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Pirapaharan By: T. Sabaratnam 11.
The Mandate Ratified Thanthai’s
Final Declaration For
five reasons 1977 was an important year in the history of the Sri Lankan
Tamil problem. In that year both major Sinhala parties, the Sri Lanka
Freedom Party (SLFP) and the United National Party (UNP) accepted the
existence of a Tamil problem. In that year, Thanthai Chelva gave his
final declaration that a separate state is the only possible solution to
the Tamil problem. In that year, the Tamil people decided overwhelmingly in
favour of the establishment of a separate state for themselves. In that
year, the Jayewardene government commenced intimidating the Tamils into
subjugation through mob and military violence. And in 1977, Tamil
militants started their armed resistance. 1977
was an election year. The SLFP’s deceptive extension of its term of office
by two years by making use of the new constitution had taken its control
of parliament to July
that year. With the surging popularity of the J. R. Jayewardene- led UNP,
Sirimavo Bandaranaike badly needed the support of the Tamil and Muslims
voters. To win their votes the prime minister summoned a meeting of the
Tamil and Muslim members of parliament to identify the needs and
grievances of the people of those communities. TULF parliamentarians
were also invited for that meeting. That
invitation created a furor among Tamil youths. They argued that the
Vaddukoddai Resolution had given the Tamil members of parliament only one
task: to constitute themselves into a Constituent Assembly and draft the
constitution for Tamil Eelam. There is no need to attend Sirimavo’s
meeting, the youths argued. The Tamil Youth Forum (TYF) passed a
resolution asking the TULF not to talk to any party except about the
establishment of a separate state. The Colombo branch of the Tamil Youth
Forum took up the matter with Thanthai Chelva. This is what the mature
79-year politician with considerable civil law practice told them: Please
bear this in mind: Never refuse if you are invited to talk. Attending a
meeting does not mean you accept what they say. Attending a meeting
gives you the opportunity to say what you want to say. I want to tell
the SLFP government that we have decided to go our way because you have
refused to accommodate our concerns. I will tell them that we will not
compromise on our decision to establish a separate state for the Tamils. That
is what Thanthai Chelva did at the meeting held at the BMICH on 21
February 1977 over which Sirimavo Bandaranaike presided. After listening
patiently to Felix R. Dias Bandaranaike’s announcement
Felix
R. Dias Bandaranaike At
that meeting and the second held on 16 March, in which Sirimavo
Bandaranaike was more accommodative, six areas of Tamil and Muslim
grievances were identified. They were:
Sirimavo
Bandaranaike expressed her readiness to enshrine the Reasonable Use of
Tamil law and the regulations made under it in the constitution, modify
the university admission scheme, look into the problem of unemployment
among Tamils and Muslims and remove the hardships experienced by the
Tamil public servants and the Tamils of Indian origin. She said
decentralization was her government’s policy. Thanthai
Chelva was pleased with the outcome of the conference, while others were
not. He told the TULF parliamentary group that reviewed the outcome of
the conference, All this time the Sinhalese
were telling the world that the Tamils had no grievances. They said
Tamils are more privileged than the Sinhalese. They cannot say that any
more. The government had accepted that the Tamils had grievances and had
identified them. We now have a firm basis for our demand for a separate
state. The youths were not convinced. They accused the TULF leadership of
not taking steps for the establishment of the independent state of Tamil
Eelam. Thanthai Chelva advised patience to the groups of youths that met
him and told them that the forthcoming election should be turned into a
referendum to obtain the approval of the people for the establishment of
the separate state. He told them they would proceed step by step. Thanthai Chelva took the next step at the second convention of the
TULF held in March 1977 at Hindu College, Trincomalee when he said: An irrevocable decision with regard to the future of the Tamil
Nation in this country had been taken at the first convention of the
TULF, held in May 1976. My advice to the Sinhalese leaders is to allow
us to go our way. Let us avoid bitterness and agree to part peacefully.
This will pave the way for greater cooperation between the two nations
on a footing of equality. The Tamils have no other alternative.
Bitterness is growing in the midst of the younger generations. Without
allowing it to grow and lead to inevitable confrontation leading to
foreign intervention, a method of peacefully working out this
entanglement is necessary. We are confident that the truth will
ultimately triumph and we will win in the war of endurance. Recognition of Tamil Problem Thanthai
Chelva died on 29 April 1977. Amirthalingam who succeeded him as the
leader of the TULF lacked the father-figure image Thanthai Chelva
possessed. Thanthai Chelva would close his eyes, listen intensely to all
the arguments and pronounce his opinion which is final and accepted
without question. Amirthalingam was an agitator, a populist. He did not
enjoy that amount of respect or command Thanthai Chelva had with the
people. And Amirthalingam was more a politician than a statesman. His
concern after assuming TULF leadership was the next election and his
role after the election.
The
fact that J. R. Jayewardene would sweep the election was known.
Amirthalingam wished to make a deal with Jayewardene. He sent public and
private feelers to Jayewardene. The public feeler was through a speech
by Point Pedro Member of Parliament K. Thurairatnam. In an interview to
the Tamil daily Virakesari Thurairatnam suggested the working out of an
agreement between the UNP and the TULF about finding solutions to the
Tamil grievances. Amirthalingam repeated that suggestion in a speech he
delivered at Kayts. The private feeler was through Thondaman. Jayewardene wanted the meeting to be secret and Thondaman invited UNP and TULF leaders for a thosai dinner at his flat opposite Royal College.
Royal College, Colombo
Jayewardene,
M.D. Banda and Esmond
Wickremesinghe represented the UNP and Amirthalingam, Sivasithamparam
and Kathirvetpillai represented the TULF. Thondaman said that it would
be easier to defeat the SLFP if opposition parties were united. Both
sides agreed. “Democracy
is in peril, “Jayewardene said and added, “We must get together to
safeguard democracy.” Kathirvetpillai
approved that and said: “Democracy is in peril. We are prepared to support you in your effort to save
democracy.” Jayewardene
was pleased. “We are talking on the same wavelength,” he added. He
then enquired from the TULF leaders what problems they would like him to
solve if he formed the government. They
then discussed the problems faced by the Tamil people. They identified the following problems:
The
approach adopted by Thanthai Chelva and Amirthalingam were completely
different. When he negotiated with S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike in 1957 and
when he talked to Bandaranaike's wife, Sirimavo, in 1977, Thanthai Chelva first
stated the solution acceptable to the Tamil people and without giving up
that objective discussed ways and means of mitigating the hardship
suffered by the people. With Bandaranaike, it was a federal unit and
with his wife, it was the separate state. Amirthalingam did not mention
the separate state decision of the Tamils. He talked about finding
solutions to the problems only. During
the entire discussion at Thondaman’s flat, the phrase ‘separate
state’ was mentioned only once and that was by Jayewardene. When they
were about to part after a strong Indian coffee Jayewardene told
Amirthalingam: "I have no objection if you campaign for a separate state.
Appapillai Amirthalingam Despite
the failure to mention the separate state demand, Amirthalingam had
succeeded in getting the UNP to recognize that Tamils had problems. The
UNP and the SLFP recognized in their 1977 election manifestos the
existence of a Tamil problem and the need for a political solution. That
was a major shift in the position of the Sinhalese who, till then, had told
the world that the Tamils were a privileged community and the Tamils were
clamouring to perpetuate that position. The
UNP in its election manifesto had a special section under the heading,
"Problems of Tamil-Speaking People". It read, "The United
National Party accepts the position that there are numerous problems
confronting the Tamil-speaking people. The lack of solution to their
problems had made the Tamil-speaking people to support even a movement
for the creation of a separate state. In the interest of the national
integration and unity, so necessary for the economic development of the
whole country, the party feels such problems should be solved without
loss of time. The party when its comes to power will take all possible
steps to remedy their grievances in such fields as;
We
will summon an all-party conference as stated earlier and implement its
decision." The
SLFP, in its manifesto, under the heading, "National unity and
national problems," said: “We shall establish a National
Consultative Committee consisting of every ethnic group in the country
to advise the government on ethnic, linguistic, economic, social,
cultural and other questions of a national nature or on matters relating
to minority groups wherever such questions or matters require resolution
by the government.” The
United Left Front, led by the Lanka Sama Samaja Party and the Communist
Party, which contested as a separate group, in its election manifesto
under the heading of National Minorities, declared: "While
retaining the unitary character of the state, the principal of regional
autonomy will be applied within the general national framework of the
district councils, while protecting and implementing to the full
language rights already provided for, our government will facilitate the
use of Tamil as the language of administration in the Tamil-speaking
areas. The Republican Constitution will be amended to include the rights
already administratively granted to the Tamil language. Tamil will be
declared a national language in terms of the constitution, without prejudice to the status of Sinhala as The
Plebiscite Thus,
all major Sinhala parties went to the 1977 polls on the basis that
problems existed for the Tamils and these problems needed to be resolved
politically. The national parties contested the North and East on this
basis. TULF, on the other hand, turned the election into a plebiscite and asked the Tamil
people to determine whether they wanted to continue to live with the
Sinhalese or have a separate state. The
TULF
released its election manifesto in 1 June at a public meeting in Jaffna
that followed a massive rally. In an emotional speech Amirthalingam told
the gathering that their votes would determine the future of the Tamil
race in Sri Lanka, whether they wanted to live as independent people or
not. “Tamils
and Muslims have been quite often the objects of violence of the
Sinhalese hooligans, instigated by government-supported Sinhalese
communal organizations, the police and the armed forces, in whose hands
they suffered untold misery by way of looting and arson in homes, shops
and places of business, by grievous injuries, loss of life and property
and violation against women,” the manifesto said. The
manifesto said, “Military terror was let loose in Tamil provinces against the
Tamils, who were engaged in a non-violent campaign of civil disobedience
in 1961, to demand their language rights. On 2 February 1976, seven
Muslims praying inside a mosque at Puttalam were ruthlessly massacred by
the Sinhala police, inside the holy spot. The government was not willing
to hold public inquiry into the horrible murders. These were incidents
only which reiterate the fact that the lives and property of Tamils and
Muslims who are living as slaves in this country do not enjoy any
protection from the Sinhalese governments." There is only one alternative and that is to proclaim with the
stamp of finality and fortitude, that, 'we alone shall rule over our
land that our forefathers ruled. Sinhalese imperialism shall quit our
homeland'. The Tamil United Liberation Front regards the general
election of 1977 as a means of proclaiming to the Sinhalese government
this resolve of the Tamil nation. And every vote that you cast for the
Front would go to show that, the Tamil nation is determined to liberate
itself from the Sinhalese domination. The manifesto also answers the question: What will the TULF do
after the election? It says: The Tamil-speaking
representatives who get elected through these votes, while being
members of the National State Assembly of Ceylon, will also form
themselves into the National Assembly of Tamil Eelam, which will draft
the constitution for the state of Tamil Eelam by bringing that
constitution into operation either by peaceful means or by direct action
struggle. Some
youths did notice the ‘catch’ the drafters of the manifesto had
introduced to enable the elected parliamentarians to attend and function
in parliament. They knew that permitting the elected Tamil-speaking
representatives to be members of parliament was contrary to the spirit
and intention of the Vaddukoddai Resolution which said “the struggle
for winning the sovereignty and freedom of the Tamil Nation” should be
launched without undue delay. They did not make it a big issue because
the immediate need was to get the people to approve the Vaddukoddai
Resolution. Youths,
particularly those belonging to the militant groups, worked very hard to
make the TULF candidates win the election. They told the voters that a
vote for the TULF was a vote for Tamil Eelam, where they could live with
honour, dignity and equality. Amirthalingam who ran the election
campaign made full use of the militant groups. At
a massive public meeting held on the closing day of the election
campaign, 19 July, Amirthalingam declared, Ours
is no longer a national problem. Ours is a dispute between two
nationalities, The election of day after tomorrow (July 21) is no
ordinary election. It is a plebiscite. It is a plebiscite to determine
whether the Tamil people want to continue to live with the Sinhalese or
they want to separate. The
Tamil people of the north and east voted almost en
masse for separation. TULF
won 17 seats, all the 14 seats in the northern province and three more
in the eastern province. With the Pottuvil election, which was held later,
the TULF strength in parliament rose to 18. It was a massive victory for the
TULF and for Amirthalingam, who moved to Kankesanthurai, Thanthai
Chelva’s electorate. It was a resounding victory for him. He polled
31,155votes, 5228 more than the 25,927 votes polled by Thanthai Chelva in the 6 February 1975
by-election. Amirthalingam
was jubilant. In his victory speech after Jaffna Election Officer W. J.
L. Wijepala announced the result, Amirthalingam said the landslide
victory of the TULF candidates showed the determination of the Tamil-speaking people to live as a free and sovereign people. He pledged
amidst thundering applause that the TULF members were prepared to make
every sacrifice to win the Tamils their lost rights. He
also said by voting overwhelmingly for the TULF the Tamil people had
given the party the mandate it had asked for to struggle for a separate
state. “From now there is no looking back,” he vowed, "We will march
forward to achieve our goal of Eelam.” In
the national scene, the UNP triumphed. It won 138 seats to the SLFP’s eight in
the 165-member parliament. Left parties were completely routed. The Ceylon
Workers Congress won one seat. The
UNP polled 3,179,221 votes, 50.9 per cent of the total votes cast, the SLFP
polled 1,855,331 votes, 29.7 per cent, the TULF 421,488 votes, 6.4 per
cent and the CWC polled 62,707 votes, 1 per cent of the total votes. Jayewardene
formed the government and Amirthalingam, forgetting the mandate he had obtained, decided to continue living with the Sinhalese. He became the
Leader of the Opposition promising to uphold the Republican Constitution
and make democracy work better.
Next Chapter
12. Moderates Ignore their
Mandate Will be posted on:
Earlier Chapters: Introduction Part 1 Introduction Part 2 Chapter 1: Why didn’t he hit back? Chapter 2: Going in for a revolver Chapter 3: The Unexpected Explosion Chapter 4: Tamil Mood Toughens Chapter 5: Tamil Youths Turn Assertive Chapter 6: Birth of Tamil New Tigers Chapter 7: The Cyanide Suicide Chapter 8: First Military Operation Chapter 9. TNT matures to LTTE Chapter 10. Mandate Affirmed |
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that the
government was not prepared to even talk of a separate state Thanthai
Chelva told the government delegation that the TULF was not prepared to
compromise its stand on the separate state, but was prepared to accept an
interim arrangement to work out solutions to the problems of the Tamil
and Muslim people.
