{"id":110938,"date":"2021-01-23T17:49:46","date_gmt":"2021-01-24T00:49:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=110938"},"modified":"2021-01-23T17:56:23","modified_gmt":"2021-01-24T00:56:23","slug":"india-cannot-solve-indo-sri-lanka-problems-on-tamil-lies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2021\/01\/23\/india-cannot-solve-indo-sri-lanka-problems-on-tamil-lies\/","title":{"rendered":"India cannot solve Indo-Sri Lanka problems on Tamil lies"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

In continuing last week\u2019s article on how lies manufactured and\nmanipulated by charismatic leaders and mediocre theorists can distort the\nperceptions of the masses and lead societies to violence  I must make a\nbrief diversion, before I come to the local context \u2013 my main purpose — \nto focus on how Donald Trump is leaving White House as the most dangerous\nPresident that ever walked out of it. He is leaving America under the darkest\ncloud that threatens to come  down not in dismal rain but in ghastly \nblood. He left the White House saying: Goodbye, we love you, we\u2019ll be back in\nsome form,\u201d before boarding Air Force One  for the  last  time.\nThat is an ominous message. And he has the potential to do it considering the\nfollowing he has. America exploded because of one  big lie manufactured\nand manipulated by Trump. Millions of his followers believed in  his big\nlie  that  he won  the election. And he left the White House\nas  a  bitter man vowing to come back to vindicate himself and\npossibly to  get  even with  those who stole\u201d his victory.<\/sup><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

This makes life  risky to his rivals. To begin with, I fear\nfor the lives of both President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.\nAmerica has a bitter history of assassinating controversial and reformist\nleaders who dominate tumultuous times. It has a history of assassinating four\nPresidents: 1. Abraham Lincoln (1865) shot by a confederate, white supremacist,\nimmediately after the Civil War which led to the emancipation of Afro-American\nslaves ; 2. James Garfield (1881) shot by a disgruntled public servant; 3.\nWilliam McKinley 1901 was shot by an anarchist who had lost his job; and 4. J.\nF. Kennedy shot in 1963 with conspiracy theories pointing a finger at egregious\nEdgar Hoover, the head of FBI. In between Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Ronal\nReagan narrowly escaped assassination attempts.<\/sup><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The last phase of Trump\u2019s regime was a volatile time where the\nAmerican nation was split right down the middle. It was the time closest to\nthat of the Civil War where racist  supremacist were  riding high. Then\nviolence originated from the overall conditions of the Civil War. The unique\naspect of our time is that violence has come straight down from the President\nwho tried every trick in the book  and failed to retain his seat in the\nWhite House. He challenged the election result in 62  courts which\nrejected his lie that the election was stolen from him through fraudulent\nmeans. His own Party was divided on it. The people rejected it. He fought two\nSenate seats in Georgia on his  lie and lost both. Finally, when he ran\nout of all avenues, the last means  available to him was to stop the\nCongress assembled to count the electoral votes and endorse Joe Biden as the\nwinner of the election. In a desperate bid he sent his mob down Pennsylvania\nAvenue to the Congress to grab power with physical force \u2013 a blood-thirsty mob\nwhich was out to Hang Pence!\u201d who was presiding at the count, and also Nancy\nPolosi, the Speaker of the House, if they could get her.<\/sup><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Inciting an insurrection to stop the democratic process in order\nto grab power violently was a crime committed by Trump in full public view.\nThis desperate act, which was doomed to fail, question his mental state. Can a\nrational man who can think logically reject the reality staring in his face and\ncontinue obsessively and fanatically to believe in  his own lies  —\nlies which he could not substantiate and were leading him, every step of the\nway, to his nemesis? Could he  stop the will of the American people\nexpressed overwhelmingly in favour of his rival, Joe Biden, in the presidential\nelection by sending his rag-tag mob down the mall to stop the legitimate act of\nthe first branch of government assembled to endorse his defeat? Only  a\nhalf-demented, self-pitying, intransigent maniac, paralysed by the fear of facing\nthe world waiting to get him once he leaves the protective office, could\nbelieve in phantasmagorial lies like the one he believed in. He and his\nfollowers sincerely believe that tens of thousands of dead men\u2019s votes\nwere  cast for Biden along with tens of  thousands of votes that were\nshifted by machines fixed to make Biden win. Our modern societies are plagued\nby lies manufactured and promoted by self-seeking political leaders whose lies\nhave led to early deaths and  unnecessary destruction. The lies that political\nleaders have marketed for short-term gains have in the long-term been dangerous\nto their lives and that of their followers. These lies invariably tend to\nricochet and knock them out. As I pointed out earlier it happened to Hitler, it\nhappened to the Tamil leaders and it happened to Donald Trump.<\/sup><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The leaders who thrive on palpable lies deserve their inevitable\nhumiliating end. But it is the consequences to the people and the community\nthat are tragic, leaving them as helpless victims of  unmanageable and\noverwhelming  disasters. The poisonous lies injected by the leaders into\nsociety create toxic politics that drive people to irredeemable extremism.<\/sup><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

For instance, there are 3006 counties in America and in every\none of them there is at least one  or two white supremacists, seething\nwith racism and armed with a gun,  ready to target both the President and\nVice-President, if and when an opportunity arises. Apart from that there are\nsufficient number of red-necked, white  supremacists in the armed forces\nwho can do to both President  and to Vice-President what  the Sikh\nbodyguard did to Mrs. Indira Gandhi. In the current context, what has happened\nhas happened because one leader believes, in his deranged way, that he alone\nknows the truth when the whole world proclaims it\u2019s  a lie. Consequently,\nnot only America the whole world is facing the horrors of Trump\u2019s mendacious\ncult.<\/sup><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

He, of course, will go out  of the White House perpetuating\nhis lie which will fuel the fires of hate that are waiting to explode in the\ncoming  days, may be years. Who knows? For what it is worth, it must \nbe recorded that  a leading Indian astrologer has predicted that Kamala\nHarris will be the next president. This too sounds ominous. It can only mean\nthat Biden  will not last his  full term. Whether it will be through\nnatural causes or man-made causes is not  clear. The Security forces will\nhave a nightmarish time protecting both as the mood of divided America has\nturned nasty with fanatics hanging around, waiting to target  their perceived\nenemy.<\/sup><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The battle that was fought and won was battle for  the\ntruth. Trump was manipulating and manufacturing an alternative narrative based\non brazen lies. In his inaugural speech Biden took on this  issue head-on\nand said: And we must reject the culture in which facts themselves are\nmanipulated, and even manufactured. \u2026\u2026The recent weeks and months  have\ntaught us a painful lesson. There is truth and there are lies, lies told for\npower and for profit,\u201d<\/sup><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Biden\u2019s speech has a great relevance to the world, particularly\nto Sri Lanka, because foreign policies aimed at bringing lasting peace on earth\nand reconciliation among divided communities cannot succeed on manufactured\nlies. This is a large theme that can be explored later. For the moment, it\nis  his statement that we must reject the culture in which facts\nthemselves are manipulated, and even manufactured\u201d that will be explored \nin the Sri Lankan context.  The hostile foreign policies of  the West\nand India in particular are based essentially on the narrative packaged and\nmarketed by the Tamil separatist lobby which has a sizeable toe-hold in most\nforeign  offices of the West and India. There is at least one Tamil\nlobbyist who had infiltrated as volunteers the political offices of left-wing\nMPs from UK to New Zealand. Their clout exceeds that of the embassies and high\ncommissions of the Sri Lankan Ministry of Foreign Affairs. To this day no\nstrategy has been worked out to combat the Goebbelsian Tamil narrative that has\ndominated and determined the anti-Sri Lankan foreign policy of foreign nations.<\/sup><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The latest example confirms  how the craftily manufactured\nTamil narrative determines the foreign  policy of India. After his recent\ntrip  of Sri Lanka, Dr. S. Jaishankar, the Indian Foreign Minister, said,\nparroting the mantra of the Tamils : It is in Sri Lanka\u2019s own interests that\nthe expectations of the Tamil people for equality, justice, peace and dignity\nwithin a united Sri Lanka are fulfilled.\u201d This is a politically loaded sentence\nwhich in many ways sums up the global perspective on which Sri Lanka is judged\nand sentenced to the gallows by the international community, The words\nequality\u201d, justice\u201d, peace\u201d and dignity\u201d have a politically explosive\nconnotations indicating that the Tamils have been denied these essentials in a\nsystemic way to deny them their fundamental rights to live as human beings.\nAccepting in  toto the usual litany of complaint of the Tamil lobby, the\nIndia state is plainly accusing the Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) of denying the\nTamils, in particular, their  equality\u201d, justice\u201d, peace\u201d and\ndignity\u201d.  The Tamil propagandists have succeeded in painting the GOSL as\na racist state that had denied the Tamils these fundamental rights.<\/sup><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Herein  lies the crux of the North-South conflict. The\ninternational dynamics also flow from this premise. This is a lie of\nTrumpian  proportions. The entire case of Tamil Eelamists, separatists,\nfederalists, devolutionists, etc., is based on this monstrous lie. There is\nno  empirical, historical, reliable evidence available to substantiate\nthis case.<\/sup><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

There are two main ways by which the veracity of this accusation\ncan be tested. The first is by considering how the Tamils have fared in the\nlast 73 years under the rule of the Sinhala state\u201d, as they are wont to call\nit to make it sound like racist state. The second  is by considering how\nthe Tamils have been treated under Tamil regimes starting from 13th century\nwhen they settled down for the first time as permanent colonists in Jaffna to\nthe end of Prabhakaran\u2019s one-man regime on May 14, 2009.  An objective\nassessment of the status of the Tamils under these two regimes can settle the\nargument as to whether the Tamils have been denied these  essentials under\nthe Sinhala state\u201d or the Tamil states. Since the Tamils went down  the\npath of separatism and violence on this theme of the denial of equality\u201d,\njustice\u201d, peace\u201d and dignity\u201d \u2013 it is even there in the Indian Foreign\nMinister\u2019s document \u2013 it is of extreme importance to evaluate their accusations\nas expressed by them in every forum, local and international.<\/sup><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

This, of course, is a huge theme which needs volumes to explore.\nBut for our immediate purposes I will have to reduce the comparisons to the\nbare minimum. At the end of which I will ask the hired moralists who\npontificate on human rights \u2013 mainly Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, Jehan Perera,\nProf. Savithri Gunasekera, her side-kick Prof. A. Aluvihare, Ms. Radhika\nCoomaraswamy, Prof. Jayadeva Uyangoda, and, of course, our man who  never\nfails to advertise himself as a political scientist, Dayan Jayatilleke, and\nalso the assorted anti-Sinhala-Buddhist editorial writers and columnists — to\ntell us which state had denied the Tamils equality\u201d, justice\u201d, peace\u201d and\ndignity\u201d.<\/sup><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

So let\u2019s begin with the Tamils regimes going back in history to\nthe Arya Chakravartis. I repeat I am dealing with only abbreviated historical\nepisodes selected to  highlight the condition of the Tamils under the two\nseparate regimes. The most dramatic episode that sets the templates for the\nfuture begins with Sankili who marched down to Mannar on the Christmas eve of\n1544 and massacred 600 Tamils who refused to swear allegiance to him. Men,\npregnant women, children were slaughtered because they owed allegiance the King\nof Portugal. The political ambition of becoming the sole representative of\nJaffna \u2013 a common obsessions  with the Jaffna Tamils — was first\nestablished by him. When Sapumal Kumaraya ruled Jaffna the Tamils were governed\nunder the Sinhala-Buddhist ideology of tolerance and equals. He did not\npersecute the Tamils demanding total allegiance to Kottte. He even built the\nsacred Nallur Temple, according  to some  reports. But it is the\nauthoritarian, intolerant and cruel Sankili fascism which eventually became the\ndominant political culture of  Jaffna. Sapumal Kumaraya\u2019s tolerant culture\ndid not find the necessary fertile ground to grow as a political force in\nJaffna. When the Vellalas took over the running of Jaffna as subalterns \nto the colonial masters they wielded power  ruthlessly to oppress,\nsuppress and persecute the Jaffna Tamil low castes. One of  the most\nmemorable Tamil contributions to the Oxford dictionary is the Tamil word\npariah\u201d. It reveals the degrading contempt with which the Tamils treated their\nown Tamil fellowmen. The Tamils did not confer equality\u201d, justice\u201d, peace\u201d\nor dignity\u201d to pariahs. They were the outcasts.<\/sup><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Tamils degrading Tamils and reducing them to subhuman outcasts\nwas a systemic culture enforced with the authority of Hindu religious \nlaws. Their religious dogmas and customs had no compunction in denying\nequality\u201d, justice\u201d peace\u201d and dignity\u201d to the Tamils. Rajavarothiam\nSamapanthan goes around  capitals of the world complaining about  the\ndenial of dignity to the Tamils by the Sinhala state\u201d. Well, what has he\ndone  to save the oppressed Tamils from the depths of their despair? Why\ndid he not come out openly to defend the dignity and equality of the low-castes\nwho were denied the right to  worship their common God\/s at Maviddipuram\nTemple? When the low-caste Tamils demanded equality to  worship in a\ncommon prayer house  their heads were cracked with bottles filled with\nsand. So when did the Vellala who are now demanding  equality\u201d, justice\u201d\npeace\u201d and dignity\u201d give equality\u201d, justice\u201d peace\u201d and dignity\u201d to their\nown low-castes?<\/sup><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Low-caste Tamils were kicked around by the Vellala elite as if\nthey were an unworthy breed of subhuman pariahs who did not deserve equality\u201d,\njustice\u201d peace\u201d and dignity\u201d. The Vellala elite who ruled Jaffna as\nsubalterns of the colonial masters from the 17th century oppressed, suppressed,\npersecuted, and  denied the Tamil people the fundamental human rights to\ndrink water from their wells, or even to walk in sunlight fearing that it\nwould  pollute the high caste eye sight. They were not allowed to sit in\nbuses. They had to sit on the floor of the bus. There were separate pews in the\nback for the low-castes. They were not allowed to worship Lord Siva inside the\nsame Hindu temples. Their schools were burnt.  Those who violated the\nVellala supremacist rules were hammered by Vella thugs. Mourners burying their\nloves one with traditional drums were waylaid and beaten to near death.<\/sup><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The came independence. For the first time the subhuman treatment\nof the Jaffna Tamil low-caste was made illegal by S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike\nwhen  he passed the Prevention of Social Disabilities Act of 1958. For the\nfirst time the powers of the Vellala supremacists to oppress their own people\nwere clipped. The liberated Tamils were beginning to taste dignity, equality,\npeace and justice.<\/sup><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

But then came the first Tamil state born out of the war declared\nby the Vellala elite at Vadukoddai on May 14, 1976. The Tamils had a\nquasi-state, complete with a judiciary, army, navy and an air force.  Tamils\nwere proud of their state. But what  dignity did Sampanthan and\nSumanthiran have under the Tamil state? They complain to the world that they do\nnot have dignity under the Sinhala state\u201d.  What is the dignity,\nsecurity, peace and justice they enjoyed under the Tamil state? What chances\ndid Sampanthan  have of being  appointed as the Leader of the\nOpposition in Prabhakaran\u2019s state?<\/sup><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The NGO leaders complained that  the Tamils could not\nfind  justice  in the Sinhala state\u201d.  So when did Paikiasothy\nSaravanamuttu go to the courts in his Tamil state looking for justice? He was\neven scared to open  a branch of his office in his Tamil state. Whenever\nhe wanted to justice he went  to the courts of the Sinhala  state\u201d.\nAnd he boasted triumphantly of his  victories against the Sinhala rulers.\nDidn\u2019t Tamil lawyers like Sumanthiram, Vigneswaram and Ponnambalam practice and\nthrive in Sinhala courts? What kind of justice would they have got from the\nTamil state in Vanni if they took up the case of a Tamil child abducted by the\nTamil state and thrown into Prabhakaran\u2019s futile war? They operated in the\nSinhala state\u201d  which they claim never gave justice to them, but never\nwent to  operate in  the Tamil state that  was supposed to give\nthem equality. Why?<\/sup><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The evidence of Tamils being denied equality\u201d, justice\u201d,\npeace\u201d and dignity\u201d by the Tamil regimes  is overwhelming. But let us\nnow look at how  the Tamils were treated by the Sinhala state\u201d. The\nTamils never had it so good as under the Sinhala state\u201d. They had free\neducation from kindergarten  to the university \u2013 a boon not available to\nthe Tamils in S. India, the only homeland of Tamils. They have to  pay for\ntertiary education. They have free health services which their compatriots do\nnot have in USA \u2013 the land of the  free. They don\u2019t\u2019 have to wait\ntill  three Sinhalese get jobs for one  of them to  get a job\nlike in Malaysia. There are 193 flags flying at the UN and the only flag that\nrecognises the Tamils is the flag of the Sinhala state\u201d. Never have the Tamils\nachieved such high status in their history as under the Sinhala state\u201d. Not\neven the Indian flag, their homeland, has given  them a place. Tamils have\nbeen conferred with great dignity with their leaders being given  a place\nof honour  in national stamps. Tamil language is dignified in all Sri\nLankan currencies. Under the Sinhala state\u201d Tamils have shone as never before.\nIt has been the golden period of Tamils. In his biography of his father-in-law,\nS. J. V. Chelvanayakam, Prof. A. J. Wilson categorised the Dudley Senanayake-\nChelvanayakam coalition as the golden years of Tamil-Sinhala cooperation\u201d. It\nis a  historical fact that the Tamil never had \u201d equality\u201d, justice\u201d,\npeace\u201d and dignity\u201d as under the Sinhala state. The NGOs and the Indian government\nhave enough research workers to justify their claim that the Tamils were denied\n.\u201dequality\u201d, justice\u201d, peace\u201d and dignity\u201d by the Sinhala state\u201d. In fact,\nit is election time now in Tamil Nadu. Modi\u2019s government  is facing \nserious charges of  Hindification\u201d of Tamil Nadu. Ms. S. Vijayadharani, a\nCongress member of Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly, blasted the Modi government\nthe other day on  Newshour 10<\/em><\/strong> programme for its\none  language, one  religion, one  history, one culture policies\nimposed on Tamil Nadu by the centre.  <\/sup><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

There is no space in  this article to elaborate the main\ntheme any further. The argument is clear. The Tamils never had equality,\npeace, justice and dignity\u201d in any period of their history except under the 73\nyears of what they called \u201dthe Sinhala state\u201d.  So, the Indian government\nmust  seriously consider rephrasing  their diplomatic language to\nmake their political pressures  credible. Their diplomatic ability to push\ntheir interests through lies is not going to convince the Sri Lankan public\nthat they are genuine in helping Sri  Lanka to achieve  either its\nown interests or  reconciliation. If the Sinhala state\u201d has treated the\nTamils far better than any of the Tamils regimes throughout their history \u2013\nleaving aside the common failings that plague the history of all nations \u2013 why\nshould the Indian government intervene in the  domestic affairs on false\naccusations of a community that has treated its own people worse than dogs?<\/sup><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

India is not going to solve its problem or that of its\nneighbours if it pursues its interventions on the lies of one community. The\nSri Lankan government too must aggressively challenge the fake accusations with\nthe truth. It has to be done on solid research which has been  hijacked by\nthe anti-Sinhala-Buddhist NGOs and media hacks recycling Tamil propaganda. A\nwell-qualified research team can easily  blast to smithereens the kind of\npropaganda on which the Indian policy is based on. Foreign interventions based\non Tamil fiction can be easily demolished.  It is up to the Foreign\nMinistry to initiate action to save the nation  from foreign\ninterventions.<\/sup><\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

H. L. D. Mahindapala In continuing last week\u2019s article on how lies manufactured and manipulated by charismatic leaders and mediocre theorists can distort the perceptions of the masses and lead societies to violence  I must make a brief diversion, before I come to the local context \u2013 my main purpose —  to focus on how […]<\/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-110938","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\/110938","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=110938"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110938\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}