Gajalakshmi Paramasivam

10 January  2020

ISN’T SRI LANKA PART OF INDIA?

Mass becomes Energy and v.v. and nothing gets destroyed. When we say that we need to overcome rebirth – it means that we become permanent Energy – unaffected by form changes. To my mind, this Energy is stored as character. One who is true to oneself knows the just way. The next best is to find someone with whom one is naturally true. Laws and Justice help us be true to ourselves as a Nation.

Majority Sri Lankans of all ethnic communities – tend to leave it to their leaders and lawyers to ‘deliver outcomes’ through which they can lead the other side and/or get something in the custody of the other side. Hence they say that winning in Court is as per the dynamics between the Judge and the lawyer. This results in the citizens being largely dependent on leaders and their status to derive outcomes as per the official / written law. In private circles, the balance is maintained largely through culture and in Sri Lanka, this is driven strongly by religious order in rural areas. The strongest threat to Order in Democracy is the natural passage of that cultural order as is  to  Common Governance. This is more likely to happen when the leader being elected is driven by the benefits from the whole without belief in the whole. This leads to cheating the person who deserves the benefits on merit basis and/or the ‘heritage’ as a whole.

Majority Sri Lankan Politicians do not consider the British as part of our ancestry. But the truth being the truth would show the way – the global way – to one who does so include.

In the Editorial headed ‘Justice and democracy ’ – the Editor of Daily FT states as follows:

[Questions over Sri Lanka’s law enforcement and judiciary have repeatedly cropped up during the conflict and after it on issues of accountability, but with mixed results. One important step forward was the 19th Amendment, which under the Constitutional Council provides a balance to appointments that could be made solely by the Executive, and the Judicial Services Commission that can intervene in some instances to support due process.     In 2016 UN Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers Mónica Pinto visited Sri Lanka, and in her report delivered subsequently to the UN Human Rights Council outlined a set of recommendations that the Government would do well to consider, if it is serious about improving the independence of law enforcement and the Judiciary.   In the recommendations, Pinto said the Constitution should clearly and expressly recognise the fundamental principle of the separation of powers, establish checks and balances, and guarantee the independence of the Judiciary and the Courts, as well as of the legal profession.]

The following part of UN Special Rapporteur Monica  Pinto’s report highlights the need for ethnicity based separation where the make-up is not Common and but is based largely on supply:

[Sri Lanka’s legal and judicial system has incorporated many laws, practices and proceedings inherited from the British, but also Roman Dutch law, which is mainly applied in civil cases. The society is predominantly Sinhalese, with important Tamil and Muslim minorities, which in the North and East of the country are in a majority position.

Yet, the diversity of the population is not reflected in the composition of the judiciary, the Attorney General’s office, or the police, or in the language in which proceedings are conducted. For instance, there are very few Tamil-speaking judges appointed at the highest levels of the judiciary – in fact, with the exception of the current Chief Justice, there are no Tamils in the superior courts (Supreme Court and Court of Appeal). Police forces, in charge of investigations and the first steps to initiate criminal proceedings, are also composed of a large majority of Sinhala-speaking people. There are also very few Tamil-speaking State counsels in the Attorney-General’s office.

Thus, diversity should not only be clearly set among the criteria for the appointment of judges and the recruitment of State counsels and police officers, but qualified interpreters should be assigned to tribunals as a measure to guarantee due process.]

Ethnicity based separation of powers is important when one is driven largely by local culture. Tamils invested proportionately more in Science and Maths and this resulted in the Standardization Policy. This also made the trunk route through which minorities had the opportunity to mind-merge with majority . We were sent back to our cultural structures towards maintaining order. As per that order – Hindus became part of India, Muslims became part of Middle East and Christians became part of Europe.

A specific structure is registered and recognized by the brain through various ways – such as :

Hearsay, intellectual discrimination; conscious form given to belief.  

Those lack in intellectual discrimination and/or  belief  would tend to be driven by hearsay. Those driven strongly by easy outcomes would confirm hearsay pictures of the mind.

Initially, as per my insight, the LTTE were driven by having their say in local communities. They were entitled to and they did use Discrimination in Higher Education  as the ‘reason’ why they fought. But they also lived in ‘free’ cultural space with India’s Tamil Nadu where they felt part of majority. But from then onwards our identity as Sri Lankan / Eelam Tamil Nation was lost. The motivational force was  ‘majority’ over Sinhalese who empowered the Armed Forces who were disorderly in North which was foreign area to them.

For its part – Indian Government used the experience to take a ‘Regional’ position with Sri Lanka. Hence the Big Brother attitude by the current Indian President who is LTTE leadership reborn in terms of Sri Lanka. The issue continues to have rebirths due to incompleteness of purpose – including by the LTTE which went way beyond its true boundaries.

In his Daily Mirror article ‘13A Just a cudgel in India’s hand’ Mr MSM Ayub highlights this as follows:

[Is India so important to Sri Lanka or for that matter to President Rajapaksa in its foreign relations and vice versa, as the two leaders emphasized by the hurried diplomatic visits and at the joint press briefing? Yes, but not for the reasons they attributed amidst pleasantries during their official meetings and public statements.
There cannot be any other Sri Lankan leader like Gotabaya Rajapaksa who had realized so clearly the significance and the impact of India’s proximity to Sri Lanka. In an interview with V.K. Shashikumar of Indian Defence Review in 2010, the then Defence Secretary explaining the rationale behind the exception given to India by the Mahinda Rajapaksa Government during the war had to say this:

 “We knew that only India influences us militarily. India is a huge power in our neighbourhood and our proximity to Tamil Nadu with 60 million Tamils sensitive to what’s going on in Sri Lanka made the situation extremely complex for us. We knew that while other countries could or would resort to economic sanctions, only India had the power to militarily influence the course of our war operations.”]

Sri Lankan Politicians who relied heavily on majority vote – and were outcome driven made policies that would deliver the outcomes they desired. Hence their opposition was also produced at the lower level – by those of a different culture.

When diversity is not respected and valued because it seems convenient to follow the local culture – we produce more and develop less.

The Daily FT whose editor talks about Separation of Powers – has published the article ‘Language of the national anthem’ by Eranda Ginige who has demonstrated strong support for the current President. Culturally, majority Tamils would not identify with Eranda and on merit basis – Eranda lacks the wisdom in Equal Opportunity laws as they are applicable in Sri Lanka – starting with ‘Buddhism Foremost’ Article in the Constitution.  Consciously or otherwise he is attacking the UNP through JR Jayawardene – without recognizing that at the People’s level it was ‘shown’ more by SLFP – the predecessor of  SLPP – the party of the current President.

Since the Daily FT has accommodated Eranda Ginige above a person like myself with independent Sri Lankan mind - the Daily FT deserves the parallel in Judiciary. The rest is to ‘show’ general intellectual credit and has no real value in Sri Lankan life.

Lady Justice is blind confirming absence of  hearsay.   Majority power without belief is hearsay.

To the extent Sinhalese believe in Buddha – their community is  not less in value than India. They become Common with Indian Buddhists and therefore India. Once Tamils are consciously recognized as Sri Lankans – that overrides the natural fears of invasion by Big India. Those who desire majority power also fear bigger majority power – which LTTE invoked.