Gajalakshmi Paramasivam – 01 March  2015

400 Rupee Voter or 4 Billion Rupee Politician?

As per today’s Diaspora communication – the Sinhala Only group is saying:

The Sinhala politicians are either Buddhist or Christian/Catholic

If they are Buddhist they have better chances of coming to power - so they pretend to be devout Buddhists and pray, worship, frequent as many temples as they can, pay homage and do whatever it takes to win the Buddhist votes who are foolish to think these politicians are devout Buddhists.

One leading member of the Tamil Diaspora wrote in response to my article ‘Competed or Finished?’ in relation to the Political stand by the Chief Minister of Northern Sri Lanka:

[During those days (early 1970ies), Mr. S. J. V. Chelvanayagam would say privately and publicly (reported in newspapers) something similar to this: I thought that the power greedy Sinhalese leaders were misguiding the seemingly pious, religious and peace loving Sinhalese people; but the performance of the Sinhalese voters in successive elections showed their intended tilt towards extremism and rabid Sinhala nationalism.

 If Mr. S. J. V. Chelvanayagam (who had foreseen the political scenario) came to such conclusions 30 years ago, for our NP CM to say now, But I feel that the Sinhala people are righteous, but their politicians have misguided them shows how naive and simple the Tamils are.]

That brought to mind the statement by President’s Counsel Kanag-Isvaran of Vaddukoddai – that the principle was the same whether a matter was in relation to Rs.400 or Rs.4billion. It brings to mind also the quip by Thangavelu in film Kalyana Parisu when his wife offers Apple Juice for bringing home Rs. 200.  Thangavelu character says to himself - 

‘Rs. 200 brings me Apple Juice and if this was Rs.400 I would been offered Aattukaal (Leg of lamb) Soup’

One who is connected to the Truth in her/him would not be swayed by Rs. 4 billion brief nor be indifferent to Rs. 400 brief.  In fact, it was because someone mentioned the name of Mr. Kanag-Isvaran PC, as one of the specialists in relation to Testamentary principles using  Thesawalamai Law, that I did a search and discovered the above leadership statement. To me this discovery was no coincidence. As Jesus said – ‘seek and you shall find’. Vaddukoddai  is relevant in terms of the commonness between our legal case and the Vaddukoddai Resolution.

Members of the Tamil Diaspora often said in justifying the LTTE – that our leaders (like Mr. SJV Chelvanayagam) tried everything and failed to achieve self-governance. Back then I did not have deep enough investment in Common Issues to effectively address this. In most instances the empowerment  came from the deaths including suicides by LTTE in their pursuit of victory. Even if I had died in my pursuit of self-governance here in Australia (in the process of which I was labeled a mentally unstable criminal and kept in prison) that would have been of lesser value to those who were driven by the LTTE deaths and their wins in return. The wins were the Lands under their control. The best parallel is the loss of life of  Dr. Neelan Thiruchelvan who was allegedly killed by the LTTE.  Intellectual Tamils failed to identify with this loss when justifying the LTTE path which paved the global pathway open to them. If Dr. Neelan Thiruchelvan was Rs. 4billion I would be Rs. 400 to these minds saying the right thing to get grades in their environments. To them in relation to the LTTE Dr. Thiruchelvan would be Rs. 400 and LTTE Rs 4 billion. Former is deep power and latter is collective power.

Likewise the voter voting for self-governance is a matter of Rs. 400 and the Politician shouting Sinhala only or Tamil only is worth Rs. 4 billion to these surface readers.

The mind deeply committed to the common principle through intellectual pursuit and/or the common value through difficult experience would carry both matters along the same plane. Such a mind would be truly self-governing – as Gandhi’s was/is.

I believe that it is that kind of mind connection that influenced our former Governor of Australia – Rev. Peter Hollingworth to write to me in support of my feelings for Dr. Neelan Thiruchelvan. Dr. Hollingworth himself wrote to me not when he seemed  Rs 4 billion worth Governor but Rs 400 worth ordinary Australian.

In his interview with ‘Tips To Top The Unofficial Bar’ President’s Counsel Kanag-Iswaran states also about connecting to the ‘mind’ of the Judge.  That was important under the Subjective hierarchical system. When one examines without prior bias – the Caste system included in Thesawalamai – one would identify with this hierarchy as per the needs of a Community using the Subjective system. But when used by someone who has superficial knowledge – close to the name only / language only – it would seem an unjust system.

Democracy empowers bottom-up election of Government. It requires also the production of ‘independent outcomes’ by the voter to participate in governance from then on. The Vaddukoddai Resolution was not the child of Tamil only – minds. It was/is the child of Global Tamil mind. As written previously – to my mind, the Vaddukoddai Resolution happened due to Malaysian Pensioners seeking to play catch-up with their rights. The mistake they made was to use local valuation of the Malaysian dollars  instead of limiting themselves to ‘Vaddukoddai only’ income. 

In my husband’s family – apart from my husband all other siblings were born in Malaya. The eldest died without much wealth – and the sister from Vaddukoddai and the one from Sydney did not attend his funeral in Colombo. I did and became his higher close family. Then the second last remaining brother died – in Vaddukoddai. His body had to be cremated immediately – so there were no formal funeral ceremonies. Later I did what I did for the eldest brother and in the case of my own mother – and asked  that his wealth be settled. To my mind, he did not have even as much as his eldest brother. My attempts were resisted by the sisters – and we learnt through the Court system that he had left in overseas accounts monies worth about $200k. In Mallakam District Court – I was demoted as a woman going after other people’s monies and my marriage being second marriage was used in this regard. When I stated to the opposition lawyer – from my Public area in court – that I was not a whore – the Judge picked up his ears and said I was behaving like a street woman. I was very upset over all this and included my feelings as a chapter in ‘Naan Australian’ book.

But of deeper importance to me in all this is that my husband’s sisters’ genuine interpretation at their level of thinking – that only blood relatives were entitled to the wealth. At my level – I filed in Australia for compensation to recover monies for the benefits and opportunities they have gained through my sponsorship of 4 branches of the family. The Australian Courts did not award the compensation but they did dismiss the order Respondents sought for me to be barred from taking any legal action in Courts here. That was the 4 billion dollar order sought by a 400 dollar Vaddukoddai sister. Likewise the Eelam only claim in the hands of LTTE supporters.

 As per the above mentioned Diaspora leader Neelan Thiruchelvan’s father had stated :

[Thamby, our experiences in the art of governance stemming from Tamil nationalism had faded away during the 400 years of colonial rule. But the Sinhalese had a short interregnum of  150 years during which period they sustained the tempo to bring it back to full force after 1948.]

This confirms that the Vaddukoddai Resolution was taken at face value and not with the minds of the originators – the Malaysian-Tamils of Ceylonese origin. The parallel in the Testamentary case – is the overseas wealth to which Thesamalai is being claimed to be applied – with the full submission of the Judge who kept using terminology such as Uberrima -Fide in that Mallakam Court. I had to recall my memory as an Accountancy student to follow the dialogue between Colombo lawyers and the Judge who was trying to impress them. This confirmed to me that when lawyers act as traders instead of as professionals – they influence the Judge to come down to that level – of an individual. The name of the law is merely stated without belief and there is no connection between the law and the proceedings. There was no connection between my marriage and the provisions of Thesawalamai in this regard. But who cared? Thesawalamai was being abused in that  Tamil Court where the Judge was hearing through his cultural reality. The judgment was a summary of  the proceedings in that legal market.

The likes of Mr. Wigneswaran and Mr. Kanag-Iswaran can do something.  After waiting for more than a year for the judgment – I wrote to the Judicial Services Commission and judgment was delivered on  the following Court date allocated. To me it was no coincidence. I believe my deep investment in Public Administration works for me – to know the Truth – even though the outcome at surface level is a failure grade. Even if we get political devolution – we would fail miserably in Administration – which needs to be of global standards – now that we are communicating directly with the UN !