The Young Researchers Forum 2012 20th & 21st January, 2012 Western Province Aesthetic Resort, Colombo

Session: Inclusion, Politics and Participation Date: 21st January, 2012 Time: 2.30pm-3.30pm
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The Young Researchers Forum 2012 Tamil Moderate Politics and Discontent among Tamil Youths in Sri Lanka: Some Introductory Notes on their Relationship from 1948 to the Present. Kumarvadivel Guruparan rkguruparan@gmail.com The gap between the revolutionary-nationalistic rhetoric of Tamil moderate politics and its political praxis and the resulting tension between the younger Tamil polity and the older Tamil moderates has been a permanent feature of Tamil politics in postindependence Ceylon/Sri Lanka. This was definitely the case between 1957 and 1983 from the days of the Banda Chelva Pact to the times when the TULF accepted and contested the District Development Councils in 1981. During this period Tamil moderate politicians were perceived to be employing nationalist rhetoric for popular consumption but were engaged in deal-making and practical politics in their engagement with successive Governments. Post-1983 with the rise of Tamil militantism the pendulum swung the other way around with the younger sections of the Tamil polity now in firm control of their politics. In 2000 a significant shift in Tamil politics was engineered by the creation of the Tamil National Alliance, whose founding objective in the words of one of its founders was to breakdown the dichotomy between the moderate and extremist elements of Tamil nationalism and to thus prevent the expolitation of the existence of such dichtomy by third parties. With the demise of the LTTE in May 2009 the armed avatar of the extremist elements of Tamil nationalist politics became non-existent and the founding need of the TNA was rendered null and void. The TNA has possibly now gone back to their role as moderates and taken Tamil politics to its pre-1981 state of affairs. Two years since, despite successive electoral feats, discontent amongst the younger sections of Tamil polity against the TNA is becoming more evident. The objective of this paper will be to compare this emerging trend in contemporary Tamil politics with that of the politics of the yesteryear and to then draw lessons for the direction that Tamil politics can take today to prevent a slide down to a more violent form of politics.
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The Young Researchers Forum 2012

Key Words: Sri Lanka, Tamils, Nationalism, moderates, extremists, LTTE, TNA, TULF