Body po­lit­ic awaits vot­ers’ cru­cial mes­sage from Jaff­na

For Pe­ter Yo­hes­wari (55), a wom­an from Ki­li­noch­chi, the post-war ben­e­fits are visi­ble in the form of low com­mod­i­ty pri­ces, in­creased mo­bi­li­ty of peo­ple, bet­ter roads, and elec­tri­fi­ca­tion of her vil­lage.   But, she, as a Tam­il, is more con­cerned about the sole iden­ti­ty of her com­mun­i­ty when de­cid­ing who is to be vo­ted in at the North­ern Pro­vin­cial Coun­cil Elec­tion on Sep­tem­ber 21.  

She has mixed views on the post-war ground sit­ua­tion in the North.

“We ac­knowl­edge the fact that in­fra­struc­ture de­vel­op­ment has tak­en place af­ter the war was over.  Com­pared to the war time, there are more trade ac­tiv­i­ties in the area.

The pri­ces of es­sen­tial food items have drop­ped since war time, re­stric­tions are no lon­ger there. How­ev­er, there’s a marked in­crease in the crime rate, and nat­u­ral­ly enough we’re con­cerned about it. The law en­force­ment au­thor­i­ties have clear­ly failed to con­tain this trend. There has been a lot of rob­ber­ies and a ser­ies of vi­o­lent rapes. We are scared of leav­ing young girls alone,” she told the Dai­ly Mir­ror.

As Yo­hes­wari, most res­i­dents of the north have such mixed views when com­par­ing and con­trast­ing the past war time with the cur­rent peace time. Be­ing be­set with such mixed emo­tions, they are un­able to ex­press a clear stand on their views in to­day’s con­text.

Even in the South, me­dia re­ports re­flect how crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties such as child abuse, rape, mur­ders and bur­glar­ies are on the rise on a dai­ly ba­sis.

No stat­is­ti­cal da­ta is yet avail­a­ble on the crime rates in the North and the South to make a prop­er com­par­i­son of in­ci­dents in or­der to come to a log­i­cal con­clu­sion.

The Pro­vin­cial Coun­cil Elec­tions have been de­clared at a time when the North is wit­ness­ing an im­prove­ment in phys­i­cal in­fra­struc­ture as a pos­i­tive sign. But, con­cerns re­main in the rel­e­vant quar­ters in­clud­ing cer­tain sec­tions of the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mun­i­ty, wheth­er ef­forts have been made ad­e­quate­ly for the po­lit­i­cal em­pow­er­ment of the peo­ple and to re­store means of live­li­hood for the peo­ple af­fec­ted by the three dec­a­des long war.

In this back­drop, the up­com­ing elec­tion in the North will clear­ly be a test for all stake­hold­ers within the province. This is so be­cause the elec­tion re­sult will re­flect wheth­er the peo­ple in the North yearn for their right to gov­ern them­selves, or are pleased with the de­vel­op­ment pro­grammes car­ried out by the gov­ern­ment.

Right to gov­er­nance is a de­mand put for­ward by Tam­il po­lit­i­cal lead­ers since the days of gain­ing In­de­pend­ence from the Brit­ish col­o­nial rule.  And the sen­ti­ment of Tam­il na­tion­al­ist iden­ti­ty seems to have emerged in the run-up to the Pro­vin­cial Coun­cil Elec­tions this time.

Most of the Tam­il peo­ple, whom the Dai­ly Mir­ror in­ter­viewed, were re­luc­tant to speak out their mind, ap­pa­rent­ly due to the fear psy­cho­sis caused dur­ing the war time. How­ev­er, there were some oth­ers who spoke out quite fear­less­ly.

“We are Tam­ils. There­fore, we will vote for a Tam­il par­ty. We want to live to­geth­er with the peo­ple of the South. Yet, we need to re­tain our cul­tur­al iden­ti­ty as Tam­ils,”Yo­hes­wari said.

Prop­a­gan­da cam­paigns are be­ing held for the North­ern Pro­vin­cial Coun­cil Elec­tion these days, but nev­er­the­less, no­tice­a­bly on a low-key un­like in the South.

Though 20 po­lit­i­cal par­ties and in­de­pend­ent groups have fiel­ded can­di­dates for the elec­tions un­der dif­fer­ent sym­bols such as scis­sors, pad­lock, post­box, and squir­rel, on­ly the rul­ing Uni­ted Peo­ple’s Free­dom Al­li­ance (UP­FA)  and the Ilan­kai Tam­il Arachu Kach­chi (ITAK) are in­volved in ac­tive cam­paign­ing. Can­di­dates rep­re­sent­ing these two ma­jor par­ties are most­ly en­gag­ed in house-to-house can­vass­ing for pref­er­en­tial votes in­stead of   con­duct­ing ral­lies.

The ITAK or the Tam­il Na­tion­al Al­li­ance (TNA) has thrown its full weight be­hind  the cam­paign to win this elec­tion for the con­sti­tu­tion of Sri Lan­ka’s ninth pro­vin­cial coun­cil in terms of the 13th Amend­ment to   the Con­sti­tu­tion.

Since the gain­ing of In­de­pend­ence in 1948, Tam­il par­ties have claim­ed for ex­ten­sive pow­er shar­ing with the cen­tre. It ap­pears that this per­cep­tion has been in­cul­ca­ted deep in the mind­set of the Tam­il peo­ple as even or­di­na­ry Tam­ils are more con­cerned about their na­tion­al, cul­tur­al and lin­guis­tic iden­ti­ty rath­er than ‘bread and but­ter’ is­sues.

The TNA cam­paign­ing with re­newed vig­our and strength has ef­fec­tive­ly ap­pealed to such sen­ti­ments of the peo­ple at­tempt­ing to se­cure sub­stan­tial po­lit­i­cal gains at the elec­tion.

TNA can­di­date M. K. Si­va­ji­lin­gam said his par­ty was seek­ing a man­date from peo­ple to work for the re-merg­er of the north­ern and east­ern prov­in­ces for an au­ton­o­mous re­gion sub­ject to the sov­er­eign­ty and   ter­ri­to­ri­al in­teg­ri­ty of Sri Lan­ka.

“The pow­ers of the pro­vin­cial coun­cil are in­suf­fi­cient for us. Yet, it is the start­ing point for great­er dev­o­lu­tion lat­er on. We have cen­tred our cam­paign theme on that,” he said as he dis­trib­uted his leaf­lets among some peo­ple near the Point Pe­dro bus de­pot.

In ad­di­tion to this cen­tral theme, some TNA can­di­dates have based cam­paign slo­gans on the prom­ises to ad­dress the griev­an­ces of fam­i­lies of dis­ap­peared per­sons and those im­pris­oned due to their in­volve­ment in the ac­tiv­i­ties of the Lib­er­a­tion Ti­gers of Tam­il Ee­lam (LTTE).  Anan­thi Sa­si­kar­an, the wife of LTTE po­lit­i­cal lead­er for Trin­co­ma­lee El­i­lan, is one such can­di­date.

Al­so aroused are emo­tions of the gen­er­al pub­lic on what the TNA called ‘high mili­ta­ry pres­ence, land grab­bing and for­ci­ble col­o­ni­sa­tion.

On and off, there are in­stan­ces where in­di­rect at­tempts are made to glo­ri­fy and re­vere the acts of the LTTE. Par­tic­i­pants in TNA meet­ings seem to be elat­ed when such re­marks are made, ap­pa­rent­ly not be­ing aware that ali­en­a­tion from the main­stream so­ci­ety is not prac­ti­cal­ly ben­e­fi­cial for them in the long run.

As the TNA fo­cu­ses more on their de­mand for a pow­er shar­ing ar­range­ment, the UP­FA is bank­ing its elec­tor­al for­tunes on the vol­ume of de­vel­op­ment work car­ried out in the North af­ter the war was over on May 19, 2009.  On the cam­paign trail, the TNA has the edge over oth­er par­ties due to its iden­ti­ty as a Tam­il par­ty.  Out of the 11 po­lit­i­cal par­ties ap­pear­ing on the bal­lot pa­per, the TNA is the on­ly par­ty with a Tam­il lead­er­ship where­as all the oth­ers are led by south­ern­ers.  

This has made it easy for the TNA to can­vass votes from a com­mun­i­ty more con­cerned about their na­tion­al iden­ti­ty, rath­er than join­ing main­stream pol­i­tics at any cost.
UP­FA can­di­date for the Jaff­na dis­trict An­ga­jan Ram­a­na­than said the gov­ern­ment had been able to bring the div­i­dends of peace to the door­steps of Tam­il peo­ple.

“Now we are try­ing to re­store the pre-war glo­ry of Jaff­na. Ours was a so­ci­ety high­ly fo­cused on ed­u­ca­tion.  We want to im­prove ed­u­ca­tion. We want to have a breed of youths with vig­our and strength. It is al­ways im­por­tant for na­tion­al pol­i­tics rath­er than be­ing con­fined to par­ties with a re­gion­al iden­ti­ty,” Ram­a­na­than said.

He said, “In­fra­struc­ture de­vel­op­ment has tak­en place by leaps and bounds.   It is not ad­vis­a­ble to ali­en­ate Tam­il peo­ple from the main­stream so­ci­ety. I rep­re­sent Sri Lan­ka Free­dom Par­ty (SLFP), the larg­est par­ty of the UP­FA. It is a par­ty with adapt­a­ble pol­i­cies. The gov­ern­ment has giv­en a lot of jobs to the young peo­ple here.”  

Or­di­na­ry peo­ple in the North rec­og­nise in­fra­struc­ture de­vel­op­ment work. But, they say much re­mains to be done to en­sure means of live­li­hood.

S.J. Ku­mar, a Hin­du priest from the North, said peo­ple could bare­ly make ends meet.

“I suf­fered mul­ti­ple dis­place­ments dur­ing the war, and fi­nal­ly ended up in the nar­row strip of land in Mul­li­vaik­kal. The war is over now. There are prob­lems to be ad­dressed. Live­li­hood is­sues are fore­most among them. We need to pre­serve our cul­tur­al iden­ti­ty too,” Ku­mar said.  

It is un­der­stand­a­ble that ad­di­tion­al ef­forts need to be made to cre­ate means of in­come gen­er­a­tion in the North which re­mained cut-off from the main land due to ter­ro­rist ac­tiv­i­ties.

But then, this is match­ed by a sim­i­lar sit­ua­tion in the South where peo­ple are not able to earn enough for a de­cent stand­ard of  liv­ing de­spite the much-hy­ped in­fra­struc­ture de­vel­op­ment.

In­ter­est­ing­ly, al­though this is­sue is more or less the same in the North and the South, it ap­pears the peo­ple of these two re­gions will have a dif­fer­ent po­lit­i­cal re­ac­tion to it when it comes to cast­ing their vote.  

How­ev­er, de­spite in­creased elec­tion cam­paigns on po­lit­i­cal rights, there are north­ern­ers whose po­lit­i­cal be­liefs have been sha­ped by the post-war eco­nom­ic ben­e­fits.
S. Dhar­mar­a­jah (55), from Chun­na­kam, Jaff­na, is one such veg­e­ta­ble farm­er, who has found a new mar­ket in the South for his pro­duce.

“Now the war is over. There­fore, we can sell our pro­duce in the South for a bet­ter price. Ear­li­er, we had on­ly a limi­ted mar­ket in the North,” he said. Dhar­mar­a­jah had cul­ti­va­ted cab­bage, beet­root and cap­si­cum this time us­ing wa­ter from his agro-well.

Sa­thya­mur­thy Rad­hi­ka, a dai­ly wage earn­er, who worked on the veg­e­ta­ble farm be­long­ing to Dhar­mar­a­jah, al­so ech­oed the same sen­ti­ments.

“Now we have enough work as dai­ly la­bour­ers in the ag­ri­cul­tur­al sec­tor. Ear­li­er, we did not have such work,” she said.    

Pit­ted against con­cerns, sen­ti­ments, be­liefs, pow­er-shar­ing, mas­sive in­fra­struc­ture de­vel­op­ment and eth­nic iden­ti­ty, the elec­tion re­sult of the North­ern Pro­vin­cial Coun­cil will car­ry a pow­er­ful mes­sage to the Body Po­lit­ic.