By\u00a0 Dr. S Hettiarachchi<\/h2>\n

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• Saturday, 14 March 2015 00:00<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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  \nThe 100 day \u2018unachievable target\u2019 is a reality now. People knew it as a clever election slogan, but undeliverable. Sri Lankans are quite used to these political gimmicks, and they know that politicians any way perform like actors away from true facts of life. The concocted current regime with \u2018two prime ministers\u2019 (people still do not know what happened…\n<\/div>\n

  \nThe 100 day \u2018unachievable target\u2019 is a reality now. People knew it as a clever election slogan, but undeliverable. Sri Lankans are quite used to these political gimmicks, and they know that politicians any way perform like actors away from true facts of life. The concocted current regime with \u2018two prime ministers\u2019 (people still do not know what happened to the former PM, D.M. Jayaratne) and same with \u2018what happened\u2019 to the former Cabinet. What is strange and hitherto unknown in any democracy is the fact of people voting for an executive president and getting a new PM and a new Cabinet while the incumbent PM (Jayaratne) and the active Cabinet (former) became suddenly dysfunctional. Some argue this as the reason why perhaps all the budgetary concessions did not trickle down to the public; it might be the case that the interim Cabinet is also dysfunctional or at least the business community feels that it is half baked and un-mandated, hence their decisions are also dysfunctional. It is in this context of a political limbo that \u2018a trust deficit\u2019 between the North and the South is yet again existing.\u00a0 The protest by the Tamils to the \u2018mild president Sirisena\u2019s\u2019 visit to London is a moment for this regime to assess what TNA is really after.
  \nTNA\u2019s politics<\/strong>
  \nThe TNA is also arguably a concocted alliance, a bed fellow of the decimated LTTE. They were forced to accept the most bizarre political puppetry and to collude for its own survival with the infamous and the democratically untenable declaration that the LTTE is the \u2018sole representative of the Tamil people\u2019. The TNA manifesto on February 25, 2004 presented in Killinochchi clearly displays how much it was glued uncritically to the terror sponsored by the LTTE (see the picture with the slain Tamil Chelvam). They, in this manifesto reiterated that there is the \u2018Sinhala Nation\u2019 and the \u2018Tamil Nation\u2019, (conspicuously a separatist notion where Muslims are incorporated as a Tamil speaking group and not necessarily as a community with a distinct identity and it would be interesting to consult the Muslim parties on the TNA\u2019s political prescription of the identity of the Muslims in the island). The manifesto further says, \u201cIn this political environment the Tamil organizations got together and resolved on May 14, 1976 to establish a sovereign independent Tamil Eelam based on our inalienable right to self-determination. Independent Tamil Eelam received its mandate as a result of the overwhelming support given to the TULF by the Tamil speaking people of North East in the general elections of July 1977\u201d.The TNA is now free from the fear psychosis that engulfed them because the life threatening factor has been annihilated. However, ten years later the TNA obviously has to act differently if they wish to be a democratically viable alliance in this country. Recent resolution by the Northern Provincial Council chief minister, Wigneswaran about \u2018genocidal acts\u2019 by the \u2018Sinhala nation,\u2019 seems to be an obvious return to the 2004 TNA manifesto where it clearly declares to \u201cfind a political solution to the Tamil national problem based on the acceptance of the fundamental proposals regarding Tamil homeland, Tamil Nation, Tamils\u2019 right to self-government (autonomy)\u201d (TNA manifesto 2004). This tribalisation of \u2018Tamil-ness\u2019 is what is problematic with the Wigneswaran resolution.
  \nThe Chief Minister backed by the TNA clearly needs to assess their current political options with the new regime born on 08 January 2015. The voice that comes through powerfully exhibits a serious \u2018trust deficit\u2019 on the part of the TNA. When the chief minister came to power he was symbolic of a man who could bridge this \u2018trust deficit\u2019 with well-earned associations with the political shakers and movers. Today the TNA needs to change its idiom of \u2018Tamil nation\u2019 and \u2018Sinhala nation\u2019 which is divisive and it de facto displays the same shameful political DNA and the uncompromising hardware of the LTTE and its terror campaign. Sri Lankans including Tamil citizens wish to have a TNA willing to renounce the LTTE\u2019s brute instincts and jungle rules.
  \nWickremesinghe proposition<\/strong>
  \nThe new PM even though the writer is of the opinion that he is an un mandated man to hold office as PM of a government and a Cabinet (which is also un-mandated for all practical reasons), yet was bold and forthright to\u00a0 declare that for the first time the Tamil people of this country have voted for a president in an overwhelming manner. This \u2018voting gesture\u2019, PM said, indicates their willingness for national politics, and not the politics of \u2018a Tamil Nation\u2019 or \u2018a Sinhala Nation\u2019. Wickremesinghe\u2019s best idea since his automated rise to be the PM can be his willingness to bridge this \u2018trust deficit\u2019 between the Tamils and Sinhalese ever since the \u20181956 Sinhala Only Act\u2019.\u00a0 The TNA and the chief minister also cannot act without consulting their constituencies, but it seems they have opted to hear the vociferous and the West-pronged wings of the Diaspora that has no idea of the ground situation. The TNA has some \u2018schizophrenic and nebulous foreignness\u2019 that makes them stand aloof from the political significance of this country. It is the same political blindness and paranoia that made those trips to \u2018seek advice\u2019 from the Tamil Nadu\u2019s renegaded political Cong shells (including the wing-clipped Jayalalithaa, noisy, but powerless Vaiko and the futureless Karunanidhi). People know that India is not Tamil Nadu. Hence, they would welcome warmly the Indian PM and this time it will be unlike the last visit of Rajiv Gandhi a quarter of a century ago. The reaction of the people then was obvious. This visit of\u00a0 PM Modi to the North\u00a0 would help bridge the \u2018trust deficit\u2019 alongside the Wickremesinghe proposition despite his provocative comment on \u2018shooting the Indian fishermen in Sri Lankan waters.
  \nModi\u2019s visit\u00a0 \u00a0<\/strong>
  \nIndian Prime minister and his party was challenged by Arvind Kejriwal\u00a0 of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) who was sworn in as\u00a0\u00a0 Delhi\u2019s 7th\u00a0 chief minister in February 2015; despite the so called \u2018Modi wave\u2019 of the Bharatiya Janatha Party (BJP) that secured a landslide victory in May 2014. Modi is a seasoned man for victory and defeat due to his humble origins and rise to power in Gujarat despite his obnoxious silence as its chief minister over the three-day period of inter-communal violence in 2002 (now known as Gujarat violence or the Gujarat pogrom in the media). It is similar to J. R. Jayawardena\u2019s silence in July 1983 in Colombo as Sri Lanka\u2019s president. These remain like sword of the Damocles in their political lives, never forgotten, ever hanging.
  \nThe Indian leader\u2019s visit has to be productive in terms of cultivating Sri Lanka\u2019s bilateral relations on many grounds. Hence his appearance in the parliament where he addressed the country\u2019s peoples\u2019 representatives is significant. Here he knew that he addressed the National State Assembly (NSA) and not the TNA\u2019s bifurcated view of a \u2018Sinhala nation\u2019 or the \u2018Tamil nation\u2019 but Sri Lanka as a sovereign state. India cannot violate that sovereignty of Sri Lanka as a State. Modi possibly cannot push models of governance to this Sovereign state of Sri Lanka. Some suggest regionalism, UN\u2019s Balkan jeopardy of the Kosovo prototype, unresolved South Sudan model or the resource plundered East Timor blueprint. These will not help North South \u2018trust deficit\u2019. People in Sri Lanka want Prime minister Modi to continue to be a friend of Sri Lanka as a man who can contribute to bridge the North South \u2018trust deficit\u2019, also perhaps urge the TNA to consider the \u2018Wickremesinghe proposition\u2019. Urge the Muslim parties and other parties in the South as well to be engaged in national politics and not tribalize or ethnicize politics, the root cause of \u2018trust deficits\u2019. People believe that Modi is gone back with a good learning curve and with some \u2018take home material\u2019 at a time when the power of the Union territory of Delhi is no longer under the BJP but with chief minister, Arvind Kejriwal of the AAP. What a turn of events less than just 10 months of the \u2018Modi wave\u2019. A lesson for all politicians!
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  \nResolution by the Northern Provincial Council chief minister, Wigneswaran about \u2018genocidal acts\u2019 by the \u2018Sinhala nation,\u2019 seems to be a regression to the TNA\u2019s LTTE phase.<\/strong>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

  – See more at: http:\/\/www.nation.lk\/edition\/component\/k2\/item\/39154-north-and-south-trust-deficit?.html#sthash.sMSDdg6q.dpuf<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  By\u00a0 Dr. S Hettiarachchi Saturday, 14 March 2015 00:00 The 100 day \u2018unachievable target\u2019 is a reality now. People knew it as a clever election slogan, but undeliverable. Sri Lankans are quite used to these […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-gallery","hentry","category-uncategorized","post_format-post-format-gallery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hettiviththi.lk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hettiviththi.lk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hettiviththi.lk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hettiviththi.lk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hettiviththi.lk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hettiviththi.lk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hettiviththi.lk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hettiviththi.lk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hettiviththi.lk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}