nmilitary and economic power India is still stuck in the place where it began.\nBesides, Sri Lanka too has gone the distance it could to accommodate the Indian\nsolution\u201d. Sri Lanka even opened its gates and  invited the Indian forces\nto come  and  fix the problem. It accepted the Indian political formula\nit imposed in the form of the 13th<\/sup> Amendment. Sri Lanka has been\nbending over backwards not  to offend India. And yet, after going along\nwith India\u2019s solutions\u201d s far as it could, India  is refusing to take any\nresponsibility for the failure of its interventionist policy. It is still\nexhorting Sri Lanka to address equality, justice, peace and respect\u201d as\nclaimed by the Tamils of the North. Didn\u2019t India come in to do that job saying\nthat Indian Big Brother can do what Sri Lankan younger brother can\u2019t do? So why\nis India pointing a finger at Sri Lanka after failing in its mission? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fourth\nlargest army in the world couldn\u2019t even disarm, as promised in the Indo-Sri\nLanka Agreement, the terrorists it trained in Indian  soil. Indian\nmeddling in Sri Lanka has not brought a satisfactory solution to the Tamils,\nthe Sri Lankans and, least of all,  to the Indians. The issue continues to\nsimmer with the Tamil tail twisting  the Indian head in Delhi.\nConsequently, isn\u2019t its India\u2019s duty to revisit the problem and examine\ncritically where it went wrong and ask: why has India gone nowhere so far?\nCould it be  that India has got its fundamentals wrong? Isn\u2019t it clear\nthat India has failed, even after exhausting all its options,  because it\nhas not come to grips with the historical and political realities that fuelled\nthe North-South crisis? Can India  provide a solution if it can\u2019t get its\nbasics right? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With all its\naccumulated experience that adds up to a failure so far, it is obvious that\nIndia  must go for a mid-course correction. If so from where should India\nbegin? The most appropriate place would be to test the Indian premise on which\nIndia has acted so far to intervene in Sri Lankan affairs. Accepting the usual\nlitany of complaints made by the Tamils of the North as its official line for\nintervention questions India\u2019s judgemental capacity to evaluate critical issues\nrelevant to its national and regional interests. So where should India begin\nsince it has failed in achieving a solution by follow slavishly the political\nline sold by the Tamils to India.? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is common\nknowledge that if you begin with the wrong premise you end up with the wrong\nconclusions. No logical, rational or acceptable solution can come if you start\nfrom a wrong premise. For instance, if a new critical analysis establishes that\nit is the Tamil leadership that  has been guilty of denying the oppressed\nTamils their rights and their due place in the sun  will not the\nconclusion lead to different solutions? Why did the Tamil leadership fail to\nredeem their own people who were suffering under the yoke of Vellala casteism?\nWhy did they go along with Prabhakaranist fascism and blame GOSL for not\ngiving  into his demands? Why did they pass the buck to the Sinhala\nbogeyman and still continue to mislead the world with their self-serving\nnarrative? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since India\nhas adopted the usual litany of complaints made by the Tamils of the North as\nits official line for intervention it is imperative that India should, even at\nthis  late stage, revisit its premise and evaluate how far it can go down\nthe failed path with the Tamils. The success of foreign policies depends on\nobjective and critical analysis, particularly if  it is stuck in a rut. No\nforeign policy can survive for long on myths and  fiction. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

H. L. D. Mahindapala The Indian Government has repeatedly intervened in the domestic affairs of Sri Lanka based on the assumption that the policies of Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) needs correction by the Big Brother, using the cane if necessary. This interventionist policy continues to prevail  even though the overall Indian experience as a […]<\/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-107675","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\/107675","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=107675"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107675\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}