1. Malaysiakini.com （http://www.malaysiakini.com）
Indian Muslims 'ethnically cleansed', 6 March 2008
by Marginalised TMIM
There are two categories of Indian Muslims in Malaysia. First is the Malaysian Indian Muslim Malays, This lot claim to be Malays for commercial reasons but speak Tamil at home and watch Tamil movies and serials and will travel back to India to their native villages. They are predominantly found in Penang, Kedah, Perlis and Johor.
These ‘Malays’ are very shrewd and enjoy best of both sides. The irony is that some leaders of Indian Muslim NGOs have claimed to be ‘Malays’ in their business registration forms.
Then we have the ‘True Malaysian Indian Muslims (TMIM)’. This lot speak their mother tongue be it Tamil, Telugu, Urdu or Malayalam without fear and with a lot of pride. Incidentally, more than 95 percent of True Malaysian Indian Muslims belong to the Tamil-speaking category. This lot are die-hards and will not give up their identity for any commercial reasons.
The future of all Malaysian races are quite clearly charted out with their respective race-based political parties fighting for their cause. The True Malaysian Indian Muslims, however, are in a pathetic situation with their Kongres India Muslim Malaysia (Kimma) now split into two factions each claiming leadership.
Kimma in reality is a political party registered in 1977. Its recent with BN’s People’s Progressive Party (PPP) seems to have given it a new lease of life as this is an indirect entry into Barisan Nasional. How this will work out, only time will tell. After all, something is better than nothing.
Hindraf should have been ‘Iindraf’ from Day One or ‘Makkal Sakthi’ (People’s Power). If this had been the case, then thousands of True Malaysian Indian Muslims (excluding those enjoying government contracts, restaurant owners and those driving around in luxury cars)would have been there on Nov 25, 2007.
The True Malaysian Indian Muslims have been suffering in silence for the past 50 years. We, too, have been marginalised and ‘ethnically cleansed’ very systematically. In the next 50 years, there will be no more Indian Muslims in this country.
2.“The Nation on Sunday” (http://www.nation.lk)
Sri Lankan Tamils after 60 years of independence, 3 February 2008
As JR observed, the Muslims or South Indians may have dominated Sri Lanka if the Westerners did not come. But then this is only a point to ponder at this point of time. The reality was that the British who unified the country also sowed seeds of dissension in classical ‘divide and rule’ mode. It has been famously said that what the ‘British unified administratively to exploit, they divided politically to govern.’ The British introduced the principle of communal representation and ever since then this island nation became an archipelago of communities
Sixty is a magic number in the Hindu astrological calendar. Each year has a distinctive name. The names for these years number 60. All years come and go in a cycle of 60.
Therefore, people born in a particular year will find themselves celebrating their 60th birthday in the year with the same name. The 60th birthday itself is regarded as a milestone and observed ceremoniously by many.
The Pearl of the Indian Ocean gained independence from British rule as Ceylon in 1948. It was renamed Sri Lanka or the ‘Resplendent Isle’ in 1972. We also became a republic. Even as the country is poised to complete 60 years of independence on February 4, it would be worthwhile to reflect on where we are today on the eve of Independence Day
Singaporean success
There would be, no doubt, many people examining and analysing the progress made by Sri Lanka after 60 years of independence. Everything seemed rosy then and we were tipped to be second only to Japan in economic progress.
Lee Kuan Yew saw us as a model nation then and wanted his Singapore to emulate us. Today he points to Sri Lanka as the model that should be discarded.
Sri Lanka has achieved many things. In terms of the Quality of Life Index, we have indeed done very well. Literacy, healthcare, infant mortality, nutrition, democracy, etc., are areas where we have done remarkably well.
Economically, Sri Lanka is not a basket case, at least not yet. Yet, one cannot but be sad when aware of the fact that we have not realised our full potential. We had everything going for us and should have been in a different league. But then?
The secret of Singaporean success does not lie in the decisive fiscal policies adopted by a pragmatic leadership alone. Its success is rooted in the conscious decision made by its leaders at the dawn of independence to forge a common Singaporean identity.
Such an identity was not that of the numerical majority imposing itself upon the others and expecting them to fall in line. The Chinese community was 75% of the nation but thanks to the enlightened vision of Lee Kuan Yew, there was no majoritarian hegemony.
Ethnic divide
There was a crackdown – undemocratic perhaps – on those advocating Chinese supremacist policies. The founding fathers of modern Singapore concentrated on evolving a common inclusive identity based on equality. Malay, Chinese, Tamil and English have been the official languages of Singapore for decades.
In Sri Lanka things went awry on the ethnic front. It is to the credit of Sri Lanka that democracy flourishes, despite some strains and bad patches. But this very democracy has contributed to our decline too.
Populist pandering to the Sinhala majority has distorted the very basic concepts of an ideal democracy. It is no accident that the growth of the two-party system in Sri Lanka coincided with the deterioration of ethnic relations in this country.
“War is an extension of politics by other means,” observed Clausewitz. Today this land is in the grip of a vicious civil war that has ruined the country. Militarism rides high!
Yet the national question remains unsolved. It would remain so unless and until true wisdom prevails on all sides of the ethnic divide.
Crossroads
Meanwhile, relations between the Sinhala and Tamil people have deteriorated rapidly in the post-independence period. There are some who say that the country is in a state of de facto partition. Others say it is at the crossroads.
Sixty years of independence is a time for reflection for the country and her people. Many persons would be doing that I am sure.
As a Tamil of Sri Lankan origin I would like to focus briefly on the plight of the Sri Lankan Tamil people after 60 years of independence.
I was born in 1954, six years after independence. Another Tamil born in the same year is the LTTE Leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran. Prabhakaran and the LTTE have been the determining force in Sri Lanka since 1983.
There is no Sri Lankan history without Sinhala history but Sinhala history alone is not Sri Lankan history. It has been Prabhakaran’s role to remind us sharply of this. Sadly, in the process, the Tamils have been undermined and weakened to an extent never seen before.
However much we rail against British colonialism, we cannot forget that the ‘idea’ of one Ceylon was a British construct. It was the British who unified this island under a single administration.
This is true of India too. But enlightened policies by Indian rulers have made the ‘idea of India’ valid and strong. Secular India has withstood several challenges to its unity and territorial integrity but neighbouring Pakistan, glued together by a theocratic ideal, failed and Bangladesh was born.
Tragic reality
The tragic reality today is that the Sri Lankan Tamils are alienated from the state. It is a process that has been underway for many, many years.
In spite of the 6th Amendment to the Constitution disavowing separatism, the idea of a separate state for Tamils has not gone away. It will not go away through military repression either.
Tamils have been living in this island from time immemorial. Eminent historian Sir Paul E. Peries has written of the five ‘Eeshwarams’ – Muneeswaram, Ketheeswaram, Koneswaram, Naguleswaram and Thondeeswaram – dedicated to Lord Shiva at the time when Vijaya had supposedly arrived here.
Though there was a long-standing Tamil presence here, large-scale Tamil settlements began after the 10th Century. By the 13th Century a Tamil kingdom was set up. There were also feudal Wanni chiefs. The Jaffna Kingdom, after phases of resistance, fell finally to the Portuguese in 1621.
Thereafter the Dutch and then the British took over in 1658 and 1796 respectively. The Jaffna Kingdom comprised the present Jaffna and Kilinochchi Districts and substantial parts of the Mannar and Mullaitivu Districts. They were administered separately by the Portuguese and Dutch.
After the fall of the Kandyan Kingdom, the entire island came under British rule. It was the British who unified the country in 1833 in terms of the Colebrook-Cameron reform proposals. The idea of one Ceylon was a colonial construct.
Junius Richard Jayewardene was the most history conscious of our heads of state since independence. He once said that the history of this country could have been vastly different if the Western colonialists had not come. JR said that Sri Lanka could have been dominated by the ‘Mussalmans’ (Muslims) or ‘Dravidians’ (South Indians) if not for this.
Point to ponder
A substantial part of the Indian sub-continent (India, Pakistan and Bangladesh) was under Muslim rule when the British, French, Portuguese, Dutch and Danes came. In Sri Lanka the Arya Chakravarthy Tamil kingdom of the north received sustenance from South India.
The Sinhala kingdoms in the south too derived support from South India. The Telugu Nayakkar rulers of Madurai and Thanjavoor sent troops frequently to help out warring Sinhala rulers. The Kandyan kings married their ‘Maheshi’ queens from South India. The last four Kandyan Kings were all Nayakkars.
So who knows? As JR observed, the Muslims or South Indians may have dominated Sri Lanka if the Westerners did not come. But then this is only a point to ponder at this point of time.
The reality was that the British who unified the country also sowed seeds of dissension in classical ‘divide and rule’ mode. It has been famously said that what the ‘British unified administratively to exploit, they divided politically to govern.’
The British introduced the principle of communal representation and ever since then this island nation became an archipelago of communities.
Limited franchise came to the island in 1910 when an ‘educated Ceylonese’ constituency was created. The franchise was restricted to educational and property qualifications. Sir Ponnambalam Ramanathan won in both 1912 and 1916.
One reason for his victory was that the Govigama elite, in rivalry with the Karawe elite, supported the Vellala Tamil. Ramanathan’s opponents were Dr. Marcus Fernando and Thomas de Sampayo.
Sinhala-Tamil unity
This period is seen as the golden age of Sinhala-Tamil unity. A demonstration of the goodwill that existed then was the welcome afforded to Ramanathan as he arrived in Colombo from London.
Sinhala stalwarts of the day seated Ramanathan in a chariot and pulled it along the streets of Colombo. This was in appreciation of his espousal of the Sinhala cause in the aftermath of the anti-Muslim violence of 1915.
Tamils in those years did not perceive themselves as a minority. They saw themselves as being on par with the Sinhalese as the two founding peoples of modern Ceylon. Tamil influence was so great then that few Tamils thought of themselves as a numerical minority.
It was in this ‘equal partner’ mindset that Ramanathan’s brother Sir Ponnambalam Arunachalam played a prominent role in the affairs of the Ceylon National Congress. Arunachalam’s lecture on ‘Our Political Needs’ became the bible of all patriotic (to be differentiated from the pseudo-patriots of today) Ceylonese then.
The same Arunachalam was to be bitterly disappointed within years over the issue of allocating a seat for Tamils in Colombo. He formed the Ceylon Tamil League and began emphasising the Tamil identity. It was Arunachalam who spoke of Tamil Eelam first.
Sir James Peiris had promised to support the proposal but his successor in the Congress, E.J. Samarawickrema, had gone back on it, saying his predecessor’s pledge did not bind him. This was the first in the long trail of broken promises that marred Sinhala-Tamil relations in this country.
‘Sinhala-Tamil’ pact
Another attempt at Sinhala-Tamil understanding was made when several Sinhala leaders met with Tamil counterparts at ‘Mahendra-Giri’ in Velanai. This was the home of Sir Vaithilingam Duraiswamy who was later State Council speaker in 1936. A ‘Sinhala-Tamil’ pact was signed to apportion seats in the legislature on a 2:1 ratio.
There was opposition to this arrangement in the south, spearheaded by Sir Francis de Zoysa. The pact was repudiated.
The Donoughmore reforms brought in universal franchise and territorial representation. Tamil self-perception of being on par with the Sinhalese was crudely shattered. At the same time there was another vibrant school of thought among Tamils that spurned narrow nationalism and embraced a broad Ceylonese identity.
The Jaffna Youth Congress rejected the Donoughmore Commission proposals and demanded ‘Poorana Swaraj,’ or complete self-rule. It urged a boycott of the State Council elections.
Ceylon’s ‘Father of Marxism,’ Philip Gunewardena hailed this decision. “Jaffna has given the lead,” he wrote, to the “searchlight” and called upon the Sinhalese to follow.
There were no takers in the south. The dominant Sinhala elite preferred cooperation over confrontation. They wanted to work within the system and seek gradual political reform.
Besides, Donoughmore reforms brought about a sea change in the Sinhala psyche. The notion of Sinhala-Buddhist supremacy was taking root.
Many politically ambitious ‘Christians’ saw which way the wind was blowing and changed religion overnight, becoming what was derisively referred to as “Donoughmore Buddhists.”
Donoughmore reforms
Ramanathan in the twilight of his life saw what was coming. “Donoughmore means Tamils no more,” he said. This was the same Ramanathan who had in 1904 called upon the Sinhalese to nurture and nourish their language while addressing a prize giving at Ananda College.
“If Sinhala lips will not speak the Sinhala language, who else is there to speak it?” he queried.
Elections to the State Council in 1931 saw Jaffna boycotting it as a result of the Youth Congress call. Four seats from Jaffna remained vacant. There were no Sri Lankan Tamils in the first board of ministers. However, there were a Muslim Sir Mohammed Macan Marcar and an Indian Tamil, Sir Jaya Perisundaram, in the seven-member board of ministers.
The 1931 boycott was the high watermark of the Jaffna Youth Congress. Sinhala patriots did not reciprocate. Without Sinhala participation in the politics of protest, the confrontational mode of the Youth Congress lost lustre.
The boycott call itself was influenced greatly by Mahatma Gandhi’s call in India. Analysing the Youth Congress boycott failure, Scholar Jane Russel was to call it the “dance of the turkey cock.” The Tamil poet Auvaiyar in a popular stanza had derisively compared the dance of the turkey cock to that of the peacock.
Another development at that time was the differences between the low-country and up-country Sinhalese. A delegation of Kandyan notables argued for federalism before the Donoughmore Commission. They wanted three units. One for the Kandyan Province, one for the North East Province and one for the rest.
Federal option
The Sri Lankan Tamils did not support the federal demand. In fact, when S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike proposed a federal solution in 1926, the Jaffna elite had rejected it.
Tamil leadership then was in the hands of the Colombo-based elite. This elite had its own self-interests. Their interests were not those of the agriculturists and fisher-folk and toddy-tappers of the north and east. Thus the Tamil leaders during colonial rule did not espouse federalism. Had they done so, the history of Tamils in this country could have been different.
The Donoughmore reforms of territorial representation and universal franchise were laudable but brought about unintended consequences.
The commissioners dismissed pleas for the retention of communal representation and called communalism as a cancer eating into the body politic of the country. Ironically, the Donoughmore reforms resulted in the rise of communal politics.
The Jaffna Youth Congress began declining with the rise of communalism. It was a pity because it stood for healthy all-island nationalism. The Youth Congress in its own way raised the standard of revolt against the British Empire.
It was in Jaffna that the Union Jack flag was brought down by the Youth Congress and the ‘Nandhi’ or ‘Crouched Bull’ flag hoisted. The ‘Nandhi’ was the flag of the Jaffna Kingdom. At the behest of the Youth Congress, it was Jaffna that boycotted the visit of the then Prince of Wales.
The accomplishments of the Youth Congress are well documented by Santhaseelan Kadirgamar in his book on the Congress. Prof. Wiswa Warnapala writing a review of it in the Lanka Guardian paid tribute to the Youth Congress in glowing terms.
Community consciousness
As the State Council began functioning, there was a growing feeling in Jaffna that the Tamils had blundered by boycotting elections. There began gathering momentum that Tamils should enter the State Council. Riding the crest of this wave was Ganapathy Gangesu (G.G.) Ponnambalam.
By-elections were held in 1934 and the seats were all filled. Realisation was dawning on Tamils that they were no longer a majority race on par with the Sinhalese. The harsh reality was that they were a minority, albeit a privileged and powerful minority.
G.G. Ponnambalam, who had opposed the boycott, evolved slowly into becoming leader of Ceylon Tamils. In striving to be the leader of his people, G.G. also promoted a community consciousness.
G.G. began promoting a sense of solidarity and pride among Tamils. Invoking the Tamil poet Subramania Bharati’s lines, G.G. Ponnambalam came up with the motto ‘Thamilan Endru Solladaa, Thalai Nimirnthu Nilladaa’ (Say you are a Tamil and hold your head high).
(D.B.S. Jeyaraj can be reached at djeyaraj@federalidea.com)
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