Sampanthan and politics of circumstances

Rajavarothayam Sampanthan, the nonagenarian Parliamentarian who breathed his last on Sunday was a Tamil politician who for decades unsuccessfully fought to reconcile the extremists and moderates among Tamil people. 
In a way, one might even describe him as a politician who was trapped between those two groups – extremists and moderates – in his efforts to find a solution to the ethnic problem. 
Also, he was a man who was sometimes attacked by the nationalistic and extremist elements among Sinhalese and Tamils during the same efforts, a fact that indicates the genuineness of those efforts.   
His death is a loss to the Tamil community as he had been throughout his life a crusader for Tamil rights and to the country as a whole as he had been fighting for a united Sri Lanka, while a powerful group of Tamils has been vying to divide the country from far away countries. 
Nevertheless, it is not clear if Sampanthan who during the latter part of his life campaigned for a solution to the ethnic problem within the undivided Sri Lanka regretted his ideological contribution to the three-decade war as one of those who partook in the Vaddukkoddai conference in 1976 where the Tamil Eelam resolution was passed, against the geopolitical realities. 
Former Chairman of the Election Commission, Mahinda Deshapriya in a Facebook post on the death of the leader of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) stated “Long live the memory of Sampanthar, the politician who stood for maximum devolution within the united Sri Lanka.” (Deshapriya seems to know that Sampanthan was sometimes called Sampanthar in Tamil out of respect)
Deshapriya also recalled in a comment on his own post how Sampanthan as a young lawyer got released from prison a group of supporters of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) in 1971 after they were arrested by police for putting up posters about one of their public meetings in February the same year. 

Living example 

Sampanthan’s life could be described as a living example of the myriad of challenges that Tamil politics had encountered at least for the past four decades. The political survival of Tamil politicians in the Northern and Eastern Provinces including him had really been a challenge amidst the suppressive actions by the successive governments, the undemocratic and terrorist activities unleashed by the Tamil armed groups, especially by the LTTE, horrific lives of the Tamil people who were entrapped between these belligerent parties, the bitter rivalries among Tamil political parties and the changing geopolitical realities mainly based on the interests of India.  
In a way, one can argue that the politics of the Northern Tamil leaders since the early eighties has been driven by circumstances rather than being decided by them freely. It would be difficult for the Tamil parties which now have renounced the Vaddukkoddai resolution in a practical sense to evaluate its necessity, due to the rivalry among them – or for fear of being called traitors. 
Yet, the former leader of the Ceylon Communist Party (Peking Wing) Nagalingam Shanmugathasan had once argued that the Tamil United Front (TUF) while changing its name to Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) chose to fight for a separate Tamil state at that conference not as a matter of necessity but as a pressure tactic against the then United Front Government led by Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike. 
He contended that the Tamil parties, especially the Ilankai Thamil Arasu Katchi (ITAK) lost their bargaining power when the United Front won a two-thirds majority at the 1970 General election and it wanted a new slogan to exert pressure on the government which they found in the Vaddukkoddai resolution.
Whatever the reason might have been, the Tamil leaders of the day adopted the resolution to seek a separate state within the territory of Sri Lanka and received an overwhelming mandate for it from the Tamil people, at the 1977 Parliamentary election. Nevertheless, the Tamil Eelam struggle was soon grabbed by the newly formed Tamil armed groups from the leaders of the traditional Tamil parties including Sampanthan who were subsequently labelled by those groups as traitors.  
With the state repression and the activities of the Tamil armed groups mutually intensifying each other, the resultant full-blown war between them forced the Tamil leaders to move to Colombo where they wanted earlier to dissociate from. The passage of the 6th Amendment to the Constitution with its mandatory oath against separatism compelled them to leave the Parliament as well and to relocate in India – another move driven by circumstances. 
Under another context, the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord was signed in 1987. The Accord was a manifestation of India’s stance on the Tamils’ demand for a separate state based on its geopolitical interests and it was clearly announced by the then Indian Foreign Secretary S.K.Singh in the subsequent year. He told the media on the sidelines of the 4th SAARC Summit in Islamabad in December 1988 that India would not allow the creation of the Tamil Eelam since it would be a launching pad for Tamil Nadu separatism. The Tamil leaders in the democratic stream and the armed groups except for the LTTE  understanding India’s message returned to the country and renounced Tamil Eelam to accept provincial councils as the solution to the ethnic problem.

Armed struggle 

Nonetheless, the rejection of the Accord by the LTTE and their resumption of the armed struggle again compelled these leaders to seek a new solution but only to be ignored by the government leaders except for President Chandrika Kumaratunga. The year 2000 saw a dramatic change in the stances of main political parties and LTTE on the national question. Norway intervened as a facilitator to a fresh peace process, at the invitation of President Kumaratunga which was accepted by Ranil Wickremesinghe’s UNP as well. Prior to this, the UNP had torched copies of a new draft Constitution with provisions for a solution to the ethnic problem within the chamber of the Parliament, in the same year.  
On the other hand, the LTTE too accepted the peace process, despite it being by then in a strong position after overrunning the Elephant Pass military complex with over 11,000 soldiers in the same year. It also mellowed its attitude towards other Tamil parties and groups which it hitherto called traitors and started discussions with them. The latter reciprocated by accepting the LTTE as the “sole representative” of the Tamil people, apparently not wholeheartedly but indicating a total surrender. 
How all these changes occurred within a matter of six months was not clear, but the then US Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia, Karl Inderfurth had told the Chennai based The Hindu in April 2000 that his government told the UNP to support the Norway-sponsored peace process. Did they influence the other stakeholders as well?  

Peace process 

The peace process which was actively put in place when Ranil Wickremesinghe assumed office as Prime Minister in December 2001 catapulted Sampanthan to the leadership of Tamils in the democratic stream, as it split the TULF, with V. Anandasangaree leaving it with its signboard and a small faction of it. Yet, Sampanthan and others had to continue to obey the dictates of the circumstances as all decisions on behalf of Tamils were taken by their “sole representative.” 
The responsibility of finding a lasting solution to the ethnic problem rested solely with Sampanthan subsequent to the end of the war in 2009. However, he could not move forward owing to the pressure from nationalistic and racist elements on both sides of the ethnic divide. The best case in point was the role he played in the efforts made by the Yahapalana Government to bring in a new Constitution in 2016. 
Nevertheless, in fairness to Sampanthan we must recall that he attempted on some occasions to make decisions independent of circumstances. He called on the Tamil diaspora at the 14th Convention of the ITAK in 2012 to let the Tamil leaders in the country to make decisions on the fate of his community, claiming that they knew the situation more than those living outside of the country.  
Similarly, when former UN Human Rights High Commissioner, Navanethem Pilley released the report of her investigation on human rights violations in 2014 accusing the armed forces and the LTTE of killing and abduction among others, Sampanthan openly declared that Tamils must accept the fact that crimes have been committed in their name.