No one sees politics as a hot bed of innovation. Politics is often seen as the preserve of old men clinging to power. Popular culture is full of unflattering terminology for politicians and their politics. And constituents are conditioned to expect the least from the people they elect. Accountability means little in politics.
Is Tamil politics becoming a poster child for this maxim?
The absence of power politics during the armed struggle is now used as justification back filling the vacuum.
TNA has now resorted to justifying their relevancy only in the context of elections.
Few have come out in defense of the TNA politics. It is true that there was a section that called for boycott of the provincial elections asking not to legitimize the 13th amendment and the Genocidal Sri Lankan state. That is no longer the case. TNA has effectively nullified that by participating in the Eastern provincial elections. It is fair to say that many in Eelam and in diaspora hoped that TNA would bring in a new, refreshing and reformist attitude to the Tamil politics. But what TNA is doing now is not the kind of politics they were hoping for.
TNA won in 2010 because of what it declared in its manifesto. NPC election is close but such a manifesto is still curiously missing.
TNA is still riding the electoral legitimacy it received in 2010. It is that legitimacy that opened the doors in Delhi and DC to TNA. But in the last 3 years, TNA has become pliable to those powers and forgotten the people and their mandate. Retention of access to Delhi or to DC is what seems to drive TNA. What was used as a stick against the LTTE is now used as a carrot against TNA. Pursuing that access is not a bad policy if that had resulted in tangible benefits to the Tamil people on the ground. TNA would have had a leg to stand on. TNA now says NPC election itself is the result of that engagement. If not for the politicians and the few international players, since when has that been the pressing issue or the request of the Tamil people? Just because the Sri Lankan state opposed the election does not make it the reason to clamor for it. The argument that NPC election is needed to de-militarize or to talk about a political solution defies logic. Then what were the 2010 election and the EPC election for?
Today TNA is selling a wrong political idea to the wrong people. It is trying to pass off the impotent NPC election as important to the Tamil people. Instead TNA should be telling the international community (India) openly that it is going to expose the impotency of the NPC election.
TNA should have had a manifesto that energized and mobilized the Tamil people.
When Justice Wigneswaran came on board as a chief minister candidate, general expectation was that TNA would use him to expose the system. What better way to expose the system than with someone who has been part of it? A perfect inside job.
But he is now being used to sell the system to the Tamil people.
If TNA is willing to provide the cover of Tamil participation to Delhi and DC, then it should have been demanding their explicit protection for Tamil rights in return. And do so openly. It should have been a bilateral engagement centered on a results oriented approach.
In the context of a Tamil political awareness that is transnational, encompassing Eelam, diaspora, and Tamil Nadu, Delhi and DC cannot afford to ignore or neglect the Tamil plight. Not if they hope to achieve the stated policy of regional economic and political stabilization. Why is TNA downplaying this reality and telling the Tamils that we will be ignored and neglected? It undermines the transnational leverage of the Tamils.
If electoral participation and endorsement of 13th amendment are conditions for demilitarization and for end of occupation, people of Eastern province should have been enjoying a military free, civilian administrated province. What has prevented Delhi and DC making an example out of the Eastern province? One would expect that to be the most compelling and easy way to convince the people of North to rally behind the idea of an election.
A campaign of political obfuscation is not going to bring credibility to TNA.
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