After the civil war, the stifling impasse in Sri Lanka

​After the civil war, the stifling impasse in Sri Lanka

The future of the Tamil people is dependent on forging a new vision for themselves and the entire country, based on equality and freedom

श्रीलंका का गृहयुद्ध

• वर्ष 1948 में ब्रिटिश शासन से स्वतंत्र होने के बाद से ही श्रीलंका या तत्कालीन ‘सीलोन’ जातीय संघर्ष का सामना कर रहा था।
• वर्ष 2001 की सरकारी जनगणना के अनुसार, श्रीलंका की मुख्य जातीय आबादी में सिंहली (82%), तमिल (9.4%) और श्रीलंकाई मूर (7.9%) शामिल हैं।
• सिंहलियों ने औपनिवेशिक काल के दौरान तमिलों के प्रति ब्रिटिश पक्षपात का विरोध किया और आज़ादी के बाद के वर्षों में उन्होंने तमिल प्रवासी बागान श्रमिकों को देश से विस्थापित कर दिया तथा सिंहल को आधिकारिक भाषा बना दिया।
• वर्ष 1972 में सिंहलियों ने देश का नाम ‘सीलोन’ से बदलकर श्रीलंका कर दिया और बौद्ध धर्म को राष्ट्र का प्राथमिक धर्म घोषित कर दिया गया।
• तमिलों और सिंहलियों के बीच जातीय तनाव और संघर्ष बढ़ने के बाद वर्ष 1976 में वेलुपिल्लई प्रभाकरन के नेतृत्व में लिट्टे (LTTE) का गठन किया गया और इसने उत्तरी एवं पूर्वी श्रीलंका, जहाँ अधिकांश तमिल निवास करते थे, में ‘एक तमिल मातृभूमि’ के लिये प्रचार करना प्रारंभ कर दिया।
• वर्ष 1983 में लिट्टे ने श्रीलंकाई सेना की एक टुकड़ी पर हमला कर दिया, इसमें 13 सैनिकों की मौत हो गई। इस घटनाक्रम से श्रीलंका में दंगे भड़क गए जिसमें लगभग 2,500 तमिल लोग मारे गए।
• श्रीलंकाई तमिलों और बहुसंख्यक सिंहलियों के मध्य प्रत्यक्ष युद्ध शुरू हो गया। भारत ने श्रीलंका के इस गृहयुद्ध में सक्रिय भूमिका निभाई और श्रीलंका के संघर्ष को एक राजनीतिक समाधान प्रदान करने के लिये वर्ष 1987 में भारत-श्रीलंका समझौते पर हस्ताक्षर किये।
• भारत ने ऑपरेशन पवन के तहत लिट्टे को समाप्त करने के लिये श्रीलंका में इंडियन पीस कीपिंग फोर्स (IPKF) तैनात कर दी। हालाँकि हिंसा बढ़ने के 3 वर्षों बाद ही IPKF को वहाँ से हटा दिया गया।

क्राइसिस के बाद से क्या स्थिति है ?

However, economic reconstruction has hardly progressed, with subsequent crises setting back development further. Politics remains polarised and fraught without a political settlement. 

The social aspirations of the Tamil middle class remain effected  .

Derailed reconstruction

Trains that were not seen by generations in the north resumed a decade ago. Banks and supermarkets were built along the carpeted roads, even as plush hotels opened for tourists and the Tamil diaspora began visiting Jaffna town. 

Yet, beneath this seeming prosperity, just a few miles into the countryside, the travails of the masses were evident in their desperation for stable livelihoods. Just as some rural communities began overcoming these challenges, when their fields, home gardens and coconut trees began bearing fruit, Sri Lanka descended into chaos again. 

जैसे ही कुछ ग्रामीण समुदाय इन चुनौतियों पर काबू पाने लगे, जब उनके खेत, घरेलू बगीचे और नारियल के पेड़ फल देने लगे, श्रीलंका फिर से अराजकता में डूब गया। 

आगे और क्या क्या फ़ेस किया श्रीलंका ने ?

1 The Easter terror 

• bombings of April 2019 shook the country,
•  followed by the COVID-19 pandemic and 
• now the economic crisis, the worst since Sri Lankan Independence. 
  

2 For a population - 

facing war and dispossession, निर्वासन and turning its focus towards the education of its children and the employment of its youth, the current moment signals the loss of another generation.

3 outmigration 

with the long circling lines outside the passport office. For the deprived and the landless among the war-torn people, migration is out of question, economic opportunities are next to nil, and hunger is the new normal. 

Yet, there is no one to listen to them, much less to provide them support. Sinking in its crises, now compounded by International Monetary Fund-prescribed austerity / कठोरता  measures, the state has abandoned them.

4 reviving the war-torn regions with the Tamil diaspora’s

deep pockets stands exposed by the meagre flow of investment funds. 

The international donor development projects that focused on infrastructure after the war have hardly revived the local economy. 

individualised assistance by non-government organisations has only disempowered families and trapped them in dependence. Many families, especially women, have been pushed into predatory microfinance debt.

Tamil politics 

 concerns of local livelihoods, as they are beholden to their class and social interests, with one foot in the Tamil diaspora. 

Politicians who talk big on accountability, especially to international player/ instute, hardly engage with ordinary people. 

They peddle the myth of diaspora remittances sustaining war-affected communities, when, in reality, such remittances only reach a very small segment of the urban Tamil middle class.

वे युद्ध प्रभावित समुदायों को बनाए रखने वाले प्रवासी प्रेषण के मिथक को बढ़ावा देते हैं, जबकि वास्तव में, ऐसे प्रेषण केवल शहरी तमिल मध्यम वर्ग के एक बहुत छोटे हिस्से तक ही पहुंचते हैं।

Polarisation and the minorities 

1 For the economic and political trajectory in the North and East after the war 

2 it is the Rajapaksa regime that must take much of the blame for its jingoistic राष्ट्रवाद war victory celebration, a continued militarisation and the vulgar projection of Sinhala Buddhist nationalism. 

1 polarising discourse

Little has changed in its dominant clamour for Tamil rights, as it harks / attention back to the rhetoric of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, basks in enfeebling victimhood, and an unending faith in the international community. 

2 The regular going to the UN Human Rights Council 

by the political actors, social allies in civil society, and the Tamil diaspora, have hopes in the Tamil public sphere.

In the meantime, political actors in the South and the North have hardly built social and economic bridges between the communities .

3 Devolution of power to the regions and power-sharing 

at the centre have been repeatedly dumped for political expediency by those using power in Colombo. 

regime change in 2015

1 political settlement was lost in the rivalry between then President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe. 

2 takeover of lands owned by the Tamil and Muslim minorities by the state, and ongoing attacks on memorialisation of the war dead reflect a grim reality.

3 election of the first Northern Provincial Council in 2013

There was the historic opportunity with the election of the first Northern Provincial Council in 2013, but it ended its tenure with utter disgrace in 2018, 

but the Tamil nationalist leadership had nothing to show even in terms of political or economic vision for its constituencies.

Social conditions of shrilanka

1 The racism and arrogance of the political elite in Colombo and the hollowness of the Tamil political leadership have been the bane of Sri Lankan politics. 

2 Muslim relations remain strained

Within the North and the East, Tamil-Muslim relations remain strained. The Northern Muslims evicted in an act of ethnic cleansing by the LTTE in October 1990 have hardly been reintegrated into Jaffna.

3 The Hill Country Tamils of Indian origin, or Malaiyaha Tamils

who were displaced from the plantations to the North during successive pogroms, and following their disenfranchisement, found little solidarity in the North. 

They became bonded labour, then the cannon fodder for the civil war, and many to this day remain landless or settled in land unsuitable for agriculture. 

4 Caste oppression in Jaffna 

is now reconsolidating by stealth around the temples funded by the Tamil diaspora, while some groups are attempting Hindutva-styled communal mobilisations.

Future of the Tamil people

Tamil leftist, V. Karalasingham

1  In his book titled, The Way Out for the Tamil speaking people, he had the following to say in 1963, just 15 years after Independence.

“2 Tamil speaking people have been led in the last decade by an apparently resolute leadership 

guided by the best intentions receiving not merely the widest support of the people but also their enthusiastic cooperation and yet the Tamil speaking people find themselves at the lowest ebb in their history. 

Despite all their efforts the people have suffered one defeat after another, one humiliation after another.

No one would have imagined six decades ago

how much worse the situation of the Tamil people could become, and to what decrepit depths Tamil politics could descend.

 The future of the Tamil people is dependent on rejecting bankrupt Tamil nationalism and forging a new vision for themselves and the entire country.

In the great revolt of 2022 or the ‘Aragalaya’ सत्ता परिवर्तन जानता द्वारा 

 where Sri Lankans from different ethnic and religious backgrounds came together to chase away a President, who had claimed the status of a supreme war hero and custodian of Sinhala-Buddhist nationalism, there is inspiration for what our country can be

Different way made by 

 the struggles for social and economic justice confronting the most formidable economic crisis in close to a century. 

The Tamil people must 

🌺rethink their strategies, 

🌺depart from the isolationist and suicidal politics that has reduced them to historical irrelevance, 

🌺and join forces with all the peoples to determine not just their own future but also the democratic future of the country, based on equality and freedom.

Source the hindu