BETA

“A revolutionary believes in his reason more than anything. It is to reason, and reason alone, that he bows. No amount of abuse and condemnation, even if it emanates from the highest of the high can turn him from his set purpose” – BHAGAT SINGH

The legendary revolutionary Bhagat Singh replied when Gandhi called upon the Indian people to withdraw their support from the revolutionaries. The Gandhi and the Congress led by newly educated Indian upper caste elite with the tacit support of the British government denied the revolutionaries to participate in the freedom struggle.

I have borne into a generation which has witnessed war and destruction only. I was a keen observer of Tamil freedom struggle for the past two decades and I am writing here based on that observation. Mr Ravi Sundaralingams’ reply to ORU PAPER article prompted me to write about an issue, a well known complaint against Liberation Tigers that is; they (Tigers) have denied many peoples’ right to participate in the Tamileelam freedom struggle.

Conflict of interest – even though I am biased towards Liberation Tigers I will try hard to give an objective assessment. I have never met Mr Ravi Sundaralingam and nothing personal. I think in 1986, I had the opportunity to watch the live televised debate / discussion between the Tamil militant representatives in the UK and a Sinhala government minister in Colombo via satellite link, one of the rarest occasions in the history of Tamil Sinhala conflict. Mr Ravi Sundaralingam appeared along with the LTTE representative in that programme, as a pre teen kid I watched that programme. That was the only interaction with Mr Ravi Sundaralingam! I am only trying to make a point that is ‘not every freedom fighter / organisation succeeds in their quest for leading the freedom struggle’. This is due to many factors.

Freedom fighter / Organisation related factors

Poor leadership / lack of charismatic leadership

Failure to understand the local sensitivity and strategise revolutionary objectives according to the local terrain – being a ‘text book’ revolutionary

Not being a ‘pragmatist’ ( I didn’t mean Mahinda)

Population related factors
Ignorance, apathy and poor literacy

Bourgeois resistance to revolution

Relatively decent livelihood enjoyed by the mass, a false sense of safety

Prospects of being a revolutionary in Tamileelam context

The history of Sinhala – Tamil ethnic conflict is beyond the scope this rejoinder. I would like to highlight few salient events, which led to the current form of conflict.

Betrayal of Sinhala political elite regarding the Tamil representation to the assembly from Western province.

The most absurd request of ‘50/50 representation for minorities’ by GG Ponnambalam QC to the Soulbury commission.

D S Senanayake government disenfranchised the Tamils of Indian origin and the formation of Federal Party.

Introduction of Sinhala only as official language by the SLFP government led by SWRD Bandaranaike in 1956.

The Federal party was consisted of English educated upper caste Tamils mainly from Jaffna; the party had some resemblance of Congress party of India and it was able to reach the people at grass root level and successfully conducted many anti government rallies in a mass scale.

Banda – Chelva pact was signed and Bandaranaike failed to implement the pact due to the pressure of his coalition partners and Sinhala extremists.

Dudley – Chelva pact was signed and the formation of UNP – Federal party coalition government in1965; the pact was not implemented, which led to the electoral defeat of FP in 1970 general election; several FP leaders including Amirthalingam lost their MP seats.

Veteran politician V Navaratnam broke from FP ranks and formed ‘Suyatchi Kalaham’ (Self rule party).

Introduction of first republican constitution minus 29 C of Soulbury Constitution by Srimavo government.

Introduction of District quota system for higher education which severely restricted the Tamil students’ access to the university education.

The TULF unanimously adopted a resolution during its first national convention at Vaddukoddai to form a secular, sovereign Tamileelam state based on right to self determination.

TULF contested the 1977 general election with the manifesto based on Vaddukoddai resolution to seek the mandate of the Tamil speaking people of north east region. The TULF won massively in the election and became the opposition party.

The Sinhalese / ‘Lion response’ to the successive Tamils’ demand for a self rule

The non violent protests by the Tamils were ruthlessly crushed by the Sinhala security forces and Tamil political leaders were humiliated and attacked by Sinhala mob with the support of the successive governments. Repeated plea by the Tamil leaders for a peaceful solution to this conflict was met with bullets and rifle butts. On the other hand Tamils made a final decision to form a sovereign Tamileelam state due to the intransigence of the Sinhala nation.

How do we achieve this goal?

The only option remaining was the use of force / violence to physically liberate the Tamil nation from the Sinhala security forces. That is to challenge the Sinhala monopoly in the usage of violence and to reach a status quo in this regard with the Sinhala nation, in other words a military equilibrium between the Tamil nation and Sinhala nation in the island.

Tamil society and militarism – background situation – bit of sociology

The Tamil civilisation had strong martial heritage since ‘Sangam period’. The Tamil martial heritage was based on soldier castes and powerful clan system. The soldiers from these warrior castes fought many battles and they fought their last battle against Portuguese to protect King Sankili and the Jaffna kingdom. The demartialisation of the Tamil society during the colonial rule and the emergence of Vellala caste with the tacit support of the British as a dominant caste among the Eelam Tamils made the Tamil society more vulnerable to the exploitations by the Sinhala rulers. The Tamil society was running after the English education and white collar jobs and thrived on a ‘money order economy’.

The Tamil society was passive and very peaceful nearly half a century ago; very rarely occurring murders of those days will be talked and analysed for many years by the Tamils. That was the level of distaste to the violence expressed by the Tamils during those ‘peaceful years’.

So the Tamils had decided to fight a militant campaign to establish the Tamileelam state for the Tamil nation which had lost all of its military traditions gradually during the colonial rule.

This will be a challenging task for any revolutionary to convince the capitalist dominated Tamil population with an unorganised and small peasantry and it will be even more difficult if anyone identified as a leftist / Marxist / Communist / Maoist / Trotskyite to propagate the revolutionary principles.

The contemporary Tamil militancy and ‘Darwinian selection’

‘Survival of the fittest’ – one of the Darwinian principles

During 1970s many Tamil militant groups were formed by Tamil youths and they were involved in assassinations and bank robberies. The 1983 July progrom made thousands of Tamil youths to join various militant groups. Those youths were recruited by the militant leaders based on many factors; they were, existing friendship, lives in the same village / town, belonging to the same caste. Then Indian government led by Indira Gandhi allowed the militants to gain sanctuary in Tamilnadu and provided the arms and training. I strongly disagree with Mr Ravi Sundaralingams’ statement that India favoured the Tigers amongst the militant groups, in reality Indian officials wanted to checkmate the growth and dominance of the Liberation Tigers.

I would like to highlight the cardinal features of some dominant militant groups

PLOTE

This group was having the largest number of recruits, hence nick named as “Sothu parcel” (Rice parcel). Its leader Uma Maheswaran was planning to launch a massive frontal assault and hoping to ‘march’ through the Tamil homeland by defeating the Sinhala forces. For this purpose PLOTE was buying arms in the international black market without the knowledge of the India but Indians seized the weapons at Chennai harbour when they arrived. In addition to this blunder, Santhathiyar released a book called ‘Vangam thantha padam’ (the lessons of Bangladesh) to ‘enlighten’ the Tamils to warn about the Indian involvement in Eelam affairs. The PLOTE bases in Tamilnadu became torture centers and killing fields for many dissenting cadres. Eventually PLOTE vanished from Tamileelam without any fight with Tigers. Other militant groups at least fought with Tigers for their right to participate in the freedom struggle. The PLOTE further disgraced itself by attempting to overthrow the Maldivian government.

EROS

This was an organization with a strong intellectual and ideological background, consisted of very limited number of cadres. They never involved in any military campaigns within the Tamileelam; EROS carried out few bomb attacks in Colombo and Anuradhapura. They mainly involved in the rehabilitation programmes for the IDPs affected by the war and claimed to be the ‘sole provider’ of rehabilitation activities. Due to this, there was a problem with Kanthasamy of TRRO, an expatriate Tamil actively involved in rehabilitation activities in Tamil homeland. He was abducted by the EROS from his house in Jaffna and it was a common talk in Jaffna that he was killed by the EROS but his body was never recovered. I hope Mr. Sundaralingam would explain the strategy of EROS to achieve the Tamileelam.

EPRLF

The cadres of EPRLF were distinctively identifiable from other militant group members, because they use the word ‘Tholar’ (Comrade) to call their fellow cadres. They explicitly mentioned about Marxist – communist ideology. EPRLF was influential in marginalised castes of the Tamil society. That was one of the tactical blunders made by the EPRLF leadership and alienated itself from the powerful sections of the Tamil society. They planned an ambitious assault on Karainagar naval base, the northern naval HQ. By the time they have planned and prepared for the attack, entire Jaffna people and the Sinhala forces came to know about this ‘imminent’ attack. The operation was a total failure and the disintegration of the organisation had started. Eventually Liberation Tigers banned the organisation and dismantled their bases.

TELO

The TELO organisation was well armed and trained by the Indian government; it was the number one beneficiary of RAW and Indian military. The UP trained (Uttar Pradesh) TELO cadres staged few daring assaults on Sinhala forces and made them a force to be reckoned. The TELO posed a real threat to Liberation Tigers and their dominance in the freedom struggle. The curse of TELO came in the form of Bobby – Thas clash which split the organisation into regional lines (Vadamaradchi and rest of the Jaffna). The downfall of TELO started with the massacre of unarmed Thas and his deputies at the Jaffna teaching hospital in 1986. Later Liberation Tigers launched a surprise attack on TELO and its infrastructures; in retaliation for a local problem between the two organisations. The Liberation Tigers captured large cache of arms and ammunition; eventually they captured and killed Srisabaratnam, the leader of the organisation. The TELO was the first organisation to be banned by the Tigers.

LTTE

During the early years this organisation was having very few members, not because they weren’t able to recruit anyone, they never recruited anyone without testing the trust and loyalty of a novice. The trust and loyalty have been the primary factors in deciding the upward mobility of a Tiger cadre within the organisation; the merit is always second. The Liberation Tigers never indulged too much in ideological rhetoric and grand plans like Uma Maheswarans’ plan. The organisation was very pragmatic and sensitive to the local needs. Its leader Pirapaharan strictly imposed an ‘Arumuga Navalar style’ code of conduct on cadres; strict prohibition on smoking, alcohol and women. The organisation was strictly secular and not favoured any region or religion or caste. The so called ‘Tiger intransigency’; a frequent abuse against the Tigers by the Sri Lankan government and other international players was merely a frustration of their impotency in dealing with the Tigers effectively. The credit should go to its leader Pirapaharan and his incredible resilience, courage, vision and conviction.

The LTTE led by Pirapaharan had to undergo various hardships and they were forced to use every available tactics, compromises and strategies to continue the struggle. They even joined hands with the Sinhala government at one point to fight the mighty Indians. But they never abandoned the cause. One of the arguments put forwarded by Mr Sundaralingam was ‘friends have become enemies’; this phenomenon was universal in every insurgency groups and a part of the counterinsurgency warfare. Just because Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan betrayed the Tamileelam cause doesn’t mean every fighter is stupid like Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan.

Any one with a reasonable intelligent would say Tigers were right in ‘cleaning up’ the Tamil nation and removing the mushrooms of militant organisations from the field. That doesn’t mean Tigers are perfect; they made few blunders and many mistakes. But that doesn’t justify hurling criticisms aimed at Tigers, which can be used by the enemy in his counterinsurgency warfare. That’s what happened to many Tiger critics, eventually they worked for various intelligence agencies in the name of human rights, democracy and intellectualism. The present situation is very critical and any move aimed at expatriate Tamils will be scrutinized very strictly. Mr Sundaralingams’ ‘Expatriates in consultation’ document and the reply to ORU PAPER were mere ‘ideological snobbery’; no one will accept those documents as constructive criticisms aimed at Liberation Tigers and Tamil nationalists. I would kindly request Mr Sundaralingam to explain to the Tamil expatriates; how he and his cohorts differ from Anandasangaree, Douglas Devananda, Sitharthan, Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan, Pillaiyan, PLOTE Mohan, Razeek, Supathiran etc.

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