|
|
 |
 |
| Sunday, 6 October 2002 |
 |
|
 |
Features |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
|
Sri Lankan peace process : 'Homeland' demands and ethnic pluralism' by Tapan Kumar Bose, Secretary General, South Asia Forum for Human Rights (SAFHR) The war in Sri Lanka has come to an end. The Sri Lankan government and the LTTE have started negotiations to find a political solution to the Sri Lankan Tamil demand for a homeland. In the interim, two different power centres seem to be functioning in Sri Lanka today. The LTTE has been allowed to emerge as the de-facto government in the north while the limits of autonomy/self rule and the question of territorial spread of the Tamil homeland are yet to be decided through the dialogue, which began in Thailand last week. The question is how to formalise this demand for a Tamil homeland in a constitutional framework for Sri Lanka. Should this homeland be constituted on the basis of ethnicity/nationality? Or, should we look for other reasons/rationale for creating this homeland? If the north is going to be the homeland for the Tamils, what will become the identity of the polity in the south and west of the island? Can we prevent the emergence of a Sinhala homeland in the rest of the island republic? What will be the status of the non-Tamils, Muslims and Sinhalese in the Tamil homeland? Similarly, what will be the status of the Tamils in the southern and western territories of Sri Lanka? What will the basis for the formation of political parties in these separate homelands - ethnicity or political ideology? What principles will guide the volatile issue of ownership of land? How is this going to be controlled or regulated? Will Tamils be allowed to buy land and settle down in the south? Will the Sinhalese be permitted to do so in the north? These and several other issues need to be addressed at this stage. The homeland demand has been in the centre of many struggles for autonomy and self-determination in the South Asia. I am aware that the Sri Lankan Tamils do not see themselves as a "minority". They claim that they are a "nation". I feel that the experience of the Sikhs in India may provide a useful backdrop for a discussion on the Tamil homeland issue. In the 1970s the Akali Dal, a political party of the Sikhs in Indian Punjab, in an attempt to counter their political isolation as a minority in the centre demanded greater autonomy for the federating states. They laid claim on Punjab as the homeland of the Sikhs. They demanded that the Sikhs should enjoy a position of "pre-eminence" in Punjab. At a convention held in Anandpur Sahib, the birthplace of Govind Singh, tenth Guru of the Sikhs, the Akali Dal adopted a political resolution, which called for radical devolution of political power to the states. The resolution, known as the Anandpur Sahib Resolution wanted to reduce the central government's authority by allowing it to control only four subjects - defence, foreign affairs, international trade and currency. The demand for limiting the powers of the centre and creating horizontal centres of power was a just demand. It would have widened and deepened the democratic process in India. The Anandpur Sahib Resolution received wide support from political parties in other regions/states in India. Protection of minority However, the Akali Dal's demand for a "position of pre-eminence" for the Sikhs in Punjab was rejected by most political parties in India. To the non-Sikhs it seemed that the Sikhs wanted to enjoy all the rewards of state power in Punjab. The Sikhs could not convince the non-Sikhs that they would also have equal rights in Punjab and that the "pre-eminence" was meant for protection and promotion of the culture and ethos of Sikhism so that the Sikhs, a small minority in India did not feel isolated. In essence it was very much like the arguments of the Buddhist lobby in Sri Lanka that asked for providing a place of pre-eminence to Buddhism in the Sri Lankan constitution. It is interesting to note that in the early stages of state formation in post colonial Sri Lanka the secular anti-colonial national unity was fractured by the tension between the "majority" and the "minority". The majority donned a religio-cultural garb to lay a greater claim on the nation. In India, a numerical minority who were in the forefront of the anti-colonial struggle, after a quarter of a century of independence felt the need of creating a homeland and a position of pre-eminence for themselves as a measure of protection of their 'identity'. The Sikhs felt that they could use their relative majority in Punjab to counter their minority status at the national level. They failed even when they had a very mature political approach to federalism. I must point out the Anandpur Saab resolution was not a secessionist document. The Akalis were federalists. Mrs. Gandhi, the then Indian Prime Minister and the Indian ruling elite were threatened by the twin demand for a Sikh homeland as well as the demand for greater devolution of power to the states. The demand for transfer of power to the states had a greater appeal and therefore more subversive. Mrs Gandhi chose to highlight the Akali demand for a homeland and termed it secessionist. Her propaganda blitzkrieg against the Akalis broke up the unity of the opposition parties and forced the Akalis to fall back on a hardcore religious identity politics. To fight the Akalis Mrs Gandhi created the Frankenstein's monster of Sant Bhinderanwalle, who posed as the ultimate saviour of Sikh religion and honour. The result was the birth of a militant Khalistan Movement, which began a war of independence in which the Sikhs and the rest of India shed a lot of blood. Learning a lesson The moot question is have the Sikhs, the Indian State and for that matter the successive struggles for homeland, learnt a lesson from this experience? Demands for safeguard of cultural, social and religious identity are legitimate and important issues of democracy. The question is how do we frame these demands and integrate these into a legal-political system of governance based on the consent of people. The problematic of democracy is the politics of "majoritarianism" practised by the nation states. The majoritarian democracy of the nation states has robbed the people of their historic unity which was born of their common struggle against imperialism and exploitation. In the process they have also destroyed the political culture of diversity. It has also reduced the people to groups of minorities and interest groups. There is no historic sense of a nation. The solidarity of the oppressed has been broken. Reduced to mere groups or communities and excluded from the business of governance the people are forced to negotiate with the state for "group rights". They are also forced to compete with each other for a fraction of the state power. The challenge of cultural rights (including religion and language) is central to a fundamental restructuring of our polities. These rights can not be protected by politics of exclusion. If a federation is made up of units of different nationalities, cultures languages and religion, then the political culture of the federation must reflect that multiplicity of identities. It is also necessary to recognise that cultural rights of a people are not to be measured in terms of numerical strength of that group. There is no majority or minority culture. There is no majority or minority language or majority for minority religion. They represent the diversity of humanity, which is essential for life and progress. The Tamil homeland therefore, must be inclusive. It must foster and promote diversity. The LTTE and the Tamil people must ask themselves that in creating a homeland where only the Tamils will enjoy a position of "pre-eminence" (which in real terms translates to control over political power) would they not be creating fears and doubts in the hearts and minds of non-Tamils within that homeland? Even more important, will it really work in a federation where the other half would invariably get reconstituted on the basis of Sinhala "pre-eminence"? Military path or dialogue The LTTE's greatest achievement is making the Sri Lankan state realise that it must shun the military path and dialogue with the LTTE. This is the time for the LTTE to reflect on the structure of the polity that they want to establish. The war was a liberation struggle. Liberation will not be complete by establishing a protected homeland for the Sri Lankan Tamils in the north and the east of the island. Liberation is transformation of the polity and the society where every person can be truly free. Freedom is universal. Also, there can not a small island of freedom for the Tamils when the rest of Sri Lanka continues to be in bondage. The freedom of the Tamils in order to be meaningful must touch the lives of the oppressed peoples of Sri Lanka in the south. The solidarity of the oppressed and the historic unity of Sri Lankan people must be rescued from the majoritarian nation state of Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka needs healing. Tamils and Sinhalese are both victims and survivors who bore the burnt of two decades long war. This moment of peace should be for all of Sri Lanka. As the Tamil liberation movement needs to transcend the role of the warrior and become the peacemaker, the Sri Lankan state also needs to transcend the politics of majoritarianism. The peace process must address the fundamental issues that gave rise to the fighting - the structural violence of the Sri Lankan polity. The Tamil liberation struggle has to join hands with the democratic forces in the south to transcend the "majoritarian mould" of the nation and the democratic forces in the south have to join the Tamils in the north in a solidarity movement to build a polity based on the principles of democracy, justice, reconciliation and peace. The common objective should be the creation of a new political culture in which all nationalities, cultures, languages and religions will enjoy same space and privileges. (The writer, who is founding head of SAFHR, South Asia's human rights umbrella body based in Kathmandu, first became prominent as a documentary film-maker and social activist in India.) |
|
News | Business | Features
| Editorial | Security Produced by Lake House |
