Sama Samajism is all about people’s participation

21 January 2014 06:30 pm Views - 2031

Sama Samaja means ‘same society’ or ‘equal society’. Thus, though it was used to represent socialism, it had a broad meaning that attracted even bourgeois radicals. Sama Samajism was introduced at a time where liberal democracy in Lanka was in crisis. The Ceylon National Congress (CNC) which vaguely represented liberal democratic thinking in Lankan society could not cope with the rising majoritism among Sinhala leaders. The CNC failed to demand independence or democracy and became an arena for communal conflict. The demand for territorial representation had come to stay and was accepted by the ruling power as the main principle of Parliamentary representation. Nationality representation - through which the Tamils wanted to uphold their identity and minority rights was given a severe beating by certain Sinhala leaders. In this background, even Sir P. Arunachalam thought the only road to salvation for the Tamils lay in a return to the pre-Western order of things, in which the Tamils had a separate identity and a separate sovereignty. Thus he founded the Ceylon Tamil League to safeguard Tamil interests as a distinct nationality.

In an address to the league, Arunachalam said, “The league was brought into existence by a political necessity. But politics is not the raison d’etre. Its aim is much higher. The committee and those responsible for the league consider that our aims should be to keep alive and propagate the Tamil ideals, which have through the ages, and in the past, made the Tamils what they are.

We should keep alive and propagate those ideals throughout Ceylon and promote the union and solidarity of what we have been proud to call ‘Tamil Eelam’. We desire to preserve our individuality as a people, to make ourselves worthy of our inheritance. We are not enamoured of the cosmopolitanism that makes us ‘neither fish, flesh, fowl nor red herring.’
After this, the politics of Lanka began to polarise into two feuding groups - the Sinhalese represented by the CNC and the Tamils, Muslims etc. represented by different community organisations. Instead of a plural movement for independence and democracy, the CNC became an arena for communal conflicts. It became neither an independence movement nor a struggle for democracy. Thus there was a vacuum to be filled by a radical movement for freedom, liberty and equality. Sama Samajism was introduced to fill this space with the broad aims of Independence, Democracy and Socialism, by a group of young people who had gathered together with a common vision.

Thus Sama Samajism did not fall from the sky but had been maturing for some time.  The group of people who formed the idea did not suddenly gather together from nowhere. It was a grouping that had collected as the result of some patient work over a few years. They had followed the history of the European democracies; they were also aware of the struggle of Russia for modernisation and the new turn it took with the Bolsheviks playing the role of Jacobins.

 They were thus committed to democracy as much as they were committed to the idea of social revolution. Not that they wanted to stop at achieving democracy but they were committed to go through the people’s participation in their struggle for Sama Samajism. This is where they sharply differed from the JVP liberationists who were committed to the ‘one party socialism’.

Though the old Sama Samaja leaders were criticised for becoming Parliamentary bourgeoisie at the end of their careers, JVP leaders too finally ended up taking positions in Chandrika Bandaranaike’s Cabinet. What Sama Samajism wanted to establish was the necessity of the people’s participation in the struggle for power and the necessity of the people’s participation in elected councils based in different places of work.

Sama Samajists rejected the democracy based on electorates that did not represent the social category of the elector. They always wanted priority for mass participation in governance through workers’ councils, peasants’ councils, fishermen's councils and various professional councils. Universal franchise should work through the elector’s social connection in the society.

"Efforts in the general political field were more successful. With that experience, the Suriya Mal Movement was launched in November 1933. Emblazoning the words “Peace” and “Freedom” on its banner, the new Suriya Mal Movement came into being. It became a movement against the war as well as a movement for freedom"

With this in mind they tried to build mass organisations in several fields. Efforts were made to break into the working class field, by participating in trade union work. In the trade union field the group came into a head-on clash with Mr. A.E. Goonesinghe, the reformist Labour leader who was also involved in Parliamentary politics. He was a mass leader linked to the British trade union movement. It was necessary to challenge him in the political field. Efforts in the general political field were more successful.

With that experience, the Suriya Mal Movement was launched in November 1933. Emblazoning the words “Peace” and “Freedom” on its banner, the new Suriya Mal Movement came into being. It became a movement against the war as well as a movement for freedom. Young men and women sold Suriya flowers on the streets on November 11 in competition with the Poppy sellers, yearly until the Second World War. The purchasers of the Suriya Mal were generally from the poorer sections of society and the funds collected were not large. But the movement provided a rallying point for the anti-imperialist- minded youth of the time. 

Youth leagues were started in various places having as their aim the winning of complete independence for Ceylon. Anti-imperialist propaganda was carried on under the aegis of the youth leagues. This is how Sama Samajism replaced the crisis-ridden liberal democracy in the struggle against imperialism and reaction.
Today we are faced with a similar situation. We are challenging a fascist- type reactionary power backed by the IMF and global capitalism. Liberal democracy is divided and Ranil’s leadership is arrested by internal troublemakers.

These troublemakers want Ranil to compromise with Sinhala chauvinism. Sama Samajists today should take the responsibility to raise the banner of unity with power sharing and to fight in the forefront against the reactionary Mahinda regime.