A Continent of Trust Gopalkrishna

Gandhi

08/01/2016
There is a saying in Tamil about the tiny cylindrical rice measure, the aazhaakku.It
smiles at theaazhaakkuimagining that its little roundness has an east and a
west : aazhaakkilkizhakku-merkku. Well, whether the littleaazhaakku has directions or
not, islands do. Sri Lanka does. Directions are about places and about paths. We can
say today, Sri Lanka knows its directions, its paths and is walking with steadiness on
the path its people have charted for it. And so I offer my felicitations on the first
anniversary of the government of national unity to Sri Lanka in its multi-directioned
roundness. I offer felicitations to its north and its south, its east and its west and to its
Central Highlands where, under the shade of the Sri Dalada Maligawa, I spent four
deeply formative years.
The government, headed by you Mr President, and with you, Mr Prime Minister, at its
executive helm, has sought to bring together all of Sri Lankas and its
sacred . It has done more. It has given not just to itself but to the whole of
South Asiasomething that was thought impossible of achievement but has been
achieved by the good sense of Sri Lankas far-sighted people, its ,
its .And whichExcellencies, ladies and gentlemen, is the replacement of
fear by confidence , of suspicion by trust .
The idea of a joint SLFP-UNP government, bringing two traditionally opposed parties
together, with one of them pitted against one of its own leaders, none other than the
President of the day, was thoughtoxymoronic beyond description, a contradiction
within an impossibility, a naivete within a hallucination as absurd as, say, a tembili
growing on a mango tree , an , a .Such a coalescence was
seennot just by incurable cynics but by experienced observers as a poetic fantasy until

what was regarded as an out-of-the-questionidea stood here, right here,as an out-ofthe-box reality. At the call of the pioneers, the integrated will of the people of Sri
Lanka drew out reconciliation from revenge, dialogue from division, peace from war ;
and indeed, at the cost of sounding platitudinous, life from death.
If there is one nation, aside from Afghanistan, where the phrases war and peace, life
and death have been as real as the breath in our lungs, it is Sri Lanka. Countless
people in this land have lived and continue to live under the spectre of death, have felt
its cold hand, with many carrying scars on and shrapnel in, their limbs. Some of them
who, in what is called active public life, are here, have chosen paths that will always
be log-jammed with peril. I use every word with deliberation and admiration. I
celebrate and salute their guts, their wit.
And above this, I celebrate and share the sense of relief, the utter relief Sri Lanka felt
and Sri Lankas friends felt, at being pulled back from the brink.
Sri Lanka stood last year on nothing less than, nothing less dangerous than, a
precipice ,
Its people brought their motherland back from that precipice, that edge of disaster. To
what exactly ? They intended, clearly, to bring it back not to the old hearths of mutual
suspicions but to a new threshold of continuing and incremental trust. Incremental is
the crucial word here.
Coalitions are as old as opportunism ;political alignments as stale as
cunning, . Every country, every generation, and nowhere more than in South
Asia, has known political collusions, contrived in haste only to collapse in a
tricebecause deceit is two-edged. Both partners in the politics of coalition are firstdivisioners in its art, post-docs in its science. But in the matter of ,
, they arestill in kindergarten, , and they do not want to
leave it.Sri Lankahas , in fact, a particularly telling phrase for arrangements in
smartness cutting deals. That is done in the hastening shadows of dusk, where the
face conceals what the hand deals till the real day the truth reveals. But , unbelievably,
a year ago, Sri Lanka did something that was not about cutting deals. It was about
cutting egos, personal egos, party egos. I do not have to recite the sequence. But I
would like to dwell on its meaning.The players involved were taking a risk, courting
an , an and no ordinary one at that.
The issue was of course trust, plain , simple . But the plain and the
simple do not come plain and simple. If the playerstrusted too little, they would lose
even before they started. If they trusted too muchand the trust was betrayed, they
could lose more than their political futures. President Sirisena and Prime Minister
Wickremesinghe, when they decided to start on their risk-ridden path, with the mature
support of former President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunge, were confident
but somewhere in their minds they must have been prepared for defeat as well. And

not just defeat but more than defeat.

Today is the exact anniversary of LasanthaWickremetunges death. Need I say
more ? When those who trust trust like the three leaders I have mentioned did, they
step beyond the politics of the predictable intothe margent of the unknown, of a future
that could either be a farce or a force. They acted in faith, those three, and their
colleagues, and became a force , a force for change. Not the change that comes from
modifying laws alone but modifying relationships.
Trust is a strange thing . . If it works, it is seen as
noble ; if it does not, it is seen as stupid, . A politician, like a cricketer, can live
with the image of a loser. He cannot live with the title of . Losing is reparable,
forgivable for it can be caused by factors beyond oneself. Stupidity is different ; the
stupid are sole copyright-holders of their talent. I will not share with you the title that is
used in India for a politician thought to be deficient in brains. It invokes a
certainquadruped with long ears.
The Sri Lankan experimenters with trust took the risk of being called exactly that and
worse. Their only safety lay in that they were sharing that risk equitably and bravely
between themselves. They were, let us make no mistake, being phenomenally
brave.They were in fact taking a sabbatical from safe politics to do an internship
inunsafe trust, not grabbing at chance but merging their own known footprints with the
unknown contours of fate.
How many enter elections saying they will drop their prerogatives, like an executive
presidency ? How many offer to change the rules to their own detriment , their
personal de-aggrandisement ? How many dare set aside thei knowledge of their
traditional adversaries animosity, for a new faith in their readiness to change ? And
we can see they proved to be totally and indisputably right. Simple people, Lankans of
all categories, linguistic, religious, political, coming from various occupations,
representing the integrated will of their nationhood chose, a year ago, carefully but
unambiguously, to affirm the hypothesis of trust for the nations greatness. Not without
courtesy, but with firmness, they held authoritarianism by the hand, took it to the outdoor and said to it :. They held bigotry by the hand and said to it:
.
They chose not to forget the past, but to take the sting out of it. They chose not to
deny the differences, but take the pathology of suspicion out of them, not to deny
discord but make dismemberment obsolete. They chose, in other words, to pull the
nation back from the brink of disaster.If Destiny decided
thatmullaimullaaldaanedukkuiyelum a thorn can only be removed by a thorn it
had also decided that once the thorn had done its work, another instrument, an
instrument of healing was needed. And it turned to the people of Sri Lanka to ponder
the situation from all angles. Destiny in our times has to be a good democrat. It asked
the people of Sri Lanka to choose between the thorn of conflict and the harvest of

reconciliation. They chose. Politics became , thereby, about the nation, not about
political parties. In fact about the nation as a civilisation, not the nation as a political
formation.We are celebrating the electoral intelligence that drew out of the nations
politics a civilisation, a , a .
This dayis , therefore, not as much about the completion of the first year of the
government of national unity as it is about the relinquishing of power monopolies, of
political prejudices, of suspicions and of greed. And that is where India and the whole
of South Asia, mired in those traits, can and must learn from the Sri Lanka that is
being felicitated today.
But what of tomorrow ?
The answer to that lies in what Sri Lanka does today.
Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, an Indian regards the giving of advice to be his
birth right, in fact, his birth duty, his very mission. Whether in government or out of it,
young or old, within India or abroad, he will not resist giving advice, unsolicited, knowall, expert advice, well-meaning , prompted with the noblest intentions and coming
free. But in what a prodigious cataract!

Let me make it plain that what I propose to say now is only contextually different, not
substantively, from what I would say, with suitable modifications, back home in India,
to myself, to my fellow-citizens, to my government.
The people of Sri Lanka have done their work. It is now for the leaders to fulfil the
expectations of the people. The Government of National Unity has a thousand issues
on its plate, including economic recovery, employment generation, the re-instating of
the liberal apparatuses of a Republic from the contortions to which they came to be
subjected. It will give to all these issues its best attention. But the primary, defining,
foundational priority of a liberal Republic has to be the retaining and consolidating of
trust between the principal communities that make up the nation. And the
strengthening of the trust those communities have in the governments ability and its
determination to be wholly and actively fair in its attitude to them.
Liberal democrats in office have a problem on their hands. They have to be strong but
they ought not to be bullies. They have to be firm but they ought not to be rigid. They
have to follow the rules with those who have made it their business to flout them. They
have to do right by the wronged without provoking the wrong-doers from doing more
wrong. And most difficult of all they have to be handsome and magnanimous with
those that have been anything but, with them. This is a problem. But then to help solve
the problem is the fact of the mandate that people give, even people who want to see
their government headed by a strong man or woman, to the good leader in the
knowledge that the good can also be smart. It is good to be smart in the short term, it
is smarter to be good in the long. The difficulty is one lives in the short term. And that

short-term is the arena for the illiberal un-democrat to do his little acts of violence to
democracy, to republicanism, to civil liberties, human rights, and get away with several
crimes including murder.
It does not behove a visitor celebrating this anniversary to say anything critical of a
predecessor government , and of the then leader, His Excellency Mahinda Rajapakse.
I will not be guilty of that contretemps. Destiny chooses its agencies in mysterious
ways and there is no doubt that history will accord to President Rajapakse a place of
pre-eminence in its annals for his role in the turning of the worlds most gruesome
chapter of terror.

Son killed bec of father

But the massacre of innocents at its denouement has compacted the gore of terror
with the blood-thirst of revenge. And the killing in cold blood of a child for the sole
reason that he was his fathers son, has left the world in cold horror. It was therefore
inevitable that when the bitter and fratricidal warended in Sri Lanka ,peace stayed out
of sight. The guns fell silent, but dialogue too lost its voice.
VelupillaiPirabakaran became history, but what of his goal ? Did that has that
become history too ? Or has it only gone into hiding to reveal itself once again ?
Separatism may fall out of the immediate agenda but as long as it lives as a
simmering sentiment, it has not gone away.
Let there be no doubt that a liberal renascent phase has only that much of a tenure.
The process of converting ideals into programmes, programmes into action, action into
results is fraught with disappointment and dismay. When that action is to heal, the
perseverance needed is that much more. The post-inaugural phase of a renaissance
is also the phase when the diehards, the perennials stake-holders in vengeance, and
malcontents come out of their hibernation. These are professional solution-killers
whose job it is to forage in the debris of chaos and indecision. They will find in new
setbacks or delays that are only inevitable, their playing field, their hope. They will find
national unity inconvenient, unproductive. They will say You are giving too much, too

soon. They will also say You are trusting too much, too many They have their
own field of vision, their own plans for advancement which includes tempting those
who are not obstructionists to become obstructionists. India has known the type. They
used to engineer legislative defections with finesse, until an anti-defection law made it
difficult for them. Difficult, but not impossible Nothing is impossible now for money. I do
not what may come from a cobra mating with a viper. Perhaps nothing. But when
money mates with power, the most abhorrent mutants result. They could be called
genetically modified legislators.
Sri Lanka cannot afford to be deflected by them or by anyone or anything else from
devolution, from inclusion and from the more positive dimensions of both those, in
terms of a celebration of plurality, in terms of incremental trust-building . In a situation
that calls for reparation, it is the one who needs reparation that must report
satisfaction, not the reparation-giver. The thirsty must announce the thirstss
quenching, not the water-dispenser. It is for the Lankan Tamil to acknowledge relief, it
is not the relief giver to declare the work is done.
It is, I know as well as all in this hall do, a fact that the insensitive thwarting of
moderate Tamil Lankan leaders legitimate aspirations, decade after decade, by
narrow ethno-linguistic nationalism, grew into the nightmare that ended with one of the
worlds most sanguinary wars. The Ponnambalams and Chelvanayagams and
Tiruchelvamswere men of vision and equal perseverence. If the Ponnambalamas
and Chelvanayakams had not been disappointed, spurned, marginalised, Velupillai
Pirabakaran would not have been required.We may not have those great leaders
today, but we have in the Tamil leaders of Sri Lanka today, let us not forget, persons
who have survived terror. Every Sri Lankan politician who has worked for a united Sri
Lanka is a terror survivor, by design or default, an ; the Tamil nationalist who
has striven to find political solutions within a united Sri Lanka is a terror survivor many
times over, an .The very presence of such a politician is a huge
acknowledgment of the efficacy and strength of perseverance.
The Tamil Lankan who is a constitutionalist, a parliamentarian and a believer in a
united and just Sri Lanka must not be disappointed, spurned. The old vicious cycle
must not be repeated. An early and sincere meeting of Lankan Tamil aspirations is
non-optional, for there is a historical imperative to those. Sri Lanka must do all it can to
prevent new disappointments, new spurnings, new marginalisations to lead to a revival
of the Eelam goal which lurks in the Tamil Lankan diasporas alienated mind. A return
of vengeful violence, in some new second coming, and its twin, hideous repression
would be disastrous.
As Sri Lanka moves into constitution making , all that made the earlier constitution
vulnerable would have to be kept firmly out and all that makes for the federal spirit
within a unitary system strengthened. Here, the 1987 Indo-Sri Lankan Accord, much
criticised in both countries, has in its long-term recommendations much which, through
Sri Lankas 13A constitutional route, remains valuable. There cannot be a better

anchor for the ship of Sri Lankas inclusive unity than that Indo-Lankan accord, even
as there can be no truer friend of a united Sri Lanka than a reassured India.
Inclusivity, power sharing, between the centre and periphery , and the deepening of
democracy are imperative. But this cannot be done patronisingly. Who includes ? The
majority ? No, rationality does. Who gets included ? Is it the minority ? No, it is civility.
The majority which confers rights on a minority remains dictatorial, an overlord. The
majority which self-effaces everywhere except in the matter of seats in an elected
house of representatives, is democratic, is republican. Inclusion is about more than
tolerance, accommodation. It is even more than respect. It is about a celebration of the
other, pride in the other. Politics becomes, then, a matter of culture, civilizational
culture.
Gestures matter.
Had Mohammed Ali Jinnah been offered the Prime Ministership of India ten years
before Mahatma Gandhi suggested it, or if B R Ambedkar had become President or
Vice President of India, the history of the Indian sub-continent would have been
different. If a Tamil had been President or Prime Minister of Sri Lanka, the nation may
still have gone through the tribulations that it has been through, but there would have
been a saving grace to the proceedings. Not as an Indian, not as a half-Tamil, but as a
South Asian who knows the value of saving graces and of Amazing Grace, I long to
see a Tamil Lankan take her or his oaths of constitutional office to the playing of Sri
Lanka Mata, NamoNamo Mata. This may not come from political reasoning ; it could
come from a moment of political inspiration.
Nelson Mandela included in his first cabinet a startlingly large number of Indian South
Africans. His colleagues in the African National Congress asked him Madiba why so
many of themcompletely out of proportion to their numbers? And Mandela replied
The Indian South Africans in my cabinet do not represent their numbers, they
represent their contribution to the struggle. This has a lesson for India and Sri Lanka.
We should have minority representatives in our councils of ministers not on the basis
of their population percentages but on the basis of their contribution to the making of
what Mandela called a rainbow nation. If the cabinets size can go beyond prescribed
limits to accommodate coalitions, it can also go beyond legal provisions to real-life
action in order to accommodate trust.
Why do as many Sinhala Lankans not speak Tamil as Lankan Tamils speak Sinhala ?
Why should more Sinhala Lankans not see and share the wisdom of Colvin de Silvas
famous all-time utterance : One language, two countries ; two languages, one country
? And N M Pereras equally famous scoffing at the idea of one superior race ?Why ?
? ?
But ethnic fairness is never a one-way street alone. Mandela said famously I am
against White racism. There was no big deal to that. But he also added the very next

moment I am also against Black racism. That was a big deal, a very big deal.
If the Lankan Tamil were to say , I am against Sinhala racism there would be no big
deal. But if he were also to say and I am against Tamil racism, a huge difference
would be made to trust and trusting. The Lankan Muslim and the Lankan Christian
also need reassurances of trust, as do the plantation Tamil , especially the Tamil teaplucker, whom Professor Suryanarayana has characterised as Sri Lankas Cinderella,
and, I must add, the unaffiliated Lankan dissenter and the independent Lankan
iconoclast as well.
Sri Lanka as a parliamentary democracy will always give to its people a government
formed by the majority party or by a majority, as is the case now, by two or more
parties coming together. A majority is ever to be celebrated , not so majoritarianism. A
majority is the fruit of the democratic tree. Majoritarianism is a blight that poisons and
destroys that fruit. Tamil Sri Lanka must ask for and must receive what is its due by
way of just and reassuring provisions in the new Constitution that keep majoritarianism
out. At the same time Tamil Sri Lanka must also not forget that just as majoritarianism
is undemocratic, minoritarianism can damage Republicanism. Minority aspirations
must be a charter but must not become an ism.Every vadakku must remember that
there is a terkkuwhich must understand what it means to be a spurnedvadakku and for
which understanding, the vadakku must understand what it means to be a
scorned terkku.
In an ultimate sense minority aspirations have to be not just about numerical justice
but about justice, not just about numerical rights but about human rights. It is time in
South Asia , at least, minority needs be seen in terms of adverse numbers plus
adverse context, adverse numbers plus adverse status, adverse numbers plus
adverse socio-political conditions, adverse numbers plus adverse access to resources
and opportunities. If the numerical adversity has been fully and irreversibly
compensated for by contextual favourability, no minority need think of itself as a
minority except in terms of Census categorisations for distinctness alone. Like the
Indian Dalit and the Indian Muslim, the Lankan Tamil is yet to realise the fullness of his
and her Republican status. And in a Republic, it should be not just the majoritys duty
but the majoritys pleasure to rectify the situation.
The transition in Tamil Lankan positions from constitutional reform via constitutional
means to separatism via violent means to an Eelam via terrorism was thought
irreversible. That has changed. Negotiated change is now back on the table. It must
not slumber there. Vengeance is waiting to see how reform fares. Not just Sri Lanka
but the whole of South Asia and in fact liberalism and pluralism everywhere require the
success of the Government of National Unitys endeavours, for this opportunity, if lost,
is unlikely ever to come again.
I believe the opportunity has not come only to be lost. This island is not Serendib for
nothing.

What , I conclude by asking, is the difference between an island and a continent? An

island is a small continent, a continent only a large island. Let no one think of Sri
Lanka as a small island. In what it has done over the last year and more for building
trust between communities and political groups, in cutting egos and trimming pride, it
has shown itself to be large, larger than many a large country, including mine, India.
An island of discord , for decades, Sri Lanka has become an island of
hope and is meant to, destined to and must become a continent of trust, a
, a .
Speech made at BMICH, Colombo on the 1st anniversary of the President Sirisenas
electoral victory)
Posted by Thavam