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by Lakshman Gunasekara

We Sri Lankan, Sinhalese and Tamils seem to have conclusively broken at least one of our common traditions: the eulogising of our prominent personalities on their death.

It was a time-honoured tradition over centuries, interrupted perhaps during colonial rule, but resumed with the ostentatious gusto of elitism as the first post-colonial personages began to make their exit. Junius Richard Jayewardene received only encomiums at his passing as did Sirimavo Bandaranaike, Ranasinghe Premadasa, and other eminent sons and daughters of Mother Lanka.

Our Sri Lankan culture of eulogising was not disturbed by the death of even those who had been vilified to the extreme while they were alive, such as Rohana Vijeyveera. Those who vilified him in life were quite happy to remain 'decently' (and prudently) silent after he conveniently 'died' while in custody.

It was poor Neelan Tiruchelvam, whose birth anniversary is commemorated this week, who was bestowed the honour, by his Tamil and Sinhala compatriots, of being the first prominent personality to be systematically vilified and ridiculed on his death while also being eulogised.

Never mind that he was deliberately killed by a suicide bomber. Never mind that the people who arranged for his assassination (and executed it) were those of his ethnic kind on whose behalf Dr. Tiruchelvam was a tireless campaigner for social and political justice.

This man of peace, who wielded no sword but risked all and gave all for the cause of justice, was assailed, on his death, by salvo after salvo of disparaging tirades by both Sinhalas and Tamils.

Usually, on the death of a prominent personality, there are a string of newspaper editorials, column commentaries, commemorative TV and radio programmes, public lectures and meetings, letters to the editor, 'Appreciations' in newspaper columns etc. all eulogising the dead person. In the case of Neelan Tiruchelvam, however, while the very first few reactions on his death were all eulogies, within days the first denigrations and disparagements began to be expressed. For months after his assassination on July 29th, 1999, disparaging and denigrating comments appeared in newspaper editorials, regular political comment columns, special articles, and 'letters to the editor', both locally and abroad. Indeed, there broke out at least one debate between a denigrator and someone who appreciated Tiruchelvam's contribution to Sri Lankan life.

The first anti-Tiruchelvam tirades within Sri Lanka came from Sinhala sources and not from the within his own Tamil community. But, as the barrage of vilification by some Sinhalas mounted, no doubt, some Tamils may have felt that they should not be left out of this new tradition of bashing the murdered. At the international level, however, the LTTE was quick to begin its posthumous attack on Tiruchelvam.

What is interesting is that, unlike previous assassinations of Tamil political actors by the LTTE, in the case of Dr. Tiruchelvam, the LTTE has felt it necessary to launch a sustained global propaganda campaign to legitimise its action in killing him. Not even TULF leader Appapillai Amirthalingam, the founder of the Tamil secessionist movement (if we take the Vaddukoddai Declaration as its inception), an early victim of LTTE hegemonism, received as much attention.

Thus, Neelan Tiruchelvam created history even in death: he is the first personality to be killed in connection with the ethnic conflict who has been disparaged in death with regard to his role in the conflict; with that denigration emanating from both sides of the principal ethnic divide.

What I found interesting was that this bipartisan denigration was a dramatic counterpoint to the similarly bipartisan eulogising that also emanated from both Tamil and Sinhala sources (and also Muslim and international sources). It is possible that more Sinhalas than Tamils gave expression to their praise of Tiruchelvam.

It is not surprising that the killing of Neelan, the inter-ethnic bridge-builder, has further strengthened those inter-ethnic bridges. The Sri Lankans of various ethnic origin who have joined hands in praising him are those who have been inspired by his efforts at, and personal political praxis of, inter-communal and trans-communal action for justice in our society. Tiruchelvam's political activism creatively and boldly bestrode ethnic community politics and, at the same time, his actions were a conjunction of responses to a whole range of social justice issues in which ethnic identity and rights were only one aspect.

It is precisely because his political activism was one that addressed ethnic politics in such a dynamic and transcendental manner that his posthumous appreciation and depreciation emanates equally from both sides of the principal ethnic divide. Just as much as Sinhalas and Tamils have both appreciated him, Sinhalas and Tamils have jointly depreciated him as well. The sheer scale of reactions, both locally as well as internationally, indicate the power and extent of Tiruchelvam's influence. (In terms of his intellectual depth which had yet give full expression - I would include him among the great Sri Lankan intellectuals of the 20th Century: with Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, E.W. Adhikaram and Martin Wickramasingha leading the way.)

The parallel denigration of Tiruchelvam by the LTTE and its social support base on the one hand, and by the Sinhala ultra-nationalist circles on the other, show a fascinating congruence of behaviour between two socio-political blocs which are otherwise locked in a very real fight to the death (as they see it and act it out).

The ideological sources of this congruence are interesting. The logic of the denigration on each side is in counter-point to each other: the Sinhala ultra-nationalist bloc vilified Tiruchelvam for focusing on the exclusivity and importance of identity and on social (ethnic) difference while the LTTE bloc denigrated (and continues to denigrate) him for attempting to transcend the identity conflict or, rather for attempting to negotiate the trajectory of identity contests along the continuum of a larger, inclusive form of socio-political association (confederal, regional and global).

Neelam Tiruchelvam is one of a very few prominent Sri Lankan social activists who acted both in concert with social group differences (and contests) as well in transcendence of differences in a larger communitarian outlook for the whole of this island community. In fact it is perhaps that enmeshing of the exclusive with the inclusive that has provoked such furore among those who cannot embrace all dimensions of collectivity while engaging with the dynamics of singularity.

These exclusivist extremisms - on the one side, the LTTE bloc and, on the other, the Sinhala ultra-nationalist bloc, have been hostile to the kinds of policies advocated by Neelan Tiruchelvam. They denigrated him because they rejected his strategy for the settlement of the ethnic conflict by peaceful, constitutional and democratic (and I don't imply Western-style democracy) means.

If this is the case, it gives rise to two questions: (a) To what extent is this logic of both the LTTE and Sinhala ultra-nationalist blocs due to their inability to cope with the complex inter-action of collectivity and singularity? (b) To what extent does this logic arise from their deliberate rejection of the variations of the collective and an insistence purely on one kind of (ethnic) collective with complete disregard for the inter-active aspect?

While it must be left to the scholars to find the precise answers to these questions, it is possible to argue that actually both tendencies may be seen in the behaviour of the two blocs.

In the first place, the specific political projects of the two blocs predicate a heavy emphasis on exclusivism pure and simple leaving virtually no room for engagement between the two fixed singularities. What are these two singularities?

On the side of the Sinhala ultra-nationalist bloc, it is a supremacist political project for an exclusivist Sinhala nation-state in which, ideally, other non-recognised ethnic identities would gradually be absorbed (culturally, genetically) into the Sinhala majority; or, at the least, other persisting ethnic identities will be remain as subjugated, constitutionally subordinate and marginalised groups.

On the side of the LTTE bloc, it is a secessionist project for a nation-state to be obtained solely under the LTTE's hegemony - presumably because V. Prabhakaran, after all his dedication and sacrifice (which few deny), deserves to be Eelam's first head of state rather than being a mere chief minister in a federated or con-federated region. Furthermore, the LTTE's inspirational literature indicates that the Eelamist secession is to be completed in its entirety by force of arms (rather than including any stage of gradual constitutional secession) - this strategy being adopted to ensure the LTTE's full control of the whole scheme.

In terms of a spectrum of political tendencies in the country, these two exclusivist projects are at the two extremities with the middle ground occupied by several other tendencies.

The principal 'moderate' tendency is the continuing effort to transform the Sri Lankan polity into a federal or confederal structure which would acknowledge and structurally accommodate the Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim aspirations for their own respective political collectivities or sub-collectivies within a larger unifying 'national' framework. This was Neelan Tiruchelvam's dream (among other ideas he had on numerous other subjects).

This tendency is strongly articulated today by both the United National Party and People's Alliance and numerous pro-democracy action groups and peace groups. Neelan Tiruchelvam was a kind of magical focal point between the UNP, PA and the civic groups.

Some of these non-governmental organisations and people's movements actively collaborated with certain programmes of the previous PA government in support of this tendency. Given the high priority being given to the peace effort by the current UNP government, it is likely that a similar collaboration will develop again.

Most Tamil and Muslim political parties and groups too support this tendency.

A much less influential tendency is the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna's espousal of a very limited decentralisation of power within a fully secular (marxist-style) and fully multi-ethnic state. This tendency seems in disarray at the moment due to the JVP's resort to a kind of subsumed Sinhala ultra-nationalism, presumably in its immature attempts to find a political platform distinctive from its larger parliamentary political rivals, the UNP and PA. I say 'immature' because the JVP has yet to learn that if it is to successfully engage with the existing State and dominant politico-economic structure, then it must enter into some level of political consensus. In Sri Lanka, ethnic pluralism and power-sharing now hugs that central ground.

Another tendency espoused by a very small minority of activists is for the peaceful achievement, if so desired, of at least two ethnic nation-states (with sub-national arrangements to provide for internal ethnic diversity) by means of multi-lateral negotiations and continuing, long-term constitutional processes (such as the process in Canada pertaining to Quebec and in Northern Ireland). Even this tendency, however, would consider partition as only a last resort given the great risk that a partitioning process will not remain democratic and non-violent.

The challenge before the two political forces that dominate the Sri Lankan polity today - the UNP and PA - is to try to re-create the polity in some form that will, if possible, contain the two ethnic extremist tendencies at the two ends of our political spectrum.

A most significant development in recent months has been the congruence between the moderate elements of the Tamil nationalist movement and the LTTE bloc. This can be seen in the formation of the Tamil National Alliance by several Tamil political parties and former militant groups whose principal objective seems to be the recognition of the LTTE as the 'sole representative of the Tamil people'.

If this is merely a tactic to ensure that the LTTE becomes the main focus of peace negotiations, then the TNA will fulfil a necessary role. However, given the LTTE's hegemonist trajectory since its inception and its record of authoritarian suppression or subordination of all fellow-Eelamist militant organisations and civil-political groups as well as non-Eelamist Tamil groups and activists, the new coalition and its seemingly voluntary subordination to the LTTE's leadership could be a very real continuation of that hegemonism.

That, however, can only be seen in the process of peace negotiations.

On the side of the ethnic divide, the UNP Government as well as the PA Presidency have the joint task of wooing both the JVP as well as those Sinhala ultra-nationalist elements that can be persuaded to move towards a more moderate Sinhala nationalism that also recognise the existence and sovereignty of other nationalities within a larger Sri Lankan collective.

As we edge towards negotiations, may we dare dream Neelan Tiruchelvam's dream? 

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