Tamil Patience Keeps Ceylon From Civil War

Press, Volume C, Issue 29526, 30 May 1961, Page 18

Tamil Patience Keeps Ceylon From Civil War

IBy ALEXANDER MacLEODI JAFFNA (North Ceylon), April 28. Having clamped an emergency on the Northern and Eastern Provinces, banned the Federal Party, arrested several Tamil leaders, and virtually handed over administration to the Army in affected areas, Mrs Sirima Bandaranaike now sits in Colombo, like Napoleon in Moscow, waiting for the enemy to ask for peace. It would not surprise me if she had to wait for several years.

For the third time in three years, the press of Ceylon is censored and reference to it would give you no idea of the extent of discord and tension in Ceylon today. In the northern and eastern areas, heavily dominated by people of Tamil race and language, soldiers are in control. Around Jaffna, at the northern tip of the island, it is estimated unofficially that 3000 troops are in occupation. Their job has been to en. ■force a rigid curfew, ensure : that Government offices re. main open, and see that the direct action (satyagraha) movement set in motion in early February by Tamils protesting against the Government’s language laws is frustrated. In reality the activities of the Army have been more widespread. Shopkeepers, businessmen, missionaries to whom I have spoken in the last two days all agree that there have been cases of ex. treme intimidation on the part of Sinhalese occupation troops toward the Tamil population. The curfew, officially set at 12 hours, from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m., extends far beyond these hours. Many shops >n Jaffna and Trincomalee have not opened since the emergency was declared at 1 a.m. on April 17. The streets of these towns are clear of people by 4 p.m. and few venture out before 8 or 9 in the morning. Cases of soldiers entering private homes without pretext and molesting the inhabitants are occurring every night. In the first hours of the emergency, people picketing Government offices were beaten with rifle butts and placed in custody. Several women were included in these arrests. The entire atmosphere of the northern areas of Ceylon has for days been one of extreme tension. Since 1956, when the Sri

Lanka Freedom Party led by the late Mr Bandaranaike took office, events in Ceylon have been moving steadily towards a crisis. And since the assassinated Prime Minister’s wife has been in control the speed of movement has greatly quickened. The Freedom Party now enjoys a narrow but absolutp majority in the Ceylonese Parliament and is plainly socialist in its policies. It also has strong overtones of instability. In recent weeks one issue after another has convulsed the country. Threats to nationalise the biggest newspaper groups in Ceylon, a number of oil and trade agreements with Iron Curtain countries, the Government take-over of mission schools have all created tensions within Ceylon itself and caused misgivings abroad. But beside the present language difficulties these issues take a minor place. For it is difficult not to conclude that the Government’s policy amounts to racial discrimination on a massive scale. Officially, from early February, the language of law and administration in Ceylon has been Sinhalese. This applies as much in the .north, where the population lis well over 90 per cent Tamil-speaking, as it does in the south. I Tlie reasons for this extreme policy go back well 'into Ceylonese history. About 80 per cent, of the population are Sinhalese and it is in their name that the present Government is acting. Ceylon, unlike India and many of the new nations of Asia and Africa, had to wait till after independence for its own national movemen: to arise. But now nationalism has emerged and it finds its focus in the racial identity of the Sinhalese who now hold the power. Strongly rural in their origins, for the most part illeducated. and heavily influenced by their Buddhist religious leaders (who in turn have a close hand in Ceylon's politics) the Sinhalese now regard the

country as their own. It is upon such elements that Mrs Bandaranaike and her cabinet colleagues base their claims to power. But the Sinhalese masses are so passionate, and their representatives in Parliament so volatile and unpredictable, that the Government in order to maintain its own majority is often forced to placate the the electorate with extreme political and racial measures. This is the core of the present communal crisis in Ceylon.

The grievances of the Tamils, who form 11 per cent. of the population of all Ceylon, go back further than accession to power of the present Government. The Tamils in Ceylon regard themselves as a distinct racial and linguistic grouping. They mix socially with the Sinhalese, but there is very little intermarriage. Tamils enjoy a reputation for hard work and intelligence far greater than the Sinhalese. And under the British they enjoyed a special, communal status. Even today Tamils hold 33 per cent, of all civil service jobs. On questions of language. Tamil pride goes deepest. And it is precisely here that the Bandaranaike Govern, ment is challenging them. From my own experiences in the northern areas. I am of the opinion that no military occupation will convince the Tamil that he must learn Sinhalese in order to earn a living. “The moment the soldiers move away,” one member of the proscribed Federal Party told me, "the people will resume their satyagraha movement. We have plenty of time in which- to put our case.”

Conditions would perhaps leave more room for optimism if the Government of Mrs Bandaranaike had a flrm grip on power. The Prime Minister herself has yet to demonstrate that she possesses true qualities of

leadership. Her role has been that of mouthpiece for Government pronouncements and it would seem that her grasp of affairs has improved little since she went to the polls in the last elections on a platform of high emotionalism.

The acknowledged voice from behind the curtain- is her late husband’s nephew, Mr Felix Dias Bandaranaike still in his 30's and relatively nexperienced in high office But even he has not been free of intense pressure from Left-wing back-bench elements in his own party. The strength of communism is also difficult to assess. The Marxist and Trotskyite parties in Parliment can probably be discounted at present, but recent trade pacts with the Soviet Union and other Iron Curtain countries can be traced directly to the pressure of Freedom Party Left-wingers, dubbed by their enemies, “crypto-communists.”

Ceylon today is governed by an indecisive Cabinet with no apparent head. Sinhalese nationlism is the biggest single influence behind the country's present state of discord and it is hard to see how the implications of this can be avoided so long as the electorate is so plainly ill-educated and emotional

Already there have been signs that the tea industry, responsible for 60 per cent, of Ceylon's income, may be crippled by strikes among Indian Tamil labourers working in sympathy with Ceylon Tamils further north. If no means is found of promoting a compromise language policy that will placate the Tamil community, and if the extremism of Sinhalese politics is not tamed, Ceylon can look for. ward to riots worse than those of 1958 and a possible economic collapse. North Ceylon today, were it not for the patience of the Tamils, might be on the brink of civil war. How long can such patience last?