Gajalakshmi Paramasivam

10 August  2020

 

The Real Jaffna Tamil

I believe that it is better to get a failure mark and uphold my truth than to get a win on the basis of a lie. I believe that this is because I identify with my own Sovereignty. I believe also that when I add myself to a group I strengthen its opportunity to become Sovereign. When that group actively rejects me – I naturally separate but share my Sovereignty with those who believed in me and/or developed a relationship with me. Often in families, relationships sustain the family through reliable returns to each other than emotional expressions based on immediate outcomes. That to me is the second best to truth. It is also more easy to calculate intellectually the degree of reliability within a structure through relationships developed on common values. This was the basis of successful arranged marriages which were given preference in Northern Sri Lanka – above alleged love marriages based on emotions.

This was also the advice given by President Rajapaksa’s legal advisor Dr Ali Sabry to his Muslim supporters. But then unless his followers follow in his footsteps and use the intellect above belief , it becomes false advice and is likely to lead to unreliability. The issue for minorities in Sri Lanka is dependence vs armed fighting at the risk of being named ‘Terrorists’ by legal intellectuals. When we attribute credit to our guru / elder we invoke the blessings of the real guru who became sovereign through her/his wisdom. Had Dr Sabry done that to the Judiciary – it is highly unlikely that he would enter Parliament as a National List politician. His parallel in the Northern Tamil community is Mr Wigneswaran about whom a Tamil Diaspora professional wrote:

[CW is the holy ashed opportunist and a mole that once wrote to Indian PM claiming that the judgement against killer/rapist Matale (Premananda) Samy is not correct and to re-examine. This is how a retired supreme court judge and chief minister valued the legal system of India and his understanding of the protocol. But he knew how  to take the fools for a good ride by his holy divine attire and now he has achieved it.]

In the case of Mr Premananda, Mr Wigneswaran may have identified through his personal belief. If that were true, he would have known that his guru would have invoked his own divine powers and would not have experienced any pain. I know this through my own experience here in Australia. That is when we know for ourselves the exponential value of Belief. The Indian Judiciary had the duty to rule as per the law and facts established through evidence and not through personal belief – if they had any.

The above in essence is the parallel of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa pardoning an Army Officer in March this year:

[Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa pardoned Former Staff Sergeant Sunil Ratnayake who was convicted in 2015 for the murder of eight Tamil civilians, including three children, in Mirusuvil in April 2000. The conviction and death sentence was affirmed by the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka in 2019.] – International Commission of Jurists

As per the commonness between Mr Rajapaksa and Mr Wigneswaran – the  person accused as per the law – was innocent  as per their own standards.

Often the media – including social media – helps us to complete our sovereignty – provided we do not get distracted by lesser benefits on the way. Every completed thought adds strength to the Sovereignty of our home-environment. Every false claim of sovereignty – including to represent an electorate damages the investment towards sovereignty – of the person and her/his environment.

A professional leader of the Tamil Diaspora asked me in response to my article headed ‘Two Thirds Majority to Demote Judiciary?:

[Madam can you explain how a guy from SLFP scored the highest votes in Jaffna and how? Or our Tamil pundits mixed up SLFP with something else?]

I responded as follows:

[The clue is in the Wikipedia information below:

“Ramanathan's father Sathasivam Ramanathan is an associate of Basil Rajapaksa, brother of former President Mahinda Rajapaksa. Sathasivam Ramanathan is reputed to have made billions from smuggling abroad refugees from the Sri Lankan Civil War and from government corruption.”

If it is to go abroad, they find the money by hook or by crook. This became official when Rebels took control of Jaffna. Mahinda is not rejected by Jaffna Tamils at grassroots level. When I went in 2018 to Murugamoorthi temple-Arali -  I learnt that  MR’s friend Thirukumar is known  to have donated generously. At first I was surprised. Then when I thought about it – is that not the example set by the Rebels who are celebrated as heroes by a good proportion of Tamils?

If you come to Thunaivi – it is Devananda’s area because of handouts – primarily of  government jobs. I stick to my own structures – and hence am immune to this kind of trade deals. It’s pathetic. University of Jaffna is the same. A young girl from Thunaivi wanted a loan from me to go to Germany to work in the hospital – through Namal’s group. I firmly declined. Nothing happened. I concluded that it was a scam.

To me – even if I am able to bring about orderly conduct in a small group – that is a great achievement. Beyond that my work is to share as per my experience.

SLFP victory confirms the falsity of  the Tamil Nationalism claim. But with all its faults Jaffna community is part of me and I am of them. So to the extent I am able to privately offset the bad with my good – I use only the net value in writing. ]

In his Economy Next article headed ‘Gotabaya Rajapaksa has been strengthened and now he has to deal with multiple crises’ Arjuna Ranawana comments as follows:

[When President J R Jayewardene’s United National Party (UNP) won the 1977 parliamentary election with a 5/6th majority that paved the way for the creation of a new Constitution and an Executive Presidency, he famously boasted that the only thing he could not do with all that power was to change a man into a woman and vice versa.

Even though he exercised such power, changing the Constitution to suit his personality, and not necessarily to benefit the country, he enshrined laws, which he believed would help keep his beloved UNP in power forever.

The Proportional Preferential system of elections in Sri Lanka, an unwieldy, complex system is the result of “JR thought” and pundits often said that it was a “mathematical impossibility” for a single party or group to win a two-thirds majority in Parliament on its own.

The Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) has proved that wrong, garnering 145 seats on its own; an astounding achievement.]

The clue about SLFP topping in Jaffna also is embedded in this Preferential Voting System (PVS).

I am an Australian and a Sri Lankan. They both follow the PVS. Here in Australia, I decide which party or individual I am voting for – and then I take the notice of that party when I am on my way to the polling booth. I do not break my small head over independent thinking about preferences and the senate. Unless therefore a Jaffna Tamil is strongly committed to independent thinking in relation to allocating preferences, I would expect them to be like myself.

The only difference would be money. Money for vote is not new to the folks of Jaffna. In fact unless there is money reward, the average Jaffna man is likely to not use her/his brain to understand the PVS. Instead, s/he is likely to make the obvious first choice or use a pre-prepared list as I do here in Australia except when it comes to issues that I feel strongly about. Today, I went deeper into my belief based explanation to the above member of the Tamil Diaspora.

The Electoral Knowledge Network highlights as follows about PVS:

[The disadvantages of the Sri Lankan system include:

§  the literacy requirements common to all preferential voting systems, and

§  the fact that voters are effectively required to guess who the top two candidates will be in order to make full use of their vote.]

Effectively, the new Constitution defeated participants who did not have clear majority of more than 50% of the votes. When for example, rebels ‘capture’  a particular land area – that is a clear victory – visible to the eye. The parallel of that is the clear majority win even if it did not make the 50% mark. If it does not reach the 50% mark  then it would mean that there is no democratic representation of the whole electorate in Parliament but only an electorate made up of the percentage total of the first two candidates. In Democracy the whole needs to be covered by the first two – as government and equal opposition. The law fills the gap.

The Jaffna outcome if genuine confirms that the People of Jaffna are not against the SLFP which party most in Jaffna would associate with Mr Mahinda Rajapaksa. This effectively defeats the claim that that government was solely responsible for the suffering of war actions in which Tamils became the victims. This would indirectly mean that Tamils have accepted that the Armed Rebels also contributed to the pain and loss.

Out of the list published by the Daily News – a Tamil representing a Southern Political party (SLFP) has only 17% approval in Jaffna. Mr Sivagnam Sritharan of ITAK/TNA  – the main Tamil only alliance also has 17% approval. In total ITAK /TNA has polled 42% and ‘Tamil only’ parties polled 83% approval relative to SLFP’s 17%. 

Arjuna Ranawana states about ITAK:

[ Among other setbacks, its leader Mavai Senathiraja lost his seat as the dynamics of Tamil politics seems to have changed.

This prompted SLPP Chairman Prof G L Peiris to say “they (ITAK) can no longer claim to be the sole representatives of the Tamil people,” and as former Governor of the Northern Province Dr Suren Raghavan pointed out, the “people of the North want development.”]

To declare on the basis of  the leader only - is autocracy. ITAK continues to lead Northerners overwhelmingly. As for Development work in North – yes as per our democratic rights and not as handouts.