{"id":63478,"date":"2017-02-16T17:26:26","date_gmt":"2017-02-17T00:26:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=63478"},"modified":"2017-02-16T17:26:26","modified_gmt":"2017-02-17T00:26:26","slug":"wigneswaran-and-the-puppeteering-with-ghosts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2017\/02\/16\/wigneswaran-and-the-puppeteering-with-ghosts\/","title":{"rendered":"Wigneswaran and the puppeteering with ghosts"},"content":{"rendered":"

Malinda Seneviratne<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n
\u00a0Sports Minister Dayasiri Jayasekara\u2019s recent comments on Northern Province Chief Minister C.V. Wigneswaran contained valid observations, old news delivered as though it was new, half-truths and some uncalled for insults.\u00a0 Wigneswaran\u2019s response was, in contrast, quite sober though not unproblematic.<\/div>\n
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In Jayasekera\u2019s opinion, Wigneswaran is \u2018nothing but a bhoothya<\/i>\u2019. \u00a0 An evil ghost instigating disharmony between the Sinhalese and Tamils, to be precise.\u00a0 He took issue with what he considers racist remarks by Wigneswaran which, he claims, is making it difficult for the Government to sell the idea of devolution to the Sinhalese.\u00a0 He also said that Wigneswaran is cosy with the LTTE (meaning probably what\u2019s left of it and of course its sympathizers) and \u2018NGOs\u2019. \u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
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It\u2019s a strange statement for several reasons.\u00a0 The TNA was the principle apologist for the LTTE in the democratic political space.\u00a0 Wigneswaran is a member of that political coalition.\u00a0 Jayasekara is not making any startling revelations, therefore.\u00a0 The comment on NGOs is vague.\u00a0 It\u2019s a silly generalization.\u00a0 There\u2019s nothing wrong with NGOs per se; you\u2019ve got to name names and explain what\u2019s so pernicious about them that warrants a reference that sounds dismissive.\u00a0 However, it\u2019s the question of ethnic harmony that\u2019s problematic. \u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
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Jayasekera, on the one hand says, \u2018he (Wigneswaran) is trying to convey a message to the international community, saying that power devolution is not an option for Sri Lanka because of the Sinhala people\u2019.\u00a0 In other words, Wigneswaran contends that the Sinhalese are opposed to power devolution.\u00a0 Jayasekera then acknowledges that the idea of devolution has not been embraced by the Sinhalese.\u00a0 In other words, it has to be sold to the Sinhalese.\u00a0 He is in fact endorsing Wigneswaran\u2019s position and ironically also\u00a0 the position of devolution-fixated NGOs, but contends that Wigneswaran\u2019s racism is scuttling well-meaning efforts.\u00a0 So, in effect, the two are on the same page with regard to devolution, but are at odds when it comes to the best way to get to destinations they both prefer. \u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
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Wigneswaran, for his part, has said that the \u2018Tamil people\u2019s issues\u2019 cannot be solved by chasing him away.\u00a0 He claimed that even if he was \u2018banished\u2019 his successor would say the same thing.\u00a0 He adds the reason, \u2018as we always speak the truth\u2019. \u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
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He is correct.\u00a0 Absolutely.\u00a0 On this issue, let me qualify.\u00a0 What is \u2018this issue\u2019?\u00a0 Let\u2019s discuss it.<\/span><\/div>\n
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The issue is that the Sinhalese are opposed not to devolution per se but to the kind of devolution that Tamil chauvinists have been touting for almost a century now, beginning with Ponnambalam Ramanathan\u2019s communalism, G.G. Ponnambalam\u2019s 50-50, the Batakotte Resolution, the Thimpu Principles and the various other separatist proposals, either in the form of Eelam or those following the Chelvanayagam Principle (a little now, more later). \u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
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The \u2018Tamil issue\u2019 won\u2019t go away as long as Tamil politicians consider it their political bread and butter to whip up communalism even to the point of conflating politically aspirations so grand that they are politically inexpedient. \u00a0 Wigneswaran\u2019s predecessors talked that talk, he talks it, and his successors will continue to talk it as long as it serves narrow political objectives. \u00a0 To such proposals, the Sinhalese will object, this is true.\u00a0 Wigneswaran is correct.\u00a0 When he says \u2018the Sinhalese are not interested in devolution,\u2019 he is correct.\u00a0 The Sinhalese have no reason whatsoever to agree to the kind of devolution that Wigneswaran proposes, his predecessors have proposed and his political\/ideological successors would in all probability propose. \u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
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And why should they?<\/span><\/div>\n
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There\u2019s absolutely nothing in all the Tamil \u2018grievances\u2019 pertaining to discrimination that cannot be resolved in ways other than devolution of power.\u00a0 The claim of traditional\/historical homelands is a load of balderdash, unsupported by any kind of evidence.\u00a0 There are no archaeological props, there\u2019s no subaltern history and even the literary kind of \u2018evidence\u2019 is at best weak and easily debunked.\u00a0 But we need not go into all that.\u00a0 Just the fact that the \u2018Tamil Homeland Map\u2019 is essentially a pick off a set of lines arbitrarily drawn by the British is enough to pinch that part of the \u2018truth-claim\u2019 which the likes of Wigneswaran trot out now and again.\u00a0 Add the fact that they blur the truth with \u2018multi-ethnic\u2019 talk but indulge in navel and toe gazing when asked about numbers and percentages and it\u2019s actually pretty sad.\u00a0 Throw in the fact that almost half the Tamil population live outside the \u2018homelands\u2019 and the bottom falls out of the argument.\u00a0 \u2018Issues\u2019 are reduced to slow implementation of the Language Act, nothing more and nothing less.\u00a0 Want to tell the Sinhalese that you need devolution to sort out that little tumor and you are bound to run into \u2018Are you kidding?\u2019 \u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
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The uncomfortable truth that confronts Jayasekara and others touting devolution along Eelamist lines is not that they are getting tripped by the racist statements issued by the likes of Wigmeswaran but the sheer mismatch between grievance and solution. \u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
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Sure there are ghosts.\u00a0 Evil ones.\u00a0 There\u2019s the evil ghost of misrepresentation, the evil ghost of exaggeration, the evil ghost of painting fiction as fact and myth as history, the evil ghost of silence on demographic realities, the evil ghost of a flawed colonial map, and the evil ghost of bullying Sinhalese into thinking that submitting to Tamil chauvinism is equal to \u2018a solution that satisfies all communities\u2019. \u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
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Too many ghosts.\u00a0 Way too many.\u00a0 No wonder people are not buying it. \u00a0 Wigneswaran is not a ghost.\u00a0 He\u2019s a politician who, like his predecessors, is puppeteering with such specters.\u00a0 Jayasekara seems to have been mesmerized.\u00a0 The principle \u2018issue\u2019 of both is that it\u2019s a very hard sell as far as the Sinhalese are concerned.\u00a0 It serves Wigneswaran\u2019s political purposes, but wrecks Jayasekara\u2019s.\u00a0 That\u2019s why the latter rants and the former is smug.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
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Malinda Seneviratne is a freelance writer.\u00a0 Email: <\/i>malindasenevi@gmail.com<\/i><\/span><\/a>.\u00a0 Twitter: malindasene.\u00a0 \\<\/i><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Malinda Seneviratne \u00a0Sports Minister Dayasiri Jayasekara\u2019s recent comments on Northern Province Chief Minister C.V. Wigneswaran contained valid observations, old news delivered as though it was new, half-truths and some uncalled for insults.\u00a0 Wigneswaran\u2019s response was, in contrast, quite sober though not unproblematic. In Jayasekera\u2019s opinion, Wigneswaran is \u2018nothing but a bhoothya\u2019. \u00a0 An evil ghost […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-malinda-seneviratne"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63478","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=63478"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63478\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}