by Dr. Victor Rajakulendran, Sydney, Australia; published October 1, 2003
From the time Britain started to negotiate with the Sri Lankan (former Ceylonese) legislators to hand over the governance of the country to them, Tamil legislators have been negotiating first with the British authorities, and later with the Singhalese authorities, to get parity of status for the Tamils with the Singhalese, in governing the country. British authorities, based on the goodwill that prevailed at that time between the Singhalese and Tamil legislators of the then State Council, assumed that the numerically superior Singhalese would not treat the numerically inferior Tamils as second class citizens. British authorities agreed to grant full independence to Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) only if Tamil legislators also accepted the new constitution.
At this point in time Tamil nationalism was represented by the Tamil leader G. G. Ponnampalam who had popular support at the grassroots level. He advocated a formula for balanced representation for all the communities in the future legislature. Under his proposal, which later came to be known as G.G. Ponnambalam’s Fifty Fifty Demand, 50% of the seats in the new legislature would be allocated to Singhalese and the remaining 50% would be allocated to the rest of the communities, so that no one community would be in a position to dominate such a legislature. Although he did not succeed in convincing the Soulbury commission that was holding hearings on the proposed constitution, history presented the first opportunity for the Tamils after nearly 400 years of foreign occupation and rule to regain their lost freedom.
In neighbouring India a minority (Muslims) under similar circumstances availed itself of a similar opportunity and found protection by establishing a separate state (Pakistan). The Singhalese leaders in the State Council mustered all their powers of persuasion to urge their Tamil counterparts to accept the scheme proposed by the Board of Ministers. Because all the Tamil legislators at that time were drawn almost entirely from Colombo’s affluent Tamil society, which was more concerned with preserving the status quo of its interest rather than the interests of the wider Tamil community, they succumbed to this persuasive power of their Singhalese counterparts. As a result, the British authorities installed the Soulbury constitution as the first constitution of the Dominion of Ceylon under the British Crown. This constitution provided for a unitary type of government in Sri Lanka where the legislative power remained with the one-layered government that was in Colombo.
D.S. Senanyake became the first Prime Minister of the first government under this constitution. One of the first acts of PM D.S. Senanayake was to introduce a resolution in the Cabinet requesting Britain to grant complete independence. When D.S. Senanayake was negotiating for a new constitution with the British authorities he was pressing for full independence. At that time he was told by British authorities that after the general elections under the new constitution, if all the important communities jointly make such a request Britain would consider granting full independence. In anticipation of this D.S. Senanayake constituted his first cabinet to include Singhalese, Tamil, Muslim, Malay, European and Burgher Ministers as representatives of all the communities. The cabinet approved the resolution requesting independence, and the Tamil Minister, C. Sundaralingam, gave his consent to signify that the Tamils joined in the request. Later, when the constitution was misused by the Singhalese government, Sundaralingam issued public statements that, if he had not given his consent to the independence request, Britain would never have granted it, and the Tamils would not be in the plight in which they find themselves today. By this single act of this Tamil Minister the rulers of Tamils were changed from the British to Singhalese in 1948.
D.S. Senanayke was quick to resort to measures to consolidate and strengthen the power of his Singhalese people. By passing two pieces of legislation, one after the other, in parliament, first he made the majority of the Tamils who were working in the plantations lose their citizenship and then he disfranchised the same people to reduce the numerical strength of the Tamil legislators in parliament.
Tamil legislators under the leadership of S.J.V. Chelvanayakam of the Federal Party carried out a Ghandian-style political struggle for Tamil rights. In 1955, when General Elections were round the corner and Kotelawala, the then PM, made his pronouncements in Jaffna about the need for parity of status for Singhala and Tamil. S.W.R.D Bandaranaike (SWRD), the assassinated father of the present President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumarathunga, who was in the opposition, seized the opportunity. He announced immediately that, if he were elected PM, he would make Singhala the only official language throughout the whole country within 48 hours. To counteract this Kotelawala’s United National Party (UNP) decided to make Singhala the only official language of the country within 24 hours. However, SWRD became the PM and he made Singhala the official language as hehad promised. The Federal Party gave an ultimatum to his government and demanded that the government take the necessary steps for the establishment of an autonomous state for the Tamil-speaking people in their traditional homeland of the Northern and Eastern provinces.
As a result of these events, negotiations were held between SWRD and the Tamil leader, Chelvanayakam, and on 26 July 1957 an agreement known as the “Banda-Chelva Pact” was signed to give limited autonomy to the Tamils. J.R. Jeyewardena (who became President later) of the UNP led a march from Colombo to Kandy in protest of this pact. He was supported by the Buddhist clergy and a section of the Bandaranayake’s own Sri Lanka Fredom Party (SLFP). As a result within a week SWRD unilaterally abrogated his pact with Chelvanayakam pact. Ironically, SWRD was to be assassinated later by a Buddhist monk.
Later in 1965 when the UNP formed the government under the leadership of Dudley Senanayake, with the help of the Federal Party, negotiations were held between Senanayke and Chelvanaykam. On the 24th of March an agreement known as “Dudley-Chelva Pact” was signed between the two to grant limited autonomy to Tamils. This agreement also was abandoned by the Senanayake government without being implemented due to opposition from the SLFP, the Buddhist clergy and UNP backbenchers.
In 1971-1972 negotiations were held between the Tamil leadership and Srimavo Bandaranayake’s (the mother of today’s President) government on constitutional amendments. No agreement was reached, but the Singhalese leaders went ahead undeterred with their republican constitution, even amending the minimum safeguards which had been granted to Tamils by the Soulbury constitution. Thus “Ceylon” became the “Republic of Sri Lanka”. Now constitutional experts argue that this change to the constitution was brought about illegally, as the Royal assent needed for this change was not obtained at that time. The present constitution was enacted under President J.R. Jeyawardena’s leadership and “Republic of Sri Lanka” was changed to “Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka”. In other words, an illegal constitution was replaced by another one and, hence, this also should be an illegal one, argue constitutional experts.
On July 29, 1987 the Indo-Lanka accord was signed under which an Indian Peace-Keeping Force (IPKF) arrived in Sri Lanka to keep peace, while a regional council for the North-East province was to be established giving the Tamils limited autonomy. The Singhala nationalist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) vigorously opposed the “Indo-Lanka” pact and, hence, President Premadasa was forced to ask the IPKF to leave Sri Lanka. This pact faced the same fate as the ones before.
When President CBK tried to introduce a new constitution to solve the ethnic problem during her last government, the present PM, Ranil Wickramasingha, who was the then opposition leader, did not cooperate with her. As result she had to water down that draft constitution to that such extent that even the moderate Tamil parties rejected it, let alone the LTTE.
Now the present peace process has just passed the one-year mark and efforts are being made by both sides to the conflict to form an Interim Administration to the North-East, while both sides negotiate a final solution. There are signs that the opinion among the Singhalese for going to war with the LTTE is gaining ground. One could see a familiar pattern developing, similar to what I have narrated above in dumping the previous accords, for dumping this peace process, too.
Opposition politicians, spearheaded by the JVP and other propagandists, through organised protest marches, media debates and posters are trying to create a feeling of insecurity among the Singhalese masses by projecting the LTTE as gaining militarily through the peace process. President CBK is trying to portray that the LTTE is becoming a threat to national security as a result of the truce and the peace process. The JVP is accusing Ranil Wickramasingha’s government of trying to appease the LTTE and thereby divide the country. The President is threatening to dissolve the parliament and thereby the government and form another government. The JVP and other Singhalese nationalists are trying to project the Norwegian involvement as an insidious pretext for US imperialism. Some Buddhists are even saying that the present Cabinet of Ministers is predominantly Christian and Catholic and that is why they are not considering the sentiments of the Buddhists in dealing with the LTTE.
Under these circumstances, the main question arising among the peace-loving people at the moment is; Does history (or when is history going to) repeat itself in Sri Lanka? The only difference between the previous occasions and the present one is the involvement of the international community (IC) in the present process. Unless the IC take the necessary steps to safeguard this peace process, there is always the danger for the question, “When is history going to repeat,” to become the reality as in the past.