By Veeragathy Thanapbalasingham
Colombo, July 5: The last remaining veteran Sri Lankan Tamil political leader of the old generation Rajavarothayam Sampanthan passed away last week after a prolonged illness at the age of 92.
Sampanthan dedicated himself to the struggle for the political rights of Sri Lankan Tamils for more than six decades spanning the last and this century.
Despite all the criticisms levelled against him, Sampanthan remained a prominent Tamil leader respected by political leaders of other communities and the outside world till the end. As such, his demise has left a void that cannot be easily filled in the near future. This is a fact that even critics of his politics would agree with.
A prominent lawyer in Trincomalee in the Eastern province, Sampanthan entered politics by joining Ilankai Thamizharasu Kadchi (ITAK ) under the leadership of the late S.J.V.Chelvanayakam in 1956 when he was young. He was elected to Parliament from the Trincomalee electorate in the July 1977 general election as a candidate of the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF ) and worked with the late leaders A. Amirthalingam and M.Sivasithamparam for more than four decades in the last century.
He became leader of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), an amalgam of several Tamil parties representing the Tamils of the North and East. After the end of the civil war in 2009, when the leadership of Tamil politics naturally fell to the TNA, Sampanthan became the face of moderate Tamil politics.
Under the new circumstances, the TNA had a historically important duty to move the struggle for the rights of the Tamil people to the next level. His political legacy will be remembered in history for how Tamil politics was carried forward under his leadership in the past 15 years.
An important question is whether Sampanthan can be held entirely responsible for the policies and strategies adopted by the TNA in guiding Tamil politics in the post-war period. After the defeat of the LTTE in the war, Sampanthan had to deal with the Tamil issue under circumstances where the Tamil polity was severely weakened and the Sinhalese polity was basking in the euphoria of the war victory and ignoring the urgency to find a political solution to the Tamil question.
But Sampanthan continued to have talks with the successive governments without making any compromises on the basic demands of the Tamils about their legitimate political aspirations. At the same time, he was aware of the post-war situation of the Tamil people and was never inclined to show an impractical political path by raising emotional slogans.
While Sampanthan stood firmly on the stand that the permanent political solution to the national ethnic problem was governance based on a federal system, he constantly urged governments to fully implement the 13th Amendment to the Constitution as an interim measure in the journey towards a permanent solution. He never failed to make this position clear during meetings with representatives of the international community also.
Sampanthan also used to say that if the Tamil people were not given a proper political solution based on internal self-determination, they had the right to demand a solution on the basis of external self-determination. He had said the same in an interview given to Veerakesari Weekly two weeks before his death. Whether he had any strategy to achieve it or not is another matter.
Sampanthan had a lot of faith in the international community, including India, to find a political solution to the national ethnic problem. His constant demand was that the international community should exert pressure and prevail upon the Sri Lankan government to find a meaningful political solution to the vexed ethnic imbroglio.
Sampanthan, consistently emphasized that India had a great obligation to find a political solution to the ethnic conflict due to the July 1987 Indo-Sri Lankan peace accord. He said this to India whenever he met Indian leaders and diplomats.
At the same time, it was his firm belief that a political solution would not be possible without the support of the Sinhalese people. Sampanthan was a moderate Tamil leader who did not incur the intense hatred of the Sinhalese community compared to leaders like Amirthalingam. And he also believed that the aspirations of the Muslim community should be accommodated in any attempt to find a political settlement.
Sampanthan expected an effective political solution to the ethnic problem in his life time. But, like many Tamil leaders of his generation, he also left this world with the regret that he could not get a political solution that would ensure a peaceful and dignified life for the Tamil people.
In his speeches in parliament and talks with government leaders and foreign diplomats, Sampanthan used to give a series of explanations of the efforts made to find a solution to the ethnic problem after the India-Sri Lanka Peace Accord. He would refer to the Select Committee headed by Mangala Munasinghe appointed in 1991 during the tenure of the late President Ranasinghe Premadasa, the constitutional proposal submitted in 2000 when Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga was President, the proposal of the All-Party Representative Committee headed by Prof. Tissa Vitharana appointed during the tenure of President Mahinda Rajapaksa and the new constitution drafting process under the Maithripala Sirisena- Ranil Wickramasinghe-led government.
His aim was to demonstrate that even after the establishment of the Provincial Councils following Indo-Lanka Accord , governments would continue to advance processes towards a political settlement accepting the 13th Amendment as being inadequate to solve the ethnic problem.
Sampanthan had a cordial relationship with Presidents and Sinhala politicians. But despite having such a relationship, he had the audacity to frankly point out the mistakes of those Sinhalese leaders. His long political experience and advanced age may have been the reason for it. After his death, many observers have pointed to Sampanthan’s previous condemnation in parliament of Mahinda Rajapaksa’s party inciting anti-Tamil sentiments among the Sinhalese people and saying that the Tamils were going to divide the country.
” I would like to put this on record because I want everybody in this country to know that it was malicious, vicious, fallacious, false propaganda on the part of President Mahinda Rajapaksa and the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP ) and if you proceed with this agenda, I want to tell you, that (Tamil ) Ealam will bloom, not on account of us, but on account of your Lotus Bud. Your Lotus Bud (SLPP’s symbol ) will bloom into Tamil Ealam. That is what will happen. Therefore, please resist your temptation to achieve cheap political gain by carrying on such false propaganda”, he told Parliament in front of the former President.
Sampanthan played an important role in the negotiations between Tamil leaders and Indian leaders before the signing of the Indo-Sri Lankan Peace Accord. A formidable team consisting of Amirthalingam, Sivasithamparam and Sampanthan conducted the negotiations.
An interesting incident involving Sampanthan in one of his meetings with the then Prime Minister of India, Rajiv Gandhi, was recalled by The Hindu’s Colombo correspondent Meera Srinivasan in an article written last week.
” Sharing an anecdote, Sampanthan recalled learning that President J.R. Jeyawardene had convinced Romesh Bhandari — special envoy of the then PM Rajiv Gandhi — that there was no linguistic contiguity between Sri Lanka’s North and East.
” Along with TULF stalwarts Amirthalingam and Sivasithmparam, Mr. Sampanthan was in Madras then and sought a meeting with PM Gandhi. The PMO told him Mr. Gandhi was coming to Tiruchi and the only way to secure a meeting was to fly back with him to New Delhi, in the PM’s chartered flight. The TULF trio took an overnight train to Tiruchi, and managed to be put on the flight to New Delhi.
” After take off, the trio was escorted to the PM’s suite on the flight.Mr. Sampanthan, with a map in hand, showed how there was linguistic contiguity between Sri Lanka’s North and East. When it was time to disembark Mr.Sampanthan, shaking hands and bidding goodbye to the Indian PM , told him : “What I have told is the absolute truth.”
” Months later, the historic Indo – Lanka Accord would include the merger of the North and East among its salient points , Mr.Sampanthan is said to have remarked later : ” The merger was sealed in the air,” referring to that crucial flight.”
Sampanthan was the second Tamil leader to serve as Leader of the Opposition in the Sri Lankan Parliament. First Amrithalingam held the post from 1977 to 1983 and then Sampanthan from 2015 to 2019. A criticism arose that Sampanthan was acting as a supporter of the Sirisena-Ranil government rather than as the leader of the opposition. He might have been doing so in the hope that a political solution could be found to the ethnic problem by cooperating with the government in the process of drafting a new constitution. But in the end he was disappointed. Sampanthan also had the same bitter experience as previous Tamil leaders.
Be that as it may, Sampanthan’s failure to keep the Tamil political parties united is an important criticism of his politics in the last two decades. After the end of the war there was no coherent polity among the Tamil people of the North and East. Tamils had no other choice except voting for the TNA under his leadership.
The TNA, which had the historic responsibility of moving the struggle for the political rights of the Tamils to the next stage in a manner consistent with the current domestic and international political climate collapsed under Sampanthan’ s watch. He should have built the TNA as a strong political movement of the Tamils. But, unfortunately in the end, he was even unable to keep even his Ilankai Thamizharasu Katchi (ITAK ) as a united political party. Today the Tamil polity is scattered. There are many parties and many leaders pulling in different directions with their own agenda.
At a time when unity among Tamil political parties is needed like never before, they are trying to act separately as much as possible. Sampanthan may have breathed his last as a troubled man
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