Following the introduction of the Soulbury Constitution in 1946, D.S. Senanayake became the first Prime Minister of then Ceylon, in 1947 with the unstinted support given by all the other national leaders of the day who were active members of the Ceylon National Congress.
D.S Senanayake though not an academic scholar or a professional had represented the State Council from the early thirties under the imperialistic rule and had gathered good experience in all administrative affairs in relation to smooth governance of the country. He was a leader with an inborn instinct and a far sighted vision for his motherland.
He realised that the communal feelings and ethnic sentiments were simmering under the carpet and his prime objective was to establish inter communal harmony providing equal opportunities to everybody.
D.S. Senanayake accommodated the minority community in his Cabinet with the fervent hope of establishing inter communal harmony. His multifaceted development program was centered around agriculture and his development projects such as the Gal Oya colonisation scheme was mainly catered to satisfy the minority communities. Through his economic programs he expected to inter-mingle the Sinhalese and Tamils together and let them live in harmony.
Prime Minister D.S. Senanayake passed away in 1951 and his elder son Dudley Senanayake who was the Minister of Agriculture was elected Prime Minister by the Parliament. He too continued the good work initiated by his father accommodating non- Sinhala leaders in his Cabinet too.
Tamil leaders were not flexible
However the Tamil leaders had their reservations on various matters and started bargaining with the ruling party leaders from the very outset.
After a series of negotiations Dudley Senanayake entered into an agreement with Tamil leader S.J.V. Chelvanayagam to fulfill some of their demands for which the opposition parties in the Parliament objected vehemently and Dudley was forced to withdraw it amidst a severe uproar in the house.
When it was brought in the house the opposition said “Dudleyge bade Masalawade”. Thus ended the Dudley-Chelva pact.
Sinhala, the official language
S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike became the Prime Minister in 1956 marshalling the five forces with his charismatic leadership and as pronounced at the election campaign he made Sinhala the official language within 24 hours amidst severe objections from some of his own constituent partners.
Bandaranaike earned the wrath of the Tamil community with this shortsighted policy and started clamouring against the Government. Bandaranaike too entered in to a peace pact with the Tamil leader S.J.V.Chelvanayagam to address the grievances of the Tamil people. Opposition parties in the Parliament headed by some bhikkhus staged a massive protest against Bandaranaike in Colombo saying ‘Sevala Banda Apata Epa”. Bandaranaike pulled out the peace pact from his coat pocket and burnt it in the presence of bhikkhus on the steps of his Rosmead Place residence. Thus, ended the Banda-Chelva peace pact too.
Subsequent governments of Sirimavo Bandaranaike and Dudley Senanayake tried to negotiate with the Tamil leaders but every time the opposition parties in the house raised objections while the Tamil leaders were not prepared to negotiate their proposals.
Birth of the LTTE movement
Amidst this backdrop the radical Tamil youth in the North commenced their struggle against the Government and within a short period of time it turned out to be a ruthless terrorist organisation that did not tolerate the views of the other politicians irrespective of the nationality or race. They started their killing spree with the cold blooded murder of respected Mayor of Jaffna Alfred Duraiappah in 1976.
When J.R.Jeyewardene became the Executive President, he immediately talked to the Tamil leaders and arranged peace negotiations with them with the help of international community.
Government was represented by QC H.W.Jayewardene who happened to be the President’s brother who initiated the “Thimpu” peace talks with Tamil leaders. Tamil leaders were not prepared to deviate a bit from their original proposals and H.W. Jeyewardene’s effort was in vain.
LTTE guerillas intensified their atrocities and a mass scale destruction took place all over the country. During this long period of nearly three decades, the destruction caused to the country economically, socially and nationally cannot be enumerated in monetary terms. It is so vast and irreparable. Two of the national leaders i.e. Rajiv Ghandhi and Ranasinghe Premadasa became the victims of this movement while Chandrika Kumaranatunga narrowly escaped death losing her eye.
The Government of Chandrika Kumaranatunga and Ranil Wickremesinghe as the Prime Minister with his ceasefire agreement with the help of the international community tried to solve the problem amicably but the LTTE leader resorted to violence once again breaching the ceasefire agreement. President Mahinda Rajapaksa also tried to negotiate with Prabhakaran at the beginning but later on with the pressure of his constituent partners and the strict determination of the valiant forces he managed to militarily defeat the outfit comprehensively in 2009 and free the nation to have a sigh of relief.
However the allegations against the Government is that there had been mass scale war crimes committed by the security forces such as disappearance of persons, torture, forceful evictions from traditional home lands and so on and so forth. It is an accepted fact globally that amidst a ruthless war unintentional war crimes occur sporadically which are inevitable. Greek axiom says “Inter arma silent legis” which means amidst war laws are mute.
Soon after the long drawn conflict was over the Government had taken lot of measures to develop the Northern Province especially in developing the infra structure facilities of the people. However there cannot be any argument that a lot more has to be done to relieve the people from the war-torn atmosphere.
President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s request
At the conclusion of the 2023 budget proceedings in Parliament President Ranil Wickremesinghe extended a very cordial invitation to all parties to attend a discussion to find a lasting solution to the long drawn problem.
As planned the all party representatives assembled at the Presidential Secretariat on Tuesday December 13, and President Ranil Wickremesinghe said that all political parties should come to a common agreement to provide a solution to the ethnic problem by the upcoming 75th Independence Day celebrations.
The President told the all party conference, “we must all come together to solve the problem in this country, whether it is called ethnic problem or something else is not important. We want to provide solutions to these problems”. Northern parliamentarians and all other party leaders expressed their sentiments over this genuine gesture of President Ranil Wickremesinghe and agreed to continue the discussions in the near future.
However it is extremely important and absolutely pertinent to give serious thoughts by all relevant parties to arrive at a lasting solution to this problem taking into consideration the historical background of this long drawn issue which had marred the forward march of the country.
Reconcilliation is an outcome of the Tamil separatist conflict. It cannot be forced down the throats of the people. It should come naturally from the parties to the conflict. Consenting parties should meet each other at the negotiating table and discuss the outstanding issues and iron out differences to reach agreement.
The atmosphere must be friendly and trustworthy. The peaceful atmosphere was spoilt first by the power hungry politicians to be followed by the terrorists.
For the majority race to take conciliatory steps for any successful reconciliation the Tamil politicians should have a clear agenda without ulterior motives of secession.
In this context it is appropriate to go back to the past and examine certain historical considerations.
1.In 1920 in a memorandum to the secretary to the states in England Tamils asked for 2/3 as many seats as would be assigned to the majority race Sinhalese who formed 67 percent and Tamils 11 percent of the population then.
2.Former Jaffna MP and Tamil Congress leader G.G. Ponnambalam argued for a party system of balanced representation of 50 percent and 50 percent for both Sinhala and Tamil before the Soulbury Commission.
3.In 1949 Tamil State Party leader (Federal Party) S.J.V. Chelvanayagam passed a resolution claiming an autonomous state for Tamils in the North.
4.Then came the TULF Vadukkodai Convention of 1976 passing a resolution for the set up of an Eelam with people in the North and East. This let loose a disaster which lost maximum loss of men and material and state property culminating in the terrorist war.
5.Buzzwords such as Tamil grievances, Tamil peoples aspirations, traditional Tamil homelands some of what are undesirable and had poisoned the minds of the majority Sinhala people.
This is the historical background to the ethnic imbroglio from which sprouts issues such as reconciliation, power sharing and so on. However today what the country needs is a true turn-around strategy to resolve the affecting parties to the conflict.
The role played by the Tamil politicians who once became the guardians of separatists in Parliament, have cast grave suspicion in the minds of the Sinhala majority as to their motives. Tamil politicians should come clean to the negotiating table without being buttressed by the Tamil Diaspora or other global Tamil forum and such organisations.
All the parties in Parliament should discuss matters and come to a compromise without harping on petty and trivial differences for the peace and communal harmony of the country.
The President had already assigned two of his senior Ministers in charge of Justice and Foreign Affairs to work out a mechanism to achieve desired results which involve a huge responsibility and a very cumbersome process. As right thinking Sri Lankans we should give our possible utmost to make it a reality for a better tomorrow.