Amidst the controversy over the “Ezhuga Thamil” procession and the rally held by the Tamil People’s Council (TPC) led by Northern Province Chief Minister C.V. Wigneswaran on September 24, another controversy is slowly brewing between some Tamil and Muslim politicians over the stance taken by the founder leader of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) M.H.M. Ashraff on the merger of the Northern and Eastern Provinces.
Tamil politicians seem to be placing a heightened emphasis on the issues on the federal system of governance and the merger of these two provinces with the Constitutional reform process of the government rolling, though slowly, after the Parliament was converted into a Constitutional Assembly.
The “Ezhuga Thamil” demonstration, though a manifestation of the competition between the TPC and the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) led by R. Sampanthan to outsmart each other, also stressed mainly these two points among others.
One of the major hitches for the Tamil leaders’ demand for the merger of Northern and Eastern provinces has been the lack of support by the Muslims in the Eastern Province, who constitute one third of the population of the province. Hence, the efforts these days made by the Tamil leaders to win over the Muslims are comprehensible.
The latest controversy over Ashraff’s stance on the merger was triggered by a comment made by the TNA Parliamentarian M.A. Sumanthiran after appearing for former LTTE spokesman Velayutham Dayanidhi alias Daya Master before the Vavuniya High Court a few days ago.
Parliamentarian Sumanthiran told journalists, who had gathered outside the court that Ashraff had supported the move by the Tamil leaders to amalgamate the two Provinces and that he had documentary proof.
Two days later State Minister of Rehabilitation and Resettlement M.L.A.M. Hisbullah shot back saying that as a former SLMC member closely associated with Ashraff, he would vouch that his former leader never supported the merger of the two Provinces in question.
Sumanthiran in his part again stated that Hisbullah had got his statement wrong as he had only said that Ashraff had conditionally supported the concept of North East merger.
It is a well-known fact that the SLMC since its inception has been agitating for a Muslim Provincial Council, contiguous at a time and non contiguous at another, in the North and the East.
This has been a demand which was by implication tantamount to conditional support to the amalgamation of the rest of the areas in the two provinces. Hence, documentary proof is needed only to assert the point that Ashraff unconditionally supported the merger of the provinces, had he done so.
One could argue that Ashraff unconditionally supported not only the merger of the North and East, but also the carving out of a separate Tamil State, the Tamil Eelam, when the latter was put forward by the Tamil leaders in 1970s.
During the 1977 General elections Ashraff supported A.M. Samsudeen who contested for the Kalmunai electorate under the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) that called for a mandate for Tamil Eelam, in line with the famous Vaddukkoddai resolution of 1976.
At a public meeting during that election Ashraff had reportedly said “if elder brother Amirthalingam failed to deliver you Tamil Eelam, younger brother Ashraff will do so.” However, Ashraff’s support for the Tamil Eelam concept is not valid today as he changed his stance later.
Even the TULF and the TNA leaders have dissociated themselves from the demand for a separate State. Since the formation of the SLMC on November 29, 1986 Ashraff never supported the merger of the Provinces unconditionally.
His main argument for this policy change was that the percentage of Muslims which stood at 33 in the East would be reduced to a meagre 7%, in case of a merger of the two provinces.
Thus, the SLMC was born with the demand for a Muslim Provincial Council covering the Muslim dominated areas of Kalmunai, Pottuvil and Sammanthurai and later it was named the South Eastern Provincial Council.
In 1988, the SLMC and the All Ceylon Tamil Congress (ACTC) led by the late Kumar Ponnambalam came to an agreement to form two ethnic Provincial Councils in the North and the East, one amalgamating contiguous Tamil areas and the other administratively merging non-contiguous Muslim areas of the two provinces.
This was the first time a Tamil party had accepted the rights of the Muslims to have devolved power. And also this was the first time the non-contiguous Muslim Provincial Council idea was mooted.
The eight-party coalition formed to contest the 1988 Presidential election under the leadership of former Prime Minister the late Sirimavo Bandaranaike had agreed to incorporate this agreement in its manifesto. However, the ACTC and the SLMC withdrew from the coalition due to other disagreements.
The non-contiguous Muslim Provincial Council concept took another turn when eight Tamil parties including those that supported the Indo-Lanka Accord began to find a fresh solution to the ethnic problem by 1990 and they started negotiations with the SLMC.
The agreement reached was to form two Tamil and Muslim Provincial Councils in the North and the East and an “Apex Council”, as it was called, above those ethnic councils. However, when it came to demarcation of boundaries of two ethnic councils, the talks collapsed.
The same agreement was reached between the Tamil parties and the SLMC during talks conducted parallel to the deliberations of a Parliamentary Select Committee on the constitutional reforms in 1997 as well and the talks failed due to the same reason.
Hence, Ashraff, whose charisma is still in the hearts of the Muslims, cannot be called in now in support of the unconditional merger of the Northern and the Eastern Provinces.
Nevertheless, as we pointed out in an earlier article, Tamil and Muslim parties now have to look at the problem afresh in the post-war context.
The demand for the merger of the Northern and the Eastern Provinces was primarily a strategy worked out as a stepping stone for a separate Tamil State, which is presently out of question.
However, now it has become a prestige issue for Tamil leaders, despite its validity being highly questionable in the present context, where more Tamils live outside of the two Provinces.
In the same way, Muslim leaders in the East have to reconsider the validity of a Muslim Provincial Council in the light of the institution of the Eastern Provincial Council in 2007 and other post-war scenarios.
The need of the day is integration of various communities without harming the identity as well as rights of them.
