Tamil Eelam Liberation Struggle
by A.S. Balasingham 1977
Source: bannedthought.net;
Transcribed: for marxists.org by Laxshen.
1. — Introduction
2. — The Tamil National Question in Sri Lanka
3. — Historical Background
4. — Plantation Economy
5. — English and the Eelam Nation
6. — Sinhala Nationalism
7. — NATIONAL OPPRESSION
8. — Sinhala Colonisation of Tamil Lands
9. — Politics of Language, Education and Employment
10. — Economic Strangulation
11. — Tamil Agitations and Racial Terrorism
12. — An Infamous Regime and Institutionalised Oppression
13. — The Struggle for Secession
14. — The New Government and the Oppressive Laws
15. — Lenin - Our Theoretical Guide
16. — Self-determination and Secession
17. — Inalienable Right of a Nation
18. — Proletarian Internationalism
19. — Intolerable Oppression and Inevitable Secession
20. — The Role of the Revolutionary Marxists
21. — The Role of the Progressives of the Oppressor Nation
"A people which enslaves another forges its own chains." - Karl Marx
"No nation can be free while it continues to oppress other nations." - Friedrich Engels
"A socialist of any of the oppressor nations who does not recognize and does not struggle for the right of oppressed nations to self-determination, i.e., for the right to secession, is in reality a chauvinist, not a socialist." - V. I. Lenin
National liberation struggles are being fought on several fronts across the world today. Oppressed peoples and nations are waging determined struggles against imperialism, neo-colonialism, totalitarian tyranny, national chauvinism, and many other forms of oppression. Each of these revolutionary struggles has its own historical specificity, its own concrete conjunctural situations, which determine the structure, strategy, and ideology of each liberation struggle.
Within the specificity and particularity of these liberation struggles lies the universal historical principle of socialist revolutionary doctrine, that it is the oppressed masses who are the potential revolutionary force, the true historical force, and that it is the oppressed who create history and change the world. Within the context of this historical law of social development and transformation, the Marxist-Leninist theoretical and political framework recognizes that the national liberation struggle of any oppressed nation is progressive in essence and holds revolutionary potential if it is articulated within the sphere of democratic struggle and proletarian revolution.
The right of nations to self-determination, in Lenin's formulation, is a realistic revolutionary theory that upholds the universal socialist principle of the fundamental right of a nation to secede and form a state of its own. This principle is aimed at protecting small nations from the oppression generated by the national chauvinism of larger nations. It is designed to preserve a nation's cultural and ethnic identity, and if adhered to truly and fairly, it can create the necessary foundation for justice, equality, and genuine freedom.
The Tamil national question in Sri Lanka is being agitated on the basis of the Tamil nation's right to self-determination. For the last thirty years, the Tamil nation of Eelam has been subjected to severe oppression. This took the form of violent repression perpetrated against a small nation by the national chauvinism of a larger one, the Sinhala nation, whose ruling elite pursued a disastrous policy aimed at destroying the ethnic identity of the Tamil-speaking people and threatening their very survival. Years of struggle against the denial of basic human rights were met with increasingly violent forms of suppression, and national friction grew acute, culminating in a historical conjuncture in which a revolutionary rupture from joint existence became the inevitable alternative.
To the world community, the Sri Lankan ruling class portrays the island as a tranquil country, cherishing Buddhist ideals of peace and Dharma, and following a harmless political doctrine of non-alignment. Yet behind this mystification lies the stark reality: national oppression, the blatant violation of basic human rights, racial crimes, police and military violence, and attempted genocide. Masterminding the worst forms of capitalist exploitation under the slogans of democracy and socialism, the Sinhala ruling class has, since independence, reinforced its political power with an abominable ideology of national chauvinism and religious fanaticism. By utilizing such ideological apparatus, and by actively pursuing a calculated policy of national oppression, the ruling bourgeoisie has maintained its domination over the proletariat of the oppressor nation.
At the same time, Sinhala bourgeois nationalism has inadvertently fostered the polarization of the heterogeneous masses of the oppressed Tamil nation. Class elements of the peasantry, proletariat, petty bourgeoisie, and the various caste strata have coalesced into a mass national independence movement headed by the Tamil bourgeois leadership. Since a national democratic struggle is progressive in its essence, and since the struggle against oppression is revolutionary in its character, the task of proletarian revolutionaries is to support that struggle, even when it is led by the bourgeoisie, and to adopt a strategy that advances it towards national liberation and socialist revolution.
Lenin's writings on the national question provide a clear class strategy: the task of revolutionary Marxists is to frustrate any collaboration between the bourgeoisie of the oppressed and oppressor nations, to ensure the development of proletarian class consciousness within the oppressed nation, to strengthen that class in alliance with the peasantry and petty bourgeoisie, and to establish revolutionary proletarian leadership capable of directing the struggle against the oppressive bourgeois state.
We advocate the Eelam Liberation struggle must be articulated within a theoretical and political strategy which, we believe, will advance our democratic struggle toward national liberation and socialist revolution. Situating our struggle within the political sphere of proletarian revolution, we declare that we are revolutionary allies of the conscious proletariat of the oppressor nation, who recognize our right to self-determination, that is, our right to secede and form an independent state, and call upon them to give us unconditional and unwavering support in our fight against the common enemy, the repressive bourgeois state apparatus.
This political document is an attempt to introduce our national liberation struggle to the world community, particularly to socialist movements. Through a socio-economic and political analysis of our struggle, we argue that our fight for national liberation is progressive and revolutionary, and fits within the revolutionary praxis of Marxism and Leninism. This document also addresses controversial debates arising from the mystifications advanced by so-called Marxist politicians in Sri Lanka regarding the concept of self-determination in relation to the Tamil national question. These theoretical distortions, which ignore concrete analysis of real situations, we show are nothing more than disguised political opportunism.
Western capitalism, in its historical stages of expansion and drive for global hegemony, penetrated the social formations of the so-called underdeveloped world. These penetrative effects generated enormous socio-economic and political problems that still affect these countries even after their formal independence. Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon) was a cruel victim of such colonial domination. From Portuguese mercantile penetration in the 16th century to British imperialism, the island experienced over four hundred and fifty years of exploitation and underwent profound structural transformations in both its economic base and superstructural forms.
The most far-reaching structural mutation was effected by the British through the forceful amalgamation of the Tamil and Sinhala kingdoms into a unitary state, laying the foundation for the present national conflict in 1833.
For centuries before colonial domination, the Tamils and Sinhalese lived on the island as distinct nations, as sovereign peoples. The history of the Tamils in the island dates back to prehistoric times. When the first Sinhalese arrived with their legendary Prince Vijaya from Northern India in the 6th century B.C., the Dravidians (Tamils) were already living on the island. Though the question of original settlement is obscured by legend and mythology, modern scholars agree that Tamils were indisputably the island's first The earliest settlers.
Mahavamsa, the Sinhalese historical chronicle, records the turbulent history of the island from the 6th century B.C., including great wars between Tamil and Sinhalese kings, invasions from South Indian Tamil empires, and struggles for supremacy between the Tamil and Sinhalese kingdoms. At times, the island was ruled by Tamil kings, and at other times by Sinhalese kings. Intermittent wars often forced the Sinhalese kings to move their capitals southwards. From the 13th century onwards, until the advent of foreign colonialism, the Tamils lived as a stable national entity in their own kingdom, ruled by their own kings, within a defined territory comprising the Northern and Eastern provinces.
Marco Polo once described Sri Lanka as the "island paradise of the earth," while the British referred to it as the "pearl of the Indian Ocean." Separated from the southern coast of India by only a 22-mile stretch of water, the island has an area of 25,332 square miles, roughly half the size of England. For centuries before colonial penetration, the island had a traditional self-sustaining economy and was renowned as the granary of the East.
The mode of production in the pre-colonial epoch was feudal in character, with lingering elements of the Asiatic mode. Within this feudal structure, the economic organization of the Tamil nation had a unique set of production relations, characterized by caste stratification and a hierarchy of functions. The extensive hydraulic system of tanks and canals, for which medieval Ceylon was famous, had fallen into decay and was disappearing under the jungles of the North and North Central provinces. Meanwhile, the Sinhalese feudal aristocracy had moved to the central highlands and established Kandy as the capital.
When the Portuguese first landed on the island in the early 16th century, they encountered two ancient kingdoms: Tamils in the north and east, and Sinhalese in the south. These were two distinct social formations with different languages and cultures, each constituting a separate nation ruled by its own kings. The Portuguese initially entered into treaties, then fought battles, and ultimately conquered the Tamil kingdom in 1619, executing the Tamil king Sankili Kumaran. The Portuguese and later the Dutch governed the Tamil nation as a separate state entity until the British, in the 19th century, established a unified administration that linked both nations into a single state.
It is beyond the scope of this paper to document a detailed historical analysis of the various forms and stages of foreign capitalist penetration, the multiple socio-economic effects, and the contradictions that emerged, which transformed both the economic base and the superstructural forms, generating the dynamics of the capitalist mode of production in the Sri Lankan social formation. It is suffice to say that the penetrative effects of the Portuguese and the Dutch colonial rule on the Sri Lankan pre-capitalist economic formation are minimal when compared to the profound effects of British imperialism.
The most significant historical event of the British imperial rule that brought about catastrophic changes in the economic life of the island was the superimposition of an exploitative plantation economy on a traditional self-sustaining peasant economy, a gigantic economic transplantation that transformed the rich fertile hill lands of the island into pockets of tea and rubber plantations. Such a Herculean economic task was performed by conscripting a massive army of cheap labourers drawn from Southern India, a workforce of hundreds of thousands of Tamil labourers, who, partly by their own poverty and partly by coercion, moved into this promised land to be condemned to an appalling form of slave labour.
Thus, an economic structure was built by this immiserated mass, whose sweat and blood generated the surplus value to feed the greedy vultures of British imperialism. This plantation economy expanded with British entrepreneurial investments, export markets, and consolidated companies, transforming the structure of production and effectively changing the economic foundation of the old feudal mode and creating a basis for the development of the capitalist mode of production. Though the plantation economy effectively changed the process of production, the labour market remained unchanged. The Tamil labourers, men, women, children, and their descendants, were permanently condemned to slavery under the white masters and the indigenous bourgeoisie. Thus, British imperialism built up the Tamil plantation proletariat within the heartland of the Kandyan Sinhalese and manipulated the Tamil-Sinhala antagonism to divide and rule and to defeat the class struggle.
The impact of British imperial domination on the Tamil nation of Eelam, constituted by the indigenous Tamil-speaking people of the Northern and Eastern provinces, had far-reaching effects. On the political level, British imperialism imposed a unified administration with centralised institutions, establishing a singular state structure which ended the separate existence of Tamil statehood. This forceful annexation and amalgamation of two separate states, of two nations of people, disregarding their past historical existence, their socio-cultural distinctions, and their ethnic differences, was the root cause of the Tamil-Sinhala antagonism.
The Tamil social formation of Eelam was structured within a rigid caste system, a socio-economic organisation typified by hierarchical divisions of labour, in which power, privilege, and status were enjoyed by the high-caste Hindus, the minority of whom (the landowners and business elites) owned the means of production and exploited the rest, particularly the so-called "untouchables." Privileged by caste, and provided with better educational facilities created by foreign missionaries, the high-caste Hindus adopted the English educational system. A new class of English-educated professionals and white-collar workers emerged and became a part of the bureaucratic structure of the civil service. The English imperial masters encouraged the Tamils and provided them with a major share in the State administration and armed services, with the motive of checking the political power and revolt of the Sinhala majority, a notorious strategy of balance of power, which later sparked the fires of Sinhala nationalism. The Tamils, inhabiting the most infertile, under-developed regions of the dry zone, where the prospects of agriculture and industry are limited, concentrated on English education and looked upon sedentary jobs as the only way to economic salvation.
The Tamil dominance in the State administrative structure, as well as in the plantation economic sector, and the privileges enjoyed by the English-educated elites, the spread of Christianity, are factors that propelled the emergence of Sinhala nationalism. In the early stages, nationalist tendencies took the form of Buddhist revival, which gradually assumed a powerful political dominance. Under the slogan of Buddhist religious renaissance, a national chauvinistic ideology emerged with strong sediments of Tamil antagonism. The ecclesiastical leadership attacked both the Tamil and European colonialists and spoke of the greatness of the Sinhalese Aryan race.
To quote a typical example:
"Ethnologically, the Sinhalese are a unique race, inasmuch as they can boast that they have no slave blood in them, and were never conquered by either the pagan Tamils or European vandals who for three centuries devastated the land, destroyed ancient temples, and nearly annihilated the historic race. This bright, beautiful island was made into a paradise by the Aryan Sinhalese before its destruction was brought about by the barbaric vandals."
(Anagarika Dharmapala, History of an Ancient Civilization).
The Sinhala national chauvinism that emerged from the Buddhist religious resurgence viewed the Tamil dominance in the State apparatus and in the economy as a threat to "national development," and such national antagonism, articulated on the ideological level, began to take concrete forms of social, political, and economic oppression soon after national independence in 1948, when State power was transferred to the Sinhala national bourgeoisie.
The theoretical perspective of historical materialism necessitates the investigation of any national movement in relation to the historical development of world capitalism. The nationalism of the European nation-states arose with the collapse of feudalism and the transition to capitalism, with the unification of markets and the revolutionary development of productive forces, leading to the birth of a new bourgeois class. The ascendency of the bourgeoisie and bourgeois nationalism led to the oppression and exploitation of other nations. The advanced stage of capitalist development gave rise to monopoly capitalism, which took the global form of imperialism. The imperialist penetration and its form of oppression produced determinant effects on the mode of production of the peripheral social formations. Separating the direct producers from their means of production and creating a mass of free labourers, these effects generated the dynamics of the capitalist mode in the penetrated societies. The development of the productive forces in the capitalist mode led to the organisation of the proletariat as a revolutionary class force.
The imperialist penetration not only generated the mechanisms of capitalist development but also shifted the national struggles to the peripheral social formations. In this context, the nature of nationalism, the national struggle, and the class relations in the national movements of the Third World countries must be viewed in relation to the transformations in the expanding world capitalist economy, its global effects, and its structural relations with developing peripheral capitalism. The world capitalist hegemony and the development of the revolutionary proletarian classes within the space of imperialist dominance have changed the structure and character of the contemporary national struggles of the Third World. The so-called progressive national bourgeoisie has lost its revolutionary character to advance the national struggle as a democratic social force. The historical conjuncture of global capitalism has eliminated all progressive elements of the national bourgeoisie; its historical role in the national revolution has shifted to the revolutionary proletariat. Such structural transformation in the class elements has necessitated a revolutionary socialist strategy inter-relating the class struggle with the national liberation struggle under the leadership of the revolutionary proletariat, a strategy to advance the class struggle along with the national liberation struggle, both against the indigenous bourgeoisie and international capitalism.
Constrained by world capital, the national bourgeoisie can no longer play a constructive role in the national democratic revolution. This is evidenced in the history of Sri Lanka after "independence." The reactionary character of the Sri Lankan national bourgeoisie began to show its ugly face not only in its collusion with world capital to perpetuate a dependent economy, but also in its chauvinistic policies against the Tamil nation, a policy primarily aimed at dividing and weakening the working-class movement of the Sinhalese masses.
Having firmly entrenched the national bourgeoisie in a global neo-colonial structure, British imperialism granted "independence" to the people of Sri Lanka, with the British Queen as their sovereign head. Motivated by their class interests, the national bourgeoisie collaborated with the British, accepted their constitution, and assumed power. After the so-called national independence, the national bourgeoisie started to betray its reactionary character. Conflicts arose between the Tamil and Sinhala bourgeoisie over the share of political power.
Sinhala nationalists dominated the scene and gained control over the state machinery.
The history of national oppression started to unfold in its ugly viciousness within six months of the transfer of political power. The first major onslaught of Sinhala national chauvinism was directed at the Tamil plantation proletariat, disenfranchising more than half a million of this working mass with the most infamous citizenship legislation in Sri Lankan political history, which robbed these people of their basic human rights and reduced them to statelessness.
The national oppression against the Tamil nation of Eelam has a history of thirty years; a calculated, systematic oppression, reinforced by the State repressive apparatus, which seriously affected the social, political, economic, and cultural life of the Tamil-speaking masses and finally threatened the nation's geographical entity and its ethnic entity. The oppression assumed a multi-dimensional character, simultaneously affecting different levels of existence of this nation of people: on language, on education, on economy, on land, that jeopardized the very existence of that social totality and made unitary existence impossible. This oppression has been practised by all successive governments headed by the Sinhala national bourgeoisie, including the now-defunct old left, which slipped into the dirt of Sinhala chauvinism during its temporary episode of political power.
A calculated programme of gradual penetration and annexation of the traditional Tamil lands, which began soon after "national independence," masterminded by J.R. Jayawardene (who has now assumed absolute power as dictator), has now engulfed nearly three thousand square miles of Eelam nation. This planned occupation of Tamil lands by hundreds of thousands of Sinhala people, aided and abetted by the state machinery in areas where a huge mass of landless Tamil peasantry is striving for a tiny plot to toil, has generated fear, hostility, and hopelessness amongst the Tamil-speaking masses. The worst-affected area is the Eastern province, where planned colonisation has produced two new parliamentary constituencies and robbed huge bulks of land from the Tamil-speaking people of Islamic faith.
The Mahaweli Ganga project of the present bourgeois dictatorship, aided by world capital, is aimed at penetrating the North with an army of occupation. Fear runs high amongst the Tamils, since the government's announcement in July this year, that a para-military corps of 150,000 youths will be trained and colonised in this development project for the "security" of these lands.
This consistent policy of forceful colonisation of Tamil areas, ignoring the development of vast expanses of fertile lands in the South, has made the Tamil-speaking people realize the vicious nature of the oppression they are confronted with. In addition to this, the constant racial violence that erupts in some sensitive colonised areas, resulting in the loss of Tamil life and property, has awakened the necessity and urgency to struggle for survival.
The national oppression of the Sinhala bourgeoisie soon penetrated into the sphere of language, education, and employment. The chauvinist "Sinhala Only" movement, spearheaded by Mr. Bandaranayake, brought him to political power in 1956. His first Act in Parliament put an end to the official equal status enjoyed by the Tamil language and made Sinhala the only official language of the country. The "Sinhala Only Act" demanded proficiency in Sinhala for the civil service. Tamil public servants, deprived of the rights to increments and promotions, were forced to learn the language or leave employment. Employment opportunities in the public service were practically closed to Tamils. Racial discrimination against the Tamils in employment soon extended to other services and sectors.
The Tamil Public Servants Union (Arasanga Eluthu Vinayar Sangam) observed the steady decline of Tamil representation in the services from 1956 to 1970 in the following percentages.
| 1956 | 1970 | |
|---|---|---|
| Ceylon Administrative Service | 30% | 5% |
| Clerical Service | 50% | 5% |
| Professions | 60% | 10% |
| Armed Forces | 40% | 1% |
In 1972, the "Sinhala Only Act" was given constitutional status and the minor concessions given to the use of Tamil were axed, thus institutionalising and legalising the national oppression. The most shattering dismay experienced by the Tamils in this notorious onslaught of Sinhala chauvinism was the collaboration of the traditional Marxist parties, the old LSSP Trotskyites and the Communist Party, with the SLFP, the national bourgeois party headed by Mrs. Bandaranayake, in framing such an infamous constitution.
Education was the sphere in which the most blatant discrimination was practised against the Tamil youth, particularly in their university admissions. An infamous discriminatory selective device called "standardisation" was introduced in 1970 to arrest the Tamil dominance in higher education. This racialist scheme demanded higher marks from Tamil students for admission. The ratio of aggregate "A" level marks demanded for admission for Tamil and Sinhalese students were as follows.
| Tamil Students | Sinhala Students | |
|---|---|---|
| Medicine | 250 | 229 |
| Engineering | 250 | 227 |
| Physical Sciences | 204 | 183 |
| Biological Sciences | 184 | 175 |
This discriminatory device seriously affected the prospects of higher education of the Tamil youth. The admission figures gradually dropped from 40% in 1960 to 15% in 1975.
Angered by the imposition of an alien language, frustrated without the possibility of higher education, and plunged into the despair of unemployed existence, the Tamil youth grew militant with an iron determination to fight back the national oppression.
National oppression showed its intensity in the economic strangulation of the Eelam nation. Apart from a few state-owned factories built soon after "independence," Tamil areas were totally isolated from all the national development projects for nearly a quarter of a century. While the State poured all the economic aid into the South, and the Sinhala nation flourished with massive development projects, the Tamil nation was alienated as an unwanted colony, isolated into the wilderness of economic deprivation.
The most tragic fact is that while the Tamil nation gradually deteriorated into economic backwardness, wasting its potential productive labour, the Tamil capitalists, encouraged and aided by the Sinhala ruling class, invested in the South; a brutal fact illustrating the class collaboration and class interests of the Tamil bourgeoisie.
Since the implementation of the "Sinhala Only Act" in 1956, the Federal Party, headed by the Tamil bourgeois nationalists, organised mass agitational campaigns demanding a federal form of autonomy for the Tamil-speaking people. The Sinhala ruling class, threatened by the emerging Tamil nationalism, agreed to give concessions, and a pact was signed. The pact provided some elements of political autonomy under regional councils with a promise to stop Sinhala colonisation in Tamil areas.
The pact sparked off suspicion and anger among the Sinhalese, and the man who exploited this explosive situation at that time was none other than the present "Dharmista" President, J.R. Jayawardane, who, with the support of the Buddhist monks, organised a massive protest march to Kandy demanding the abrogation of the pact. This Sinhalese chauvinistic upsurge forced the late Premier Mr. Bandaranayake to abandon the pact.
This betrayal of the Sinhala bourgeoisie intensified the national aspirations of the Tamils, and the relations between the two nations became hostile. The national friction became intense and exploded into violent racial riots in 1958, in which hundreds of Tamil-speaking people were massacred and their property destroyed.
The 1958 racial holocaust cut a deep wedge in the relations between the Tamil and Sinhala nations. Tamil national sentiments ran high and erupted into massive agitational campaigns on the Tamil political scene. In 1961, the Federal Party launched a non-violent civil disobedience campaign and demanded equal rights for the Tamil language.
The State oppressive machinery reacted swiftly, unleashing a barbarous military violence against the peaceful agitators. The nationalist leaders were arrested and kept in detention for six months.
In 1965, the Sinhala national bourgeois party, the United National Party, assumed political power. The Tamil bourgeois nationalists collaborated with the new Government, and a few concessions were granted to the use of the Tamil language. A secret pact was also made but soon abrogated by the pressure of Sinhala opposition.
The political history of Sri Lanka from 1970 to 1977 consists of astounding events and unprecedented upheavals, events of great betrayals and shameful class collaborations; events of violent revolts and brutal reprisals. For both the oppressed Tamil nation and the suppressed Sinhala masses, this historical epoch, marked by the reign of an unscrupulous infamous regime, taught the most painful lessons of political oppression. The Tamil nation faced institutionalised oppression, and the events that unfolded concretised the objective conditions of national contradiction, precipitating the dynamics of a revolutionary rupture. The working class movement as a whole suffered a tragic setback due to national chauvinism and the betrayal of the left leadership.
An unholy political matrimony between the national bourgeois party of Mrs. Bandaranayake and the traditional old left brought into power what was mistakenly called the "Popular Front", the LSSP and the CP Government. As soon as this new Government assumed power, it was confronted with a revolutionary insurrection. Unemployed militant youth and sections of landless peasantry rose in organised rebellion in the South. This sudden uprising of adventurist revolutionary youth, taking the form of a widespread armed rebellion, was met with the most barbaric military suppression. The episode ended with the mass slaughter of ten thousand Sinhalese youth and the imprisonment of another fifteen thousand.
This unprecedented youth insurrection alarmed the ruling class. Frightened by the possibilities of further revolutionary upsurgence emanating from the oppressed sections, the ruling bourgeoisie decided to stabilise its grip on the State apparatus through emergency laws and other oppressive legislations. The most significant of these, in relation to national oppression, was the proclamation of a new Republican Constitution in 1972.
The new constitution not only removed the fundamental rights and privileges accorded to the national minorities in the previous constitution but also categorically rejected all amendments and resolutions proposed on behalf of the Tamil-speaking people. Sinhala national chauvinism reigned supreme in the deliberations of the Constituent Assembly, which resulted in the Tamil members of Parliament walking out in utter frustration and hopelessness. Thus, this infamous constitution brought an end to Tamil participation in the sharing of State power.
In 1972, the adoption of this notorious constitution created an atmosphere of political alienation for a nation of people and set a deep crisis in the Tamil-Sinhala relationship. The constitution legalised national oppression and delegated excessive powers to the police to dominate and suppress the Tamil nation. The police practised excessive violence indiscriminately against innocent people, primarily targeting Tamil youth. This tyranny manifested in the horrors of torture, imprisonment without trial, and murders. The victimised youth grew militant and reacted with acts of violence and terrorism.
The Sinhala ruling elite, unable to resolve the national economic crisis and mounting social problems, adopted the reactionary strategy of intensifying national chauvinistic oppression to retain State power by dividing and dominating the Sinhala working class. Thus, the Sinhala national bourgeoisie utilised its invariable policy of national chauvinism to prevent the mobilisation of the revolutionary proletariat against the State machinery. The collusion of the old left in this bourgeois plot struck a shattering blow to the working class movement as a whole.
During the reign of this so-called Popular Front Government, the national oppression of the large Sinhala nation against the small Tamil nation assumed such severity that joint existence became intolerable. The contradiction between the nations assumed concrete reality, and the masses of the oppressed nation began to polarise into a single movement for a secessionist cause.
At the peak of national oppression, when secession became the inevitable political destiny of the Eelam nation, the Tamil bourgeois nationalist parties converged into a single movement: the Tamil United Liberation Front, formed in 1976. The Front asked for a clear mandate from the people to wage a national struggle for secession.
At the general elections, the Front explicitly stated in its political manifesto:
"The Tamil Nation must take the decision to establish its sovereignty in its homeland on the basis of its right to self-determination. The only way to announce this decision to the Sinhalese government and to the world is to vote for the Tamil United Liberation Front."
In reference to the Tamil National Question, the verdict at the elections was very crucial. The election was fought precisely on a decision to secede. In a political sense, it assumed the character of a plebiscite, a public expression of a nation's will. The Tamil-speaking people voted overwhelmingly in favour of secession. In other words, the people of the Eelam nation exercised, through democratic political practice, their right to self-determination, the right to secede and form a State of their own.
Thus began a new historical epoch in Tamil politics, ushering in the revolutionary struggle of a people for national liberation against oppression.
The general elections in Sri Lanka last year brought into existence two powerful and mutually irreconcilable political forces: the Tamil National Independence movement demanding secession and separate existence as a sovereign State, and the Sinhala bourgeois dictatorship seeking absolute State power to dominate and oppress all sections of the masses. Thus emerged a major political contradiction between the two nations. The intensity of this contradiction took its manifest forms immediately after the elections through the sudden explosion of a racial holocaust unprecedented in its violence towards the Tamils, followed by armed terrorist violence against the State police by militant Tamil youth.
In this island-wide racial conflagration, hundreds of Tamils were mercilessly massacred, their property destroyed, and thousands of them made refugees. The State police openly colluded with the vandals and hooligans in their acts of arson, rape, and murder. Instead of containing the violence, which was raging with uncontrollable ferocity with the blessings of the guardians of public safety, the government made inflammatory statements with racial connotations that added fuel to the fire.
This racial horror had a profound impact on Tamil political thinking. It stiffened Tamil militancy in their demand for secession. It shattered all hopes of a parliamentary form of agitation for the resolution of the Tamil National Question. It exposed the political impotence of the Tamil bourgeois leadership, which merely invoked the flames of Tamil nationalism but never implemented a concrete practical program of political action to liberate the oppressed nation.
A profound disillusionment struck the militant Tamil youth, who became disenchanted with the political strategy of non-violence that the leadership had advocated for the past thirty years, producing no political results. Caught up in a revolutionary situation generated by the contradictions of national oppression and constantly victimised by police brutality, the youths were forced to abandon the Gandhian doctrine of "ahimsha", which they realised was irreconcilable with revolutionary politics, and chose the path of violence and terrorism.
The determinant conjunctural factor that led to the growth of terrorism in Tamil politics was the political vacuum created by the absence of an authentic national liberation movement, structured within a revolutionary political theory and practice to lead the struggle. Confronted with such emptiness, and impelled by the necessity of concrete action, youth militancy and its revolutionary ardour took an extreme course in the politics of terrorism. The terrorist assaults were not indiscriminate acts of violence but carefully selected targets, primarily aimed at senior police officers notorious for tyranny and torture against the youth, and Tamil political opportunists who betrayed the Tamil cause.
Alarmed by the acts of terrorist violence carried out by the militant Tamil youth, who openly proclaimed themselves as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the ruling bourgeoisie utilised the situation to tighten its arm of autocratic domination. The government dispatched large contingents of armed forces to Tamil areas, effectively turning the Tamil nation into a permanently occupied territory.
In the meantime, an infamous repressive legislation was rushed through Parliament, which not only proscribed the Tiger movement but also made any revolutionary struggle against the State illegal. The legislation contained such devious clauses that even trade union struggles could be construed as a threat to the State and condemned as illegal. Thus, the bourgeois dictatorship achieved two objectives with a single measure: suppressing the Tamil agitation and curbing the proletarian struggle.
The first part of this paper briefly documents the specific historical conjunctures and their determinant effects in generating the demand for secession. The principal factor that propelled the dynamics of national friction, leading to the inevitable choice of political independence, was national oppression. Therefore, in the study of the Tamil National Question, oppression, that is, the oppression of a large nation against a smaller nation, perpetrated within the power structure of a unitary state, becomes the crucial element for both theoretical analysis and political strategy.
Positing the problem within the theoretical discourse of Marxism, we assert that Lenin's theoretical elucidations and political strategies provide an adequate basis for a precise formulation of this question. Lenin's exposition of the concept of self-determination, which primarily deals with a nation's right to secession and statehood, is adopted here as a theoretical guide to present the Tamil National Question and its political implications concretely.
Our reliance on Lenin's formulations is based on the fact that neither Marx, Engels, nor any other theoretician offers a systematic theory with a concrete political strategy for proletarian praxis in relation to the national question. Indisputably, Lenin's works continue to stand as a theoretical and political paradigm in this domain, engaging the problem in manifold aspects. Situating the question within the framework of historical materialism and providing a historico-economic analysis, Lenin advances a correct proletarian perspective on the national question, inter-relating the national struggle with the proletarian class struggle. His analysis exposes the limitations and bankruptcy of bourgeois democracy and the dangers of extreme bourgeois nationalism. Lenin firmly maintained that the non-recognition or rejection of the problems of national minorities would deeply affect the working-class movement and obstruct the proletarian struggle for socialist revolution.
While taking Lenin's discourse as our guide, we are not blind to the fact that every national struggle must be situated within the context of its own concrete historical conditions. The Tamil nation, demanding political independence, emerged from historical conjunctures, which we have already outlined, arising primarily from the contradictions of national oppression. Therefore, the struggle must be confined to the theoretical specifications and political implications of that nation's right to secession. Within this context, many questions are posed: whether the oppressed Tamil nation has the right to secede; whether the right of that nation to self-determination contravenes the socialist principle of proletarian internationalism; under what political and economic conditions of oppression a nation will opt for secession; whether such a decision to secede and the struggle for political independence will serve the interests of the class struggle of both the oppressed and the oppressor nations; whether the struggle for political independence has the revolutionary potential to promote proletarian revolution and the socialist transformation of the oppressed Tamil social formation; what role and strategy should be adopted by the proletarian revolutionaries of the oppressed nation whose national movement is headed by the bourgeoisie; and what kind of political strategy can best serve the class interests of the proletariat of both the oppressed and the oppressor nations, a strategy which must be adopted by the Marxist revolutionaries of the oppressor nation who are caught between a progressive struggle of an oppressed nation and a reactionary bourgeois nationalism of the oppressor nation.
These problems are raised and hotly debated within the context of the Tamil National Question. These debates and arguments, enmeshed with vague generalizations and loose conceptualizations, have created so much confusion and controversy that clarity and a correct perspective on this issue have become absolutely essential. Some of the Marxist political movements in Sri Lanka (not including the disintegrated old left, who in the 1960s abandoned their radical stand on the Tamil question to fall prey to Sinhala bourgeois chauvinism) are caught up in this theoretical muddle. Calling themselves Leninists, these Marxists advance a theory of proletarian internationalism as if it is dialectically opposed to the right of a nation to self-determination, a crude theoretical blindness similar to the position of Rosa Luxemburg, whose vague notions on the national question were bitterly criticized and rejected by Lenin. To reinforce their theoretical arguments, these pseudo-Marxists are making "quilt" quotations from Lenin's texts; That is, sentences are picked from various contexts on the theme of proletarian internationalism to distort and denounce a progressive struggle of an oppressed nation. One of the aims of our theoretical endeavor is to challenge these positions, expose the political opportunism behind this vulgarized Marxism, and advance a correct proletarian perspective on the Tamil National Question.
The Tamil nation is a historically constituted social formation, possessing all the basic elements that are usually assembled to define a concrete characterization of a nation. Even the crudest Stalinist definition can be advanced in our case.
Yet a definitional to what constitutes a nation is theoretically unnecessary, since we can precisely formulate our issue within the Leninist conceptual framework of the self-determination of nations.
The concept of self-determination requires a precise and clear definition. Such clarification is vital to our national question, as some of the so-called Marxist-Leninists in Sri Lanka are confused about this basic concept. The most absurd misrepresentations and misconceptualizations of this idea arise from a position in which the right of the Tamil nation to self-determination is recognized while opposing secession. Attempting to appear radical as revolutionaries, these political opportunists proclaim that the Tamil-speaking people, as an oppressed nation, have the right to self-determination, but they do not have the right to secede. It is precisely in this position that one finds a calculated distortion of a clearly defined concept.
Lenin's texts on the national question consistently reiterate that the self-determination of nations means nothing less than secession and the formation of an independent state. To quote a couple of examples:
"Consequently, if we want to grasp the meaning of self-determination of nations, not by juggling with legal definitions, or "inventing" abstract definitions, but by examining the historico-economic conditions of the national movements, we must inevitably reach the conclusion that the self-determination of nations means the political separation of these nations from alien national bodies and the formation of an independent national state."
(Lenin, The Right of Nations to Self-Determination, 1914)
Again, in the same theoretical essay, Lenin writes:
"Self-determination of nations in the Marxist programme cannot, from a historico-economic point of view, have any other meaning than political self-determination, state independence, and the formation of a national state."
Thus, Lenin offers a precise definition: The right of nations to self-determination means the right of an oppressed nation to secede from the oppressor nation and form an independent state. Those who claim to recognize the right of the oppressed Tamil nation to self-determination but argue that this right does not include secession are neither Marxists nor Leninists, but chauvinists hiding behind socialist slogans.To characterize these pseudo-socialists in Lenin's own words:
"A socialist in any of the oppressor nations who does not recognize and struggle for the right of oppressed nations to self-determination (i.e., the right to secession) is in reality a chauvinist, not a socialist."
The freedom of an oppressed nation to secede, in Lenin's theoretical analysis, is advanced, on one level, as a universal socialist principle of workers democracy, a cornerstone of what Lenin calls "consistent democracy." On a different level, the struggle of an oppressed nation for secession is seen as a revolutionary basis for mass action, a ground for a proletarian onslaught against the bourgeoisie. Therefore, the political genius of Lenin situates the struggle of oppressed nations within the realms of socialist democracy and proletarian revolution. It is precisely within these two spheres that we wish to situate the Tamil National Question, to elucidate the progressive and revolutionary character of this independence struggle.
In championing the right of secession and articulating the principle of self-determination within the national democratic programme, Lenin sparked a heated theoretical controversy among his co-revolutionaries. Questions were raised about whether such a right would lead to the disintegration and fragmentation of smaller states, and whether the freedom to secede contradicted the Marxian principle of proletarian internationalism. These questions and Lenin's consistent defence of his position are important to us because the same arguments are often used against the Tamil demand for secession.
The freedom of secession should not be confused with the reactionary bourgeois concept of "separatism," which is sometimes used to undermine the genuine democratic struggle of the oppressed Tamil nation. Within the concept of self-determination, the freedom to secede exclusively implies an inalienable right of a nation to agitate for political independence from the oppressor nation. This complete freedom to agitate for secession is a right that can be exercised under conditions of intolerable oppression.
Lenin repeatedly argued that recognition of this right is vital to prevent national friction arising from the chauvinism of a dominant nation. It is a right that upholds the complete equality of nations; if violated, it leads to national hostility and the fragmentation of states. Here, Lenin advances the dialectical principle that, in order to ensure unity, there must be freedom to separate. He even argued that the freedom to divorce does not cause the disintegration of a family.
Therefore, Lenin rigorously maintained that he was not advocating a doctrine of separatism but advancing a highest principle of socialist democracy, in which absolute freedom should be accorded to a nation to secede under conditions of oppression.
As he wrote:
"Specifically, this demand for political democracy implies complete freedom to agitate for secession. This demand, therefore, is not equivalent to a demand for separation, fragmentation, or the formation of small states. It implies only a consistent expression of struggle against all national oppression."
(Lenin, The Socialist Revolution and the Right of Nations to Self-Determination)
Marxist political praxis certainly advances proletarian internationalism, but at the same time, it gives full recognition to the revolutionary character and historical legitimacy of national movements. The principle of nationality or, more broadly, nationalism itself, is characterized in Marxist discourse as a historically inevitable political phenomenon in bourgeois society. For Marx, nationalism is historically prior to proletarian internationalism.
Marx foresaw that proletarian revolutions in advanced capitalist societies would generate progressive forces of internationalism, leading toward the gradual structuration and consolidation of a world socialist society. Lenin, who witnessed the historical unfolding of the great socialist revolution, became an ardent champion of proletarian internationalism, rightly believing that only the revolutionary power of a united international proletariat could challenge and overturn the dominance of world capitalism. Accordingly, Lenin's texts consistently emphasize the necessity of solidarity among the working classes of all nations to mobilize against the hegemony of international capital.
Yet, at the same time, Lenin was a fierce champion of the oppressed. He fought vigorously against all forms of oppression and correctly perceived that national oppression is an enemy of the class struggle. Without the emancipation of the oppressed, proletarian solidarity between the oppressed and the oppressor nations is unattainable. That is why Lenin firmly held that proletarian internationalism demands that the proletariat of the oppressor nation grant the right of self-determination (i.e., the right to secession) to oppressed nations.
"The proletariat must struggle against the enforced retention of oppressed nations within the bounds of the given state, which means that they must fight for the right to self-determination. The proletariat must demand freedom of political separation for the colonies and nations oppressed by their own nation. Otherwise, the internationalism of the proletariat would be nothing but empty words; neither confidence nor class solidarity would be possible between the workers of the oppressed and the oppressor nations."
(Lenin, The Socialist Revolution and the Right of Nations to Self-Determination)
Some political opportunists in Sri Lanka, who are prostituting Marxism and Leninism, proclaim that they uphold the principle of proletarian internationalism and therefore oppose the Tamil demand for secession. Ignorant of Lenin's proletarian political strategy on the national question and dismissive of the progressive struggle of the oppressed nation, they call upon the working classes of the oppressed and oppressor nations to unite under the slogan of proletarian internationalism.
This phony internationalism, which attempts to undermine and supersede the progressive nationalism of the oppressed nation, is what Marx rightly characterized as "bourgeois nationalist internationalism." Lenin exposed the "unpardonable opportunism" of the so-called socialists of the oppressor nations who raise the slogans of internationalism without recognizing the right of secession for oppressed nations stand exposed by Lenin's critique. He even stressed the necessity of compensation on the part of communists in the oppressor nations, in order to alleviate the fear and suspicion of oppressed nations.
"This is why internationalism on the part of oppressor or "great" nations, as they are called (though they are great only in their violence, only great as bullies), must consist not only in the observance of the formal equality of nations but even in an inequality of the oppressor nation, the great nation, that must make up for the inequality which obtains in actual practice. Anybody who does not understand this has not grasped the real proletarian attitude to the national question, is still essentially petty-bourgeois in his point of view, and is, therefore, sure to descend to the bourgeois point of view."
(Lenin, The Question of Nationalities or Autonomisation)
The right of nations to self-determination does not contradict the socialist principle of proletarian internationalism. On the contrary, as Lenin demonstrated, recognition of this right is a fundamental necessity to advance internationalism. To preach the noble ideals of internationalism to a people caught up in a liberation struggle against the oppression of a dominant nation, while denying them the right of secession, amounts to chauvinism and political opportunism.
We now approach the most crucial stage of the debate on the Tamil National Question: under what political and economic conditions will a nation opt for secession, and whether such a decision to secede, and the struggle for national independence, serves the interests of the class struggle of both the oppressed and oppressor nations. An elucidation of these issues is vital for a theoretical comprehension and for a political strategy for proletarian revolutionaries in Sri Lanka, who are confronted with the national struggle of an oppressed people that has chosen the path of secession.
The determinant factors behind the Tamil decision to secede and form their own state are rooted in the historical conditions of intolerable national oppression. The cumulative effects of this multi-dimensional oppression made joint existence unbearable. The contradictions born of national friction rendered political rupture inevitable. Faced with political isolation, economic deprivation, and the threat of annihilation of their ethnic identity, the Tamil-speaking people of Eelam had no alternative but to choose secession.
Under intensified conditions of national oppression, the decision to secede and fight for political independence is not only correct but also a revolutionary act,one that advances the class struggle of the oppressed nation.
Lenin says:
"From their daily experience the masses know perfectly well the value of geographical and economic ties and the advantages of a big market and big state. They will therefore, resort to secession only when national oppression and national friction make joint life absolutely intolerable and hinder all economic intercourse. In that case, the interests of capitalist development and of the freedom of the class struggle will be best served by secession."
(Lenin: The Right of Nations to Self-determination).
Within this Leninist perspective we can safely hold that the decision of the oppressed Tamil nation to secede from the oppressor nation was necessary and historically inevitable because of the extreme conditions of oppression, the nature and form of which we have outlined in the first part of this document. The question that can be posed now is, whether the Tamil struggle for political independence will serve the interests of the class struggle of both the oppressed and oppressor nations.
Thirty years of national oppression unleashed by the Sinhala nation has awakened the Tamil masses of Eelam from feudal slumber and polarised them under a national movement to struggle for national emancipation. Caught up in the historical tendency of the developing capitalism, drawn into a struggle to fight for their political liberty, various strata of classes, castes and peasantry converged into this mass movement under the leadership of the Tamil bourgeoisie.
In a unique historical conjuncture in which there is an absence of highly matured class antagonism between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, in a revolutionary situation where the masses are in upsurge against oppression, in a progressive national movement where the bourgeoisie of the oppressed lead the struggle, the role of the proletarian revolutionaries of both the oppressed and the oppressor nations becomes problematic. It is precisely in this situation that the Marxists have to adopt the Leninist political strategy.
Lenin tells us that it is the bounden duty of every Marxist to support the struggle of the oppressed nation and recognise its right to self-determination, i.e. the right to secession. Insofar as the bourgeoisie of the oppressed lead the struggle and fight the oppressor, the proletariat can only give conditional support to the bourgeoisie "to create best conditions for the class struggle."
Yet Lenin warns us about the class interests of the bourgeoisie in a national democratic struggle. First of all, the bourgeoisie will attempt to advance a bourgeois nationalism which is reactionary and chauvinistic in character though it may contain democratic contents that is directed against oppression. Secondly, in order to protect its privileges and class interests, the bourgeoisie will certainly attempt to collaborate with the bourgeoisie of the oppressor nation to the detriment of the revolutionary cause, and to deceive the working class.
To quote Lenin in this context:
"The bourgeoisie of the oppressed nations persistently utilise the slogans of national liberation to deceive the workers; their internal policy they use these slogans for reactionary agreements with the bourgeoisie of the dominant nation."
(Lenin: The Socialist Revolution and the Right of Nations to Self-determination).
In this context the task of the proletarian revolutionary is to expose and frustrate any collaborations between the bourgeoisie of the oppressed and oppressor nations which will cause irreparable damage to the revolutionary and progressive aspirations of an oppressed nation seeking national liberation. The need for such collaboration arises since the bourgeois class is structurally weak to carry out a national revolutionary struggle. This is evident in the Tamil national struggle, where one finds a historical record of attempts at collaborations between the Tamil and Sinhala bourgeoisie.
Since the Tamil bourgeoisie is structurally weak as a class to advance the revolutionary task of national liberation, the strategy to be adopted by the revolutionary Marxists of the oppressed nation is to ensure the development of the proletariat and strengthen that class with the alliance of the peasantry and the petty-bourgeoisie to create a revolutionary proletarian leadership with a strong social base among the urban and rural working masses. Such a revolutionary leadership, which will assume itself into an authentic national liberation movement, will have the potential to unite all the progressive and revolutionary forces to carry out the task of national liberation.
The scope of this document does not permit a detailed analysis of the revolutionary strategies and a political programme of action to be adopted by the revolutionaries of the Eelam nation. It is sufficient to say that the task is twofold: national emancipation and socialist construction of society. The Tamil national liberation struggle must advance both these tasks in an interrelated way, organising to fight the oppressor state apparatus while generating a revolutionary process to overthrow the obsolete social order in the construction of a new socialist social formation. This revolutionary strategy must be situated and worked out in relation to the concrete historical conditions in which we are embedded.
There is no need to bind our liberation struggle to one particular form. Marxism does not prescribe one form of struggle. The science of revolution and the revolutionary experiments in the world offer us new modes of revolutionary strategies.
As Lenin rightly observed:
"Under no circumstances does Marxism confine itself to the forms of struggle possible and in existence at the given moment only, recognising as it does that new forms of struggle, unknown to the participants of the given period, inevitably arise as the given social situation changes."
(Collected Works, Vol. 11, p. 213)
Marx, who supported the Irish National Movement, called upon the English working classes to fight for the liberation of Ireland, which he considered an oppressed colony under England. He firmly held that the liberation of Ireland was a necessity and an essential condition for the emancipation of the English working classes. He asserted that no nation can be free while it practises oppression against another country.
The writings of Marx and Lenin on the national question announce a very important political truth: that national oppression would inevitably hold back and divide the working classes of the oppressor nation. It is through oppression and through the hegemony of a national chauvinistic ideology that the ruling bourgeoisie exerts its dominance and power over the working masses of the oppressor nation.
Marx wrote:
"It is (Britain's oppression of Ireland) the secret of the impotence of the English working class, despite their organisation. It is the secret by which the capitalist class maintains its power."
(Marx's letter to Meyer and Vogt, April 9th, 1870)
Lenin took Marx as his guide on the national question when he wrote:
"Our model will always be Marx, who, after living in Britain for decades and becoming half-English, demanded freedom and national independence for Ireland in the interests of the socialist movement of the British workers."
(Lenin: On the National Pride of the Great Russians)
We advocate that the progressives and revolutionaries of the oppressor nation (in this case, the Sinhala nation) who uphold the proletarian praxis of Marxism and Leninism should follow the strategy advanced by these great revolutionary teachers and give an unconditional, unrelenting support to the freedom struggle of the oppressed Tamil nation. Such a political strategy can only serve the interests of the class struggle of both the oppressed and the oppressor nations, since the ruling Sinhala bourgeoisie has been reinforcing a chauvinistic ideological hegemony and has been actually practising a vicious form of national oppression with the motive of dividing and weakening the working-class movement in Sri Lanka.
To break this bourgeois ideological hegemony and to unite the proletariat of the oppressor nation, the revolutionary Marxists in the South should advance an ideological counter-hegemony, supporting most resolutely the right of the oppressed Tamil nation to secession. Such a strategy requires a profound political education of the masses on the democratic rights of the oppressed nation. As Lenin said, "the masses must be systematically educated to champion, most resolutely, consistently, boldly and in a revolutionary manner, the right of nations to self-determination."
Such an ideological struggle on the part of the Sinhala progressives is essential to raise the level of political consciousness of the Sinhala proletariat to understand and accept the legitimacy of the Tamil cause.
Proletarian revolutionaries committed to the task of socialist revolution should seek and understand the revolutionary potential of mass movements. The national liberation struggle of the oppressed Eelam nation has such revolutionary potential. The failure on the part of the Sinhalese Progressives to chart a political programme with the fullest comprehension of the objective and subjective conditions of that struggle will be a great setback to the class struggle of the Sinhala nation. The most important political truth to be grasped in this historical situation is that only the national emancipation of the oppressed Tamil nation will enable the working masses of the oppressor nation to free themselves from the shackles of bourgeois chauvinism and mobilise them against the state power.
Therefore, we call upon the Marxist revolutionary movements in Sri Lanka that, while giving the fullest support to the freedom struggle of the oppressed Tamil masses, they should extend their co-operation to the revolutionary Marxists of the oppressed nation in their efforts to build up a genuine national liberation movement under a revolutionary proletarian leadership. The liberated socialist Eelam would be a revolutionary ally of the oppressed Sinhala masses to fight and destroy the bourgeois state apparatus and to construct an authentic socialist society.