( an experience in managing ethnic conflict )
by
Neville Jayaweera
Chapter 3
A confrontation at Temple Trees
As the curtain went up on the evening’s drama, I felt like little David facing up, not to one Goliath, but to two. However, it was not the formidable Mrs Bandaranaike who filled me with trepidation but N.Q. Dias. I have never seen N.Q. abrasive in speech or manner, being always soft and gentle in tone, but that silken exterior concealed a core of burnished steel, and it was that hard core that I seemed about to tangle with that evening.
However, as the evening wore on, contrary to my expectations, the whole ambience was delightfully relaxed and homely, due primarily to the Prime Minister’s personal chemistry. She was meeting us not at a conference table but in the ample lounge of Temple Trees, comfortably sunk in deeply upholstered settees, and sipping orange juice to the sound of clinking ice cubes. There were no secretaries at hand and no one taking notes. She was dressed informally and was without her ubiquitous handbag, which like a sovereign’s sceptre, used to announce her imperious presence. With a string of warm personal inquiries about my wife and my family, made in her familiar gravelly voice, Mrs Bandaranaike drained whatever tension there was in the air and transformed the evening’s proceedings into an informal chat. It was quite extraordinary really! Up to that moment I would not have met her or talked with her face to face for more than 15 minutes, but she made me feel as if I was a close and trusted confidante. At one point proceedings even strayed into the farcical when, with a characteristic chuckle, she inquired about my dog Shaami who had won a banner headline in Jaffna’s vitriolic paper Eelanadu,, by ripping a hapless Tamilian’s verti some weeks earlier!
After the conversation had meandered aimlessly for about 30 minutes, Mrs Bandaranaike turned to me quite casually, as if it was an afterthought, and said,
“So Mr Jayaweera, what is this big problem you have in Jaffna that you asked to see me”? That was the opening I was waiting for.
First I apologised to the PM for my presumption in not coming through the proper channels, but she quickly put my mind at rest by saying,
“No, that’s alright by me, because you are seeing me unofficially. However, I hope that Felix (meaning Felix Dias Bandaranaike Minister of Finance and political head of the Public Service at the Treasury) and the Home Ministry will not give you trouble.”
Three problems
I then set out for the PM three problems I wanted to discuss with her informally.
My first problem concerned the practicalities of implementing the Official Languages Act,(OL Act.) commencing the first of October, for which I had been specially posted to Jaffna.( the Official Languages Department functioned directly under the Prime Minister )
My second problem concerned the wisdom and morality of enforcing the OL Act in Jaffna and
My third problem concerned a difference of opinion I had with Mr Dias as to how I should handle protests from the Tamil populace.
First, I explained to the PM that the implementation of the OL Act in Jaffna from the 1st of October 1963, was a practical impossibility. Of the 50 Sinhala clerical staff who had been posted to Jaffna for implementing the Act, 48 had either submitted medical certificates or had seen their MPs and had their transfer orders cancelled. Ivan Samarawickrema, my AGA, and I, and two Sinhala clerks were the only Sinhala staff throughout the District and we had one Sinhala type writer between us. To make matters worse, Samarawickrema had received transfer orders to proceed as GA of Polonnaruwa.
Secondly, I questioned the wisdom and morality of trying to enforce the OL Act in the Jaffna District. I made it clear that I was not questioning the wisdom of the Act as national policy, for to do so would have been presumptuous, but I was questioning the wisdom and morality of enforcing it in the Jaffna District, which was a question within my remit. I said that under the provisions of the Act, all receipts issued by the government for payments, all invoices, all registrations of births, marriages and deaths and all correspondence with members of the Tamil public, and the language of the courts and court records, should be in Sinhala. Apart from the practical impossibility of conforming to these requirements, I said that it was grossly unfair by the people and any attempt to force the issue will only aggravate hatred and conflict. I turned to N.Q.Dias and somewhat impudently asked,
“Sir, how would you like it to have your children’s marriage certificates issued in Tamil, or your grand children’s birth certificates issued in Tamil or your own death certificate issue to your next of kin in Tamil?” N.Q. made no response but kept fidgeting with his wristwatch.
I said that as a practical first step towards reconciliation the government must refrain from forcing the OL Act on the Tamils at least within the Jaffna District. Given that for practical reasons the Act could not be implemented in Jaffna in any case, it would be more prudent to abrogate it rather than pretend to enforce it and aggravate conflict.
I said that at the same time the government must allow the GA of Jaffna to implement the Reasonable Use of Tamil Act within his district, at least in the spirit if not in the letter. This Act, conceived by her late husband as a partial concession to the Tamils, had not been gazetted yet, though passed in Parliament.
Thirdly, I raised the question of how to handle the impending mass protest which the Tamil leaders were mobilising as a launching pad for the Secessionist Campaign, which was due to erupt two weeks from that day. It was to deal with this campaign that the Prime Minister had hand-picked me for Jaffna.
I referred to two of her previous handpicked nominees who had been sent to Jaffna to resolve the conflict, Nissanka Wijeratne (GA for a few months in 1961) and the military co-ordinator Brig. Richard Udugama ( 1961/62) who succeeded him, and suggested an approach fundamentally different from theirs. I said that rather than be confrontational I would opt for dialogue and conciliation and suggested a slackening of the intransigence with which the government had confronted the satygrahis in 1961.
In conclusion, I said
“Madame, trust me, and let me handle it my way. I promise you that before I complete my tenure in Jaffna I will create a climate there within which the government and the Tamil parties will be able to resume a dialogue. I cannot make political decisions. That is something that only the government can do, but I will give you an environment in Jaffna, in which the government leaders and Tamil leaders together can make some sane decisions”
I wound up my presentation to the Prime Minister by saying that given all the facts that I had placed before her, unless there was some let up on the part of the government, it will be impossible for me to function effectively as GA of Jaffna, and that I will have to ask her very respectfully, to relieve me of my duties and post me elsewhere.
The Prime Minister’s response
The Prime Minister listened to me patiently as I talked for about thirty minutes, but I must confess, she was somewhat taken aback at the depth of my conviction and the passion with which I articulated it. However, while she kept plying me with many piercing questions, I seemed to have plucked a sympathetic cord within her.
By early Oct 1963 which was when this meeting took place, Mrs B had been Prime Minister only for a little over three years and her active involvement in politics did not exceed that period of time by very much, but I found quite stunning her pragmatic sense and her ability to size up issues, which I must emphasise exceeded that of many a veteran politician or bureaucrat.
After I had finished speaking, an ominous silence enveloped us, broken only by the groaning of an ancient fan spinning lazily above us. No one spoke and I started buckling my brief case, expecting to be told that I should go back to Jaffna and clear out my desk.
After some minutes, which seemed an agonising age, to my absolute astonishment, the Prime Minister turned to me with a smile and said that she quite understood my problem and sympathised with me. Turning to Mr Dias she added in Sinhala “ Mae gena api monavada karanne?” ( what shall we do about this matter ) but without waiting for an answer from NQ, she went on to say that as a trial, and as long as the experiment was limited to the Jaffna District and is not publicised, she would go along with my proposals. She emphasised however, that there will be no official change in government policy, and neither will there be any written confirmation of what was said at this discussion.
It was many years later, after I had ventured into the murky world of double-talking diplomacy, that I learnt that there is a thing called “complete deniability”, which is to say that two parties can agree upon some matter secretly, but that if necessary both sides are free to deny that a meeting ever took place, or that an agreement was ever reached. This was my first exposure to that world of political and diplomatic double-talk.
The Prime Minister said that she would watch how the experiment worked and if everything went smoothly she will bring the Cabinet into the picture.
Turning to NQ again she said,
“We hand- picked Mr Jayaweera for this Jaffna job, so why don’t we let him handle it his way”? Dias was visibly shaken, but amazingly, did not put up a fight. I guess that the energy and the logic with which I had presented my case, and the evident shift in the Prime Minister’s own stand had convinced him that compliance was, at least for the moment, the better option.
However, let there be no confusion. The Prime Minister’s nod to me that day did not signify a turnaround in national policy, either on the language issue, or on the general attitude towards Tamil grievances. Nor did it mean that her basic thinking on the broad question of the rights of minorities had undergone a dramatic transformation. It certainly was not a decision given after consulting the Cabinet, or with its knowledge, or after a discussion within her Party. I had no illusions that it was none of these. My interpretation of the Prime Minister’s ruling given that day was that it was purely an ad hoc administrative dispensation, handed down to me unofficially for getting over what she saw as a local problem and in no way did it signal an ideological shift.
I also felt that underlying Mrs Bandaranaike’s reaction to my presentation was an implicit trust in my bona fides. While she must have been quite embarrassed by my negative reaction to her government’s policies, which she had handpicked me to implement, I believe she was also convinced that I was motivated by a genuine concern for the long term interests of her government and not least, of the country.
Let it not be forgotten that while being allegedly capable of vengefulness and pettiness, Mrs Sirima Bandaranaike could be overwhelmingly compassionate and pragmatic as well. Up to that moment I had seen nothing of the former characteristics in her, but an abundance of the latter.
An experiment in alternative governance
Prime Minister Mrs Bandaranaike’s extraordinary magnanimity that evening opened the door for me to launch within the Jaffna district an experiment in governance with justice and righteousness towards all. Without any official pronouncement to that effect, I allowed the OL Act, which I was expected to enforce rigorously within my district to lapse, and instead proceeded to implement the Reasonable Use of Tamil Act.
What this meant in practice was that the policy handed down from Colombo that birth, marriage and death certificates should be written only in Sinhala and likewise all receipts and invoices as well, was ignored. Instead, these documents could now be issued in any of the three languages, as requested by the recipient party. Letters written to members of the pubic by all government departments within the district continued to go out as before in Tamil or English, and the courts continued to function as before without any change in language. In the day to day administration of Jaffna it was as if the OL Act had never been enacted.
I must emphasise however, that letters and even telegrams sent to people of Jaffna by government departments in Colombo, much to my embarrassment, continued to go out in Sinhala only, strictly in compliance with government’s official policy.
Not surprisingly, the Tamil politicians remained deeply suspicious of my initiative to suspend the enforcement of the Sinhala Only policy throughout the Jaffna District. They interpreted my initiative as being merely a cunning tactic for taking the heat off the issue and for buying time, and that I would return to the fray once everyone’s attention was diverted elsewhere. The suspicion of me was so acute that for another few weeks Federal Party volunteers, policed every public office in the district from where receipts, invoices, certificates and similar documents were being issued, for satisfying themselves that the documents were not being issued in Sinhala!
As the weeks passed, the Tamil leaders realised that my response was not just a tactic but signalled a fundamental change in practice, if not in policy, which though not officially declared, or publicly acknowledged, was notwithstanding, a voltroceedings even strayed into thethe Sinhala Only policy in Jaffna.
During my three year tenure, the precedent I established on the implementation of the Sinhala Only policy in Jaffna, was virtually set in concrete, in that, none of the GAs who followed me, veered from the pattern I had set. Without risk of contradiction I can claim that there cannot be any Tamils, living or dead, who have received certificates, licences, receipts or invoices from any public office in the Northern Province except in the language of their choice.
I must emphasise that there was no stealth or duplicity on my part. Despite the commitment to secrecy that evening at Temple Trees, within a few weeks the Cabinet and the government as a whole became fully aware of what I was doing, but preferred to turn a blind eye and remain complicit. In effect therefore, though the OL Act remained on the statute book till it was effectively abrogated with the 13th Amendment in 1987, it was never enforced in Jaffna.
As someone committed to justice and fair play, it gives me great satisfaction to recall that I was able to use my official position as the Government Agent of Jaffna to minimise the effects of the Sinhala Only policy in the North. However, I must emphasise again that I achieved this not by stealth but after convincing the incumbent government of the error of its ways. Doing that was not easy! It involved a great deal of personal stress, risk to career, and a willingness to stand up and be counted.
Revisiting Dias the strategist
Before I conclude this section I would like to revisit the Dias paradigm, which earlier on in this chapter I said I will revert to later. I did not open it up for discussion that evening with the Prime Minister, but only touched on those elements in it that related to my immediate administrative problems.
In regard to the construction of a string of military camps, I assured Mr Dias that I will faithfully carry out his instructions and ensure that all that I had to do to facilitate their construction will be done. Actually, within the first year of my tenure almost all of the infrastructure for setting up the camps had been completed, and by the time I relinquished office in 1966 all of the camps were up and running.
It is a pity that Dias’s vision of a future armed Tamil uprising and of India’s intervention on the side of the rebel cause, has not been properly chronicled and my references to it in this chapter are a paltry substitute.
In an earlier chapter I referred to Germany’s famous Schlieffen Plan which was developed by General Count Von Schlieffen in 1905 for encircling Paris in the event of war with France. It will not be an exaggeration to say that the Dias Plan to encircle and garrotte Jaffna in the event of a war with the Tamils, was Sri Lanka’s equivalent of the Germany’s Schlieffen Plan, however with this important difference. In the 1914-1918 war, the French outflanked the German pincer around Paris, and Paris was never encircled, whereas in Sri Lanka the Dias Plan to encircle the Tamil rebels in the North worked to the latter’s ultimate destruction.
At this point however, I want to refer to three other components of Dias’s remarkable mind which further reinforce his claim to be Sri Lanka’s greatest strategic thinker, of modern times.
The first component was, that his plan to set up a chain of military enclaves in the North had another strategic aim besides the long term one of throttling an armed uprising by the Tamils, and that was, to pre-empt another coup such as had been attempted in 1962. He was resolved that he will not leave room for another adventure by the military, whom in general, he held in contempt. By dispersing it as far as possible from Colombo, away from Echelon Barracks (which were still functional at that time) and Panagoda, and making it logistically impossible for them to mobilise and co-ordinate a military takeover in the capital, he placed a stopper on the army.
The second component was a plan to strengthen relations with Peking as a countervailing power to India and neutralise the latter’s overweening influence in Sri Lanka’s internal affairs. He said that he was hoping to arrange for Mrs Bandaranaike to visit China shortly, even though he held Marxists and Communists with a terrible loathing.
The third component was a plan to clean out the military’s top command as far as possible of elements he considered incapable of patriotism, and that was principally the Roman Catholics, and to raise new infantry regiments which would owe their allegiance to Mrs Bandaranaike, the Sinha Regiment being the first of them. The Sinha Regiment was Mrs Bandaranaike’s Praetorian Guard. (In Roman times the Praetorian Guard was the elite Legion, always positioned in Rome, to guard the incumbent Emperor)
I did not share then, nor do I share now, Dias’s world view based on race, which I thought was tubular and divisive, more likely to aggravate conflicts and fragment the nation, than help build a harmonious polity.
However, I want to emphasise again, that in its strategic aspects, given his assumptions, the Dias paradigm is breath-taking for its prescience and sheer brilliance. In his capacity as the Secretary for Defence it was entirely legitimate, and obligatory on him to plan well ahead for the suppression of any anticipated armed rebellion and to try and neutralise intervention by India, and he fulfilled that obligation as no one else had done before him. Sri Lanka is much in his debt.
However, and I must underscore this again, Dias would have been a far greater visionary and a truly great leader, had he aborted the Tamil uprising by removing the factors that were fuelling it, than assume it to be inevitable and prepare militarily to combat it, which was what he did.
Back to the barricades
The testing time for my vision of conciliation and accommodation, as opposed to Mr Dias’s vision of unrelenting confrontation, was only a few days away. I had to hasten back to Jaffna as the barricades beckoned and the crunch seemed imminent!
( to be continued )
