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| Sunday, 25 December 2005 |
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Features |  |
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This Thondaman and that Sunday Essay by Ajith Samaranayake The hulking figure of Mr. Arumugam Thondaman has dominated the headlines in recent days. The cartoonists have had a whale of a time poking fun at the CWC chieftain's portly personage on account of his pilgrimage to the Wanni to pay pooja at the LTTE shrine. The political pundits have ponderously analysed his move and one columnist was apologetic on behalf of Mr. Thondaman that she claimed that it was the Government's attempts to destabilise the CWC's power base in the central hills that had driven Mr. Thondaman into embracing the Tiger. Whatever sinister move the Government may have been up to or not it is quite clear that the CWC chief felt quite snubbed that somebody had won a Presidential Election without his support. The support of the pliant CWC vote bank may have been necessary for electoral victory during the reign of Mr. Saumyamoorthy Thondaman, the legendary founder of the party, but Thondaman Junior is clearly not his grandfather. The Old Man if he were alive would never have been maladroit enough to have backed the wrong horse as Mr. Arumugam Thondaman did so palpably last month. Not that Grandpa Thondaman was a cheap political huckster hitching his bandwagon to each ascending star. He was one of the handful of statesmen in a country dismally starved of leaders of stature. A piquant if unlikely mix of plantation owner and trade union leader he was adroit enough to step into the vacuum created by circumstances when the first UNP Government disenfranchised the plantation workers of Indian origin fearing a threat from the Left, most notably the LSSP. Following this the LSSP which was the major force in plantation trade unionism upto that time withdrew leaving the way open for the rise of Mr. Thondaman who himself could not return to Parliament until 1977 because of this UNP move. (He was elected to the first Parliament). Since 1947 then Thondaman Senior was the collosus of 'Lipton's Tea Garden as post-colonial Sri Lanka could well be called. His stature was recognised by both UNP and SLFP Governments which brought him to Parliament as an Appointed MP under the system which existed under the Soulbury Constitution of nominating MPs for interest groups which had found no representation in the legislature. During this period Mr. Thondaman had to face almost single - handed the vicissitudes of the so-called Indian problem, the problem of the plantation workers of Indian origin the Sirima Shastri Pact and the consequent process of repatriation and the take-over of the plantations by the Government in the mid-1970's which drove thousands of hapless workers out of the estates. But Mr. Thondaman's shining hour came in 1978 when returning to Parliament in his own right as an elected MP at the General Election held the previous year he was captured by President Jayewardene and elevated to Cabinet status in one of the old magician's smartest political tricks. However, what even many political commentators forget today watching the spectacle of Mr. Arumugam Thondaman moving his CWC behind the Government today and the UNP the day after was that Thondaman Senior elected to be an Independent within the monolithic UNP Government. While remaining a Cabinet Minister he did not hesitate to call out the CWC on strike actions. He was reviled by the Sinhala press, treated with suspicion even by sections of the Government but remained undaunted. The same act continued when he was a Cabinet Minister in President Kumaratunga's Government as well where he once came into a mighty collision with the then Minister of Plantation Industries Ratnasiri Wickramanayake. Then too the critics carped and whined. He was pejoratively dubbed the 'King maker' by those who were secretly in awe of him. But he could care less, this majestic old man of the hills. Sadly, however, Mr. Arumugam Thondaman looks less like a king-maker than a playboy let loose in politics. He has inherited his grandfather's mantle (his father not having been interested) by the right of dynastic succession but is he already feeling its weight. It is natural that Mr. Thonadman should feel piqued at the defeat of his chosen candidate but it is ironic that he should have run in a sulk to the LTTE whose admonition to the Tamil people to boycott the polls supposedly contributed to the UNP leader's defeat. Mr. Thondaman would do well to reflect on a little bit of history. When following the Vadamarachchi resolution of the early 1970's the Tamil United Liberation Front was formed it was headed by a triumvirate, S.J.V. Chelvanayakam of the Federal Party, G.G. Ponnambalam of the All Ceylon Tamil Congress and S. Thondaman of the Ceylon Workers' Congress. That was a tribute on the part of Mr. Thondaman to fellow Tamils who were then feeling the weight of the 1972 Republican Constitution which had removed clause 29 (2) safeguarding minority rights in the Soulbury constitution and were in consequence feeling marginalised. However, that was no more than a propitiatory gesture, a salute of solidarity. Mr. Thondaman knew all along that there could be no common ground between the Tamils cut away in their estate enclaves and the Tamils of the North and the East who were being rallied for battle behind a separatist banner. In time therefore, he withdrew from the TULF trinity. This is the reality in the face of which his grandson is now seeking to fly. Mr. Thondaman's move is also fraught with another potential danger. For years now the lunatic fringe of the Sinhala press has been peddling a 'Malainadu,' a kingdom of the hills which would be an extension of Mr. Prbhakaran's Tamil Eelam. Is Mr. Thondaman by his myopic homage to the LTTE seeking to convert this
fantasy into a chilling reality while also traducing the wise patrimony of
his grandfather?
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