The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) the Tamil Tiger proxy in Parliament gave the retired General a political credibility that he did not deserve, and in the elections against the incumbent President Mahinda Rajapaksa the retired General lost disastrously. Along with the defeat went the political dreams of the TNA, the Tamil Diaspora, the remnants of the Tamil tigers and their supporters.

The strategic thinking of the TNA has failed totally again and with their support given to Sarath Fonseka the final nail in the coffin of their ambitions has also been struck. The thirty year Eleam war that they backed has not yielded the fruits of their aspirations. In addition they gave tacit support to the Tamil tigers for the killing of all the Tamil intellectuals in their midst as well as other intellectuals who were political realists and explored new ways of resolving the political and social issues prevalent at the time. By supporting Sarath Fonseka any solutions that the TNA and their supporters have intended such as limited autonomy for the North and the East will be inconsequential as the victorious President Mahinda Rajapakse has reiterated.

Instead the President will implement a political solution that has a model that is currently at work in eastern Sri Lanka. In addition the President has indicated that Sri Lanka will be a model democracy where Tamils will never ever fear repression or subjugation and a wholly inclusive Sri Lanka is in the making. There have also been veiled pronouncements by the President that a constitutional change is being considered. These changes would give provincial representation in a bicameral parliament. The upper house in such a parliament would give adequate representation to the Northern and Eastern provinces. The detailed representation and powers of the upper house is yet to be considered but is expected to have some of the powers listed below:

Revision of legislation from the lower house

-Scrutiny of Government Expenditure

-Approval of public appointees including the judiciary

The Tamil politicians have for the past sixty years sung the same mantra of federalism, autonomy and separateness underestimating that the majority Sinhalese population and the some of the other minorities will not permit the break-up of the unitary state of Sri Lanka. Any federal setup is anathema to the majority Sri Lankans. Isn’t it time for the Tamil politicians to ‘stop banging their head against the proverbial brick wall’? They have tried all the political tirades at their disposal and failed. Even the Tamil tiger secessionist movement (encouraged by India initially) failed miserably with over 100,000 deaths in the last thirty years. Despite all the untold suffering that they have unleashed upon the Tamils by their political obduracy the TNA is now bereft of any new thinking. The fact remains that the future of the Tamil populace in Sri Lanka is inextricably woven into the aspirations and future of the majority Sinhalese and the rest of the other Sri Lankan minorities.

The Tamils have attained parity in the National Language issue as Tamil and Sinhalese are both accredited national languages of Sri Lanka. This is the primary step for future inclusiveness. The regional model of the Tamil language in India is not applicable to Sri Lanka and elevating Tamil to a national language in Sri Lanka gives it a political dimension far more than any other minorities in Sri Lanka could ever enjoy. (Even in India no Tamil could in reality aspire to the heady heights of Indian Prime Minister unless he/she is a fluent Hindi speaker). Tamils in Sri Lanka enjoy far more economic and material benefits than the Tamils in India. They have free education (up to tertiary level) and free health service that is available to all Sri Lankans and a standard of living that is miles ahead of the majority of Indians or their cultural cousins in Tamil Nadu. Now with a projected economic growth rate of six to eight percent and GDP per capita that is already double that of India currently, the Tamils in Sri Lanka will further reap the economic benefits that will be available to all. Indeed the President has indicated that the North and the East are in for a bonanza of economic and infrastructure development that has indeed already begun. In the meantime the TNA is still harping on the politics of yester year and is immune to the global economic and political realities of today. So what is left for the TNA and their allies? There are a variety of paths that they could follow. Some of these have been enunciated in my earlier blog written in June 2009 on ‘dbsjeyaraj.com’ entitled ‘What the future holds for Sri Lanka and all its Citizens’. Please click on the link below.

http://dbsjeyaraj.com/dbsj/archives/819

What would follow with the flow of economic benefits to the North and East is the leaching away of the support for the TNA. The TNA’s view of separatism and sectarianism will wither away and the Tamil populace and other Sri Lankan citizens who have different vision – a vision of total inclusiveness with the rest of Sri Lanka will prevail. Those Tamils who suffered unimaginable hardship under the yoke of the Tamil tigers will now notice the difference to their freedom of movement, security and also their economic liberalisation. The rest of the smaller minorities in Sri Lanka have benefitted from this vision since Independence – the only proviso being the inevitable adherence to the unitary state of Sri Lanka. The meagre participation of the Northern and Eastern Tamils in this election is indicative of the feeling that these Tamils are busy re-building their shattered lives and politics is the last thing on their mind at this current juncture. The Tamil Diaspora would also clamour for regionalism and a mono ethnic enclave, but despite their entreaties the realities on the ground for the population of the North and the East is the rapid return to normalcy and a equivalent slice of the economic benefits that the country as a whole is predicted to enjoy. The President too has been magnanimous in his victory and has indicated that despite the Tamils voting for the ex-General he will be the President for all of Sri Lanka including the Tamils who voted against him.

The TNA and their allies have to think anew and ask themselves whether there is any justification for a federal setup for six percent of the total population of Sri Lanka who are Tamils resident in the North and the East. The world is undergoing a change of immense magnitude with fast communications and ease of travel and the thinking of the TNA is deeply flawed and rooted in the fifties and sixties of the past century. Unless a radical change in the thinking of the TNA and their allies becomes a reality they will feed false hopes to the Tamils in the North and East and the cycle of disappointments will continue to re-occur in the future for the Tamil electorate in these regions.