Gajalakshmi Paramasivam – 21 June 2015

  What Do We Want – Military or Democratic Governance?

 

There is much talk about Sri Lankan Parliamentary Elections. Yesterday, the discussions were based on the article ‘Strengthen  President Sirisena, Who Holds Key to Future Good Governance’ by Jehan Perera. This morning again my attention was drawn to the article ‘Campaign to have clean, competent candidates launched’ by Harischandra Gunaratna. This article reports:

 

[An initiative called ‘Campaign for Clean and Competent Candidates’ was yesterday launched together with a website by a group of well-known scholars, professionals and entrepreneurs on Thursday to urge political parties to nominate only those with a clean track record to contest elections. Rienzie Wijetillake, former Chairman of the Hatton National Bank said: "The need of the hour is to appoint the independent commissions expeditiously as some parliamentarians accused of corruption and other crimes are trying to return to parliament and thwart the appointment of such commissions in the belief that they would not be brought to book”]

 

These are immediate internal measures within Sri Lanka.  Not many reporters seem to urge the Natural Voter without the power to physically exercise her/his vote, to invoke  their powers. In fact, what really matters is that real power in the voter which may or may not be represented by the vote. The real powers work with or without the vote. The vote helps give structure to those powers largely to assist the primary level investor in democratic governance.

 

To the extent community leaders such as Mr. Rienzie Wijetillake invested in Good Governance in their Institutions – calls by them are the parallels of Vaddukoddai Resolution 1976 made by Tamil Politicians.  I believe that the Good Governance investment I made in the University of New South Wales – despite the pain I suffered – contributed towards the fall of  Mr. John Howard.  It took time – but it happened and happened to satisfy my need to make the connection through the karmic pathway.

 

Sri Lanka by its Constitution has included Buddhist pathway as part of its Governance.  It is doubtful that many know how this works or for that matter that it does work. To my mind, the higher powers of minorities come from Just  Administration and Good Governance. Our respective religious and other institutional  pathways are the parallels of Administration and the Truth we discover is of real Governance value that would support us anytime anywhere. These are  cumulative powers that would influence changes to support true seekers. The balancing power is always there for the true believer. God comes to each one as per the form through which we believe.

 

In terms of Tamil minorities, who did not ‘abandon’ their rights to majority – this  happened in 1977 to support Tamil Politicians who invested in non-violent pathway to uphold their Equal  Opposition. Many Tamils in support of armed rebellion state that self-determination could not be achieved through the political pathway and hence the armed rebellion led by LTTE. But 1977 Parliamentary elections confirmed the validity of Vaddukoddai Resolution 1976 – through which Tamil Political Declaration of Independence was made. A Political Declaration based purely on belief goes directly to Good Governance. Hence that Natural voting preceded the official voting in 1977 which confirmed the connection.

 

 More recently – the voting pattern in the Sri Lankan Presidential Elections of 2015 confirmed that Tamils had the power to change the political leadership. The innocent Tamil lives lost due to the war and the suffering of those remaining are ongoing Natural votes against not only those who caused the suffering but also the military pathway used by suppressing political rights of the citizen. If majority in a community believe that military is the preferred pathway to the political, citizen’s  pathway – then that would be the Governance structure through which they would protect themselves while traveling towards realization of independence.

 

We realize independence / sovereignty through various pathways. Depending on politics as our main pathway means that we lose/weaken  membership in other pathways. Writing my experiences as I had them has been my main pathway once I felt that the Administrative pathway was blocked at a certain level here in Australia. So far my freedom to write has not been blocked. By writing I am sharing that independence power with the nation and people beyond national borders.  One such sharing happened yesterday – confirming the Capital Reserves that Tamils of Sri Lanka - have developed over long periods. That sharing was about the experience of King Sankili of Jaffna but the pathway through which we draw on those reserves today are Educational.

 

I was editing/proofreading my book ‘Beyond Consciousness’ when I received mail from Mr. Maravanpulavu K. Sachithananthan with the following message:

 

“I am in Goa.

Nostalgic memories of King Sankili of Jaffna plague  my mind.

During 1977, I was initiated by Prof. Dr. Pathmanathan’s (now Chancellor, University of Jaffna) narrations into the Kingdom of Jaffna.

Mr. M. Tiruchelvam Q. C., had earlier asked Prof. Pathmanathan to educate me on the fall of the Kingdom of Jaffna and the transfer of Tamil sovereignty to the Portuguese, to facilitate the Tamil translation of his arguments on Tamil sovereignty at the Trial at Bar (1976).

Sitting at the dining table of my newly built house at Edmonton Road, Kiriloppone, Colombo, I was tape-recording his lecture series. Prof. Dr. Pathmanathan was amazed. He told me that it was the first time someone was recording his lectures.

Even though it was a series of lectures, I was experiencing a movie. Scene after scene, event after event (De Livera crossing the lagoon at Poonakary, war at Nallur, departure from Kayts), characters after characters (Kunj Ali, Ragunatha Nayakar, Varunakulathathan, De Livera, Kaakkai Vanniayan) with King Sankili as the hero or the main player, I visualized every scene. These scenes, events and characters got carved into my read only memory to this day.

I was in tears, when Prof. Dr. Pathmanathan told me about the sordid finale, when King Sankili was caught alive, transferred from Nallur to Kayts with his family and retinue, to be taken to Goa by Captain De Livera. Sankili was put to the gallows in Goa, Prof. Dr. Pathmanathan said.

I am in Goa for a Hindu Awakening Conference (11th to 18th June, 2015) attended by Hindu Stalwarts from 19 states in India along with delegates from Bangladesh and Nepal. I am representing Eezham.

When I spoke on the 14th evening to this august audience of 400 delegates, I mentioned about the lost Hindu Kingdom of Eezham whose King was arrested on 1619 June 5th to be brought to Goa to be sent to the gallows”

 

Tamils feel more free now to share such experiences than they did under the previous government which used  the  military pathway. Jehan Perera confirms this as follows:

 

[The opposition campaign once again shows signs of resorting to divisive ethnic nationalism.  At the Matara rally the former President had a statement read out to the assembled gathering in which he warned that the gains of the war victory secured under his leadership were in danger of being lost.  He said his government had defeated the LTTE in 2009, but the present government was paving the way for its revival.  He alleged that out of 159 army camps in the Jaffna peninsula 59 had been removed and that the government was in the process of releasing some LTTE cadres in custody at present.  He added that the present government’s pro-Eelam foreign policy would have to be defeated or the country would be in danger and pledged his willingness to come back to active politics to safeguard the nation.]

 

To the extent the reduction in army camps happened through Just Administration and Good Governance – the reduction confirms that military power has been converted to civilian power. But one needs to share these with ordinary voters on ongoing basis so that the voting would not happen due to hearsay but due to belief. Just last week I felt a Sinhalese worker’s economic need as mine and was happy to lend him some money. To the extent I satisfied his real need – he would have felt grateful (I believe he does) and we complete the relationship – to become family. This Sinhalese voted for the current government and was open about it. He and those who accept his leadership at his local level – would naturally vote for citizen’s governance that I believe in. During the January Presidential elections I asked him ‘if you vote for the Swan (Mr. Sirisena’s Political sign) – what about Kotia? (Kotia = Tiger – LTTE sign).’  He just brushed it aside and said words to the effect ‘we have a bigger problem with the Government consuming OUR money’.  He defeated the military pathway back then – because he was economically worse-off under the Rajapaksa regime. Every Tamil who seeks civilian governance could use the pathway of economic partnership with Sinhalese to defeat military governance on both sides of the ethnic border.

 

A large portion of the Tamil Community are following along the Eelam pathway. Within the Tamil Community I am a minority seeking through non-political pathways. I believe that like in Australia I did contribute to the changeover from military to civilian Administration in Jaffna as well as in Colombo. As we sow – so shall we reap.  Those of us who uphold the military pathway are voting for Mr. Rajapaksa’s return and therefore the return of LTTE in one form or another. Often those used to top-down  power – for their own selfish reasons would tend to prefer military leadership to keep their minds active and entertained.  This is so with many in the  Tamil Diaspora as well as the Sinhalese Diaspora. So long as those of us seeking the democratic civilian pathway continue to invest strongly in Independence – these military voters would be made minority power in true  Sri Lanka.