Tail wanting to wag the TNA

By N Sathiya Moorthy

Independent of the right and wrong involved, if at all any, and uncharacteristic of past political behaviour, TELO boss Selvam Adaikalanathan seems to have developed a wonderful knack of doing all the wrong things at the very right time. Earlier it was the controversy he kicked up within the larger Tamil National Alliance (TNA) by initiating a process to write what at the end became an acrimonious process of writing what became an ?open letter? to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the ethnic issue. Now, he has done it again by declaring against his party?s non-participation in Tuesday?s scheduled TNA meeting with President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, which they were demanding ad nauseum since the latter came to power as far back as November 2019 and for which he was rather refusing to extend an invitation thus far.

No one should expect anything big from Tuesday?s talks. Yet, it?s an ice-breaker years after the TNA and the government broke their talks when Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaklsa was President, post-war. The TNA and the Tamils want the talks very badly, and when they have got it, the likes of Selvam Adaikalanathan ? there may be others too ? who seem keener on exposing internal fissures that have assumed the proportion of fractures than contribute positively to the discourse that should be taken forward against a set programme and agenda, as during the Rajapaksa regime.

There are multiple reasons why the two sides should talk and convince themselves, their constituencies and the world why they alone can find a solution to what others from within dubbed as the ?national problem? long ago. After years with the UNHRC, the government, independent of the party in power, is learning that they cannot wish away the world as some among them may have thought. That includes their political rivals in power before this one, but they could only by time for their generals and others systematically getting included in the flexible western list of ?war criminals? requiring travel ban from individual nations.

The Tamils, particularly the TNA that fell for it, is learning slowly but surely that the West can offer a lot of words and promises, can harass and embarrass the elected Sinhala rulers, but by choice centred on political ideology and administrative acumen. The West cannot offer the Tamils the political solution they want nearer home, with or without ?war crimes probe? and ?accountability issues?. After years that have begun running beyond a decade now, the Tamils are learning that their greater demand and focus should be on a political solution to the ethnic issue, 13, 13-Plus or whatever than other demands that the West has hoisted on them.

Sophisticated scuttling

Forget and forgave, but?

It is here the revival of talks become important for both sides, more so the Tamils as they have also found out that the TNA-dependent previous government also gave them only words like their ideological western mentor even when they could have done a lot more within their political and parliamentary limitations. For whatever reasons, the TNA completely forgot, and also forgave even more, how previous minister Ranil Wickremesinghe was the one while in the Opposition tore off the ?Chandrika Package? within Parliament?s chamber, but on some other disguise. President Chandrika Bandaranaike-Kumaratunga had not clubbed her term-extension in the constitutional package being put up for parliamentary approval, Ranil would have found other sophisticated ways to scuttle the ethnic parts of the package.

It is here the likes of TELO?s Selvam on the Tamil side needs to learn from the likes of Ranil. It is true of Ranil?s political rivals, both in his UNP-breakaway SJB and more so in the ruling SLPP of the Rajapakasas. Most people in decision-making positions in these outfits these two outfits have not mastered Ranil?s sophistication, which comfortably covers his sophistry, and the world gets to see only the side he wants them to see ? however unconvinced they may be at the end. On the Tamil side, it?s a dying art, which only TNA leader Sampanthan seems to possess ? and thankfully in abundance.

Sampanthan stands tall among all political leaders in his country for his decency and decorum, combining grace and protocol and sounding firm and fast in delivering his homilies as the nation?s longest-serving one at his level. Even his worst rivals respect him for this unbeatable combo that he has patented for himself, and which the likes of Selvam and many others in the TNA have not found it necessary to develop. They may be living in their comfort zones, which is being rude and ruthless, unthinking and unskilful in sensitive political negotiations of the kind. And he seems wanting to meet with foreign diplomats as constantly as they meet Sampanthan, and Sumanthiran, the designated TNA spokespersons, who also shares a level of maturity in relations with the former and geniality in political conduct.

If anything, Selvam could have made a big political capital out of the upcoming meeting. Possibly for the first time in years, by attending the talks with the government team headed by President Gota, and not by boycotting it. He seems to be having the wrong advisor, if any, for the right time, as this is not his track-record. Unlike in the past, the TNA seems to have decided to include all Alliance parliamentarians and also Maavai Senathiraja, the non-legislator president of ITAK, the senior-most and the largest partner in the Alliance.

Sampanthan is there in his own right at the head. The likes of Selvam should be using this old lion to hone their political and negotiations skills. That?s unless they still believe that confrontation like theirs could win the Tamils their rights. A mightier force in the LTTE and a weightier persona like Prabhakaran could only ?die for the cause? but could not achieve anything substantial ? other than mutual hatred within the Tamil community, the nation and Colombo?s diplomatic community. Selvam does not count their either since the LTTE had liquidated TELO?s original leadership like it did to other non-ITAK partners in the TNA and outside.

Dying a loser?s death

Today, at a time when the TNA should provide a homogenous picture to the outside world more than ever, and even more so to this government, Selvam?s conduct can only delay a political solution for the community. Does it mean that the likes of him do not at all want a solution to their aspirations and grievances of the past decades, and only want to be in the news, off and on, and for all wrong reasons?

Maybe, some in the TNA may see such opportunities to gather the post-war Tamil youth around them, hoping to become Northern Province chief minister whenever elections are held, and not evolve into another Sampanthan ? and certainly not another Prabhakaran, who anyway died a loser?s death. For all the might he exhibited and all the fear that he instilled, Prabhakaran, like Osama bin-Laden, died another loser?s death, two years after him. It?s unlike the honourable death of septuagenarian Tamil king Ellara at the hands of youthful Sinhala counterpart Dutugamnu in the nation?s folklore, which carries a sense of history without necessarily being its history.

It is here the problem arises for the likes of Selvam. It is not anyone case that the ITAK leader of the TNA is doing fair by the smaller partners. Yet, in the post-war contemporary context, smaller parties like the TELO wanting to run the larger TNA comes with its own set of problems, which could lead to their own decimation before the ITAK leader could feel the big hit.

EPRLF?s Suresh Premachandran tried and failed, not being able to stay in the TNA after successive losses, leading to his personal loss in parliamentary elections. As ITAK president, Maavai is another man, who can find time to revisit the pages of contemporary Tamil politics and history. He continues to be at the top of the party for eight long years against a mandated maximum of two terms of two years each.

That is not necessarily because the party wants him longer but because he is fighting shy of facing the party voters in an organisational elections, which he has put off by not calling the bi-annual convention since taking over the position after Sampanthan had voluntarily created that space for him to fill in ? though not fit in, as Maavai?s conduct too has shown. This again, after the larger Tamil electorate has denied him a parliamentary seat, possibly punishing his recalcitrance in ways they can do and not in ways that he would not yield.

(The writer is Distinguished Fellow and Head-Chennai Initiative, Observer Research Foundation, the multi-disciplinary Indian public-policy think-tank, headquartered in New Delhi. email: sathiyam54@nsathiyamoorthy.com)