Is the new ITAK Leader Shritharan promoting separatism instead of federalism?

 ITAK President Sivagnanam Shritharan

The premier political party representing Sri Lankan Tamils in Parliament has got a new leader. The Ilankai Thamil Arasuk Katchi (ITAK) known in English as the Federal Party (FP) has elected Jaffna district Parliamentarian Sivagnanam Shritharan as its president in Trincomalee on 21 January 2024. The president elect will be formally installed in office at the party convention to be held on 28 January in Trinco. Shritharan will serve a two-year term as ITAK/FP president.

Initially there were three contenders in the fray for the ITAK Presidency. The three aspirants to the ITAK leadership mantle were Mathiaparanan Abraham Sumanth-iran, Sivagnanam Shritharan and Seenit-hamby Yoheswaran. Suma-nthiran born in 1964 and Shritharan born in 1968 are both Jaffna district MPs while Yogeswaran born in 1970 is a former Batticaloa district Parliamentarian.

What was perceived as a triangular contest turned into a duel between Sumanthiran and Shritharan after the “third man” Yoheswaran declared solidarity with Shritharan and called upon his supporters to vote for Shritharan. Both Shritharan and Yoheswaran conducted an overt and covert campaign together against Sumanthiran who was unfairly and viciously attacked as an enemy of “Thamil Thesiyam” (Tamil nationalism) whose victory would ring the death-knell for Tamil nationalism.

Shritharan on the other hand was promoted as the protector of “Thamil Thesiyam” who would follow in the footsteps of the “Thesiyath Thalaiver or (national leader). Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) supremo Veluppillai Prabhakaran who died in May 2009 is referred to by his supporters and sycophants as the Tamil National leader or “Thesiyath Thalaiver”

Sumanthiran’s direct campaign was restrained and dignified. He did not respond to the accusations and allegations levelled covertly and overtly against him by the Shritharan-Yoheswaran duo. He only outlined his plans for the betterment of the party and the Tamil people if he was elected President of ITAK. Sumanthiran did not try to refute the untrue accusation that he was against Tamil Nationalism. He ignored it with supreme disdain. To his credit, Sumanthiran also made no reference to the LTTE in his campaign.

Social media

However Sumanthiran’s decorum was not followed by his supporters on social media. They fired away at Shritharan in their posts and tweets. This was the situation in Shritharan’s case too. His supporters kept shelling Sumanthiran with their tweets and posts. Supporters of Tamil parties opposed to the ITAK exploited the situation to vilify both Sumanthiran and Shritharan as well as the ITAK in their posts and tweets.

In fairness to both Shritharan and Sumanthiran, I do not think that neither of them could stop, check or control their supporters on social media even if they wanted to or tried to do so. The social media phenomenon is uncontrollable like Dr. Frankenstein’s monster. 

A recurring theme in the pro-Sumanthiran social media was the extolling of his positive attributes especially his legal prowess and deftness in handling diplomatic engagements. Shritharan was criticised for his deficiency in legal matters and linguistic (English) skills. 

Shritharan’s supporters countered this by saying knowledge of the law and English was not necessary to lead the Tamil people. They pointed out that LTTE supremo Prabhakaran did not have these attributes. They also said that Shritharan could make up for these by enlisting the services of legal experts and experienced interpreters and translators. They even cited K.V. Thavarasa PC and Ex-Judge C.V. Wigneswaran as those who could serve Shritharan in this regard.

Election

The ITAK party constitution stipulates that members of the “Podhuchabai” (General Council) and members of the “Mathiya Seyal Kuzhu”(Central Working Committee) will form the electoral college to elect a president if an election was held. The election would be by secret ballot. However the ITAK from its inception in 1949 has not held a president election. It has followed the tradition of averting a direct election by arriving at a choice through consensus.

This tradition was not followed by the party this time. The main candidates Sumanthiran and Shritharan were unable or unwilling to reach a compromise on the matter. Thus the ITAK for the first time in its 74-year-old history has held an election for the post of Party President.

Conducting an inner party election is the responsibility of the party general secretary and administrative secretary. The party deputy general secretary Dr. P. Sathialingam has been functioning as the acting general secretary after the general secretary K. Thuraira-jasingham resigned in 2020. A new general secretary can only be elected at the ITAK convention next weekend. However Dr. Sathialingam afflicted by pneumonia was hospitalised.

The administrative secretary Xavier Kulanayagam had earlier nominated M.A. Sumanthiran as a candidate. Thus he was ineligible to conduct the poll as he was not perceived as being “neutral”. The same applied to ITAK senior vice president and former Northern Provincial Council chairman C.V.K. Sivagnanam. He too was among the 12 persons who nominated Sumanthiran as candidate.

Ad-hoc arrangement

In this situation an ad-hoc arrangement was made with the consent of candidates Shritharan and Sumanthiran. A committee was formed to handle and coordinate the election arrangements. The eight-member committee represented all eight districts of the North and East. 

The committee members and districts they represented were as follows: Kugathasan –Trincomalee, Saravanabavaan – Batticaloa, Kodeeswaran – Amparai, Kanagasabapathy – Jaffna, Kurukularajah – Kilinochchi, Paranjothy – Mannar, Karunanidhi – Vavuniya and Shanthini Sriskandarajah – Mullaitheevu. Sriskandarajah and Kodeeswaran are ex-MPs. Kurukularajah is a former Northern Provincial minister while Saravanabavaan is the former Mayor of Batticaloa.

The General Council comprises members elected at grass roots level by the party branches in each district. The branches represented by and large the respective AGA divisions in each district. Each branch with the exception of Colombo has five members in the General Council. Since the Colombo branch is for the entire district, it was entitled to 10 members in the General Council.

On this basis 290 members of the General Council were entitled to vote at the ITAK presidential elections. The respective districts and the number of representatives are as follows: Jaffna – 75, Batticaloa – 50, Amparai – 35, Trincomalee – 30, Mannar – 25, Mullaitheevu – 25, Kilinochchi – 20, Vavuniya – 20 and Colombo – 10.

The Central Working Committee comprises 43 members at present. Apart from these the outgoing president Somasundaram Sriskandarajah alias “Maavai” used his presidential discretion to nominate nine others. These included Sashikala Raviraj who contested the 2020 elections from Jaffna and is the widow of former MP Nadarajah Raviraj who was killed in Colombo in 2008. Incidentally Senathirajah’s son Kalai Amuthan is married to Sashikala’s daughter Pravina.

342 eligible to vote

Thus a total number of 342 consisting of 290 General Council members and 52 from the Central working Committee were eligible to vote. However there were a few abstentions. Veteran Tamil leader R. Sampanthan dubbed as “Perunthalaiver” (Great Leader) by the Tamil media was not present due to ill-health. Acting Secretary Sathialingam was in hospital. Former Jaffna MP Saravanabavan was absent as his mother had passed away.

Due to these reasons only 322 were present in Trincomalee to vote. Among these were three Muslims from K’nochi, M’theevu and Trinco. ITAK President Senathirajah stated he was neutral on the question of his successor and abstained from voting. Although Yoheswaran had pulled out of the contest, his name was yet on the ballot paper. The names of the candidates were in alphabetical order. Thus Shritharan was first, Sumanthiran second and Yogeswaran third in the ballot paper order. 

As stated earlier the three cornered fight had become a straight duel between Shritharan and Sumanthiran. Most political observers anticipated a close tussle in the election. The expectation was that Sumanthiran would win with a slender majority. The unexpected occurred. Shritharan won polling 184 votes. Sumanthiran polled 137. As expected Yoheswaran had zero votes. Shritharan polling 57% of the vote to Sumanthiran’s 43% had a majority of 47 votes.

Though the voting was by secret ballot, it has been possible through “unorthodox” measures to gauge the voting trends and arrive at a preliminary assessment of the voting pattern. It appears that Sumanthiran had the majority of votes in Jaffna and Mullaitheevu districts. The situation was near even in Mannar, Vavuniya and Colombo with Sumanthiran leading in Mannar and Vavuniya and Shritharan edging out Sumanthiran in Colombo. Shritharan got the bulk of the votes in Kilinochchi, Amparai, Trincomalee and Batticaloa.

Eastern vote swing

Thus it could be seen that Sumanthiran got more northern votes than Shritharan while the latter got more eastern votes than the former. At the outset of the election it was surmised that Sumanthiran would sweep the Eastern Province with support from Batticaloa MP Shanakiyan Rasamanickam, Trincomalee district ITAK chairman Kugathasan, ITAK National list MP Kalaiarasan from Amparai and ex-Amparai MP Kodeeswaran. Yet the eastern vote swung in favour of Shritharan.

Another feature of the voting was that in terms of age, more “seniors” seem to have supported Sumanthiran while more “juniors” have seemingly backed Shritharan. How this situation came about and the reasons for the massive shift in eastern voting will be discussed at length in future articles.

After his victory, Shritharan went to the historic Koneshwaram temple in Trincomalee and did a special pooja. He then went to the Pathrakali Amman temple in Trincomalee. Incidentally the Pathrakali is the family deity of “perunthalaiver” Sampanthan. The temple priest draped a “ponnaadai” (golden shawl) around Shritharan’s shoulders and welcomed him. The priest also said that Sampanthan had already informed him of Shritharan’s coming. Incidentally Shritharan met Sampanthan and paid his respects after he returned to Colombo the following day.

LTTE cemetery

Shritharan returned to Kilinochchi his home turf immediately after the election on Sunday. He made a beeline to the LTTE cemetery known as the “Maaveerar Thuyilum Illam” (resting abode for great heroes) at Kanakapuram in Kilinochchi. He was accompanied by supporters including a cassock-clad priest.

Shritharan paid his respects to the fallen Tigers and laid “Karthigaipoo” flowers known as flame lily flowers. The botanical names are Liliaceae Glory lily or Gloriosa superba. The LTTE declared this flower as the national flower of Tamil Eelam during its heyday. The red and yellow colours of the flower are the same as LTTE colours too. Shritharan took an oath to the memory of the fallen Tigers and pledged that he would strive to achieve their dreams. 

It was after he paid homage at the LTTE cemetery that Shritharan went to worship at the Kilinochchi Sithi Vinaayagar temple dedicated to Lord Ganesh. Thereafter the new ITAK leader attended a celebration organised by his supporters in Kilinochchi. 

Diaspora and Hindutva

By paying homage to the fallen LTTE fighters and by worshipping at Hindu temples, Shritharan displayed his gratitude to the twin forces that helped him win the ITAK presidency. The first was the pro-LTTE elements in the global Tamil diaspora. The second was the Hindutva elements in India. 

Both these sections worked ceaselessly via email, WhatsApp, telephone and Messenger to promote Shritharan’s candidacy among members of the General Council and Central working Committee. The carrot and stick method of Incentives and Threats was utilised.

This is why Shritharan made special mention of those overseas who had helped him to win and thanked them specifically in his victory speech in Trincomalee.

Public statement

Subsequently Shritharan issued a public statement in Tamil and sent it to the Tamil media on Monday 22 January. In that he declared that he was for greater Tamil unity. Shritharan requested all those who had left the ITAK and/or the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) to return to the ITAK/TNA folds. He also invited all Tamil nationalist parties to accept his invitation and join him.

The new ITAK leader said in his statement that his desire and intention was to restore the TNA to its former glory by returning to the pre-2009 situation when the TNA backed by the LTTE was a powerful entity. (It may be recalled that the ITAK was the chief constituent of the TNA and that in the 2004 elections, the TNA had 22 seats in Parliament. Shritharan ended by saying let us win back our rights and fulfil the dreams of our great heroes (Maaveerar Kanavuhal).

Thirst of the Tigers

The sting of the scorpion lies in its tail. Likewise it is the end of Shritharan’s statement that is problematic and puzzling. It is an established fact that the fallen fighters of the LTTE including its supremo Prabhakaran were uncompromisingly intransigent in espousing their cause of Tamil Eelam. The motto of the LTTE was “Puligalin Thaaham Thamil Eelath Thaayagam” (The thirst of the Tigers is for the Tamil Eelam motherland). Regardless of whether they were right or wrong in their quest, the Tigers remained steadfast in their beliefs and ultimately paid the supreme price for their cause and conviction.

ITAK policy is federalism

Now what is the fundamental policy of the ITAK known as the Federal Party in English? The ITAK wants a power sharing arrangement on federal or quasi-federal lines. The ITAK aspires to a political structure within a united, indivisible Sri Lanka. 

A key element in the attacks on Sumanthiran is that the Jaffna district MP has been advocating a power sharing scheme on federal lines. This was depicted as treachery to Tamil Nationalism. Viewed against this backdrop, how does Shritharan hope to reconcile the separatist dreams of fallen LTTE fighters with the avowed Federal objective of his party? 

Unilateral declaration?

Another related question is whether the ITAK has now changed its policy of federalism to separatism? Has the ITAK General Council, Central Working Committee or Politbureau approved or endorsed Shritharan’s policy change or is it a unilateral declaration by the ITAK president elect who is yet to be officially installed in office?

Moreover has the ITAK as a party endorsed or supported his invitation to other Tamil parties? Are those parties being invited to subscribe to the ITAK’s stated policy or the radical policy announced by Shritharan?

Sixth Amendment

Jaffna district MP Shritharan has been elected to Parliament thrice in 2010, 2015 and 2020. In all three elections he has signed his nomination papers in accordance with the sixth Constitutional amendment disavowing separatism, He has been enjoying all the perks and privileges of an MP for nearly 14 years. Is it not sheer hypocrisy then for him to project himself as a Tamil nationalist supporter of the LTTE dream of Tamil Eelam?

Shritharan contested the 2010 elections as a nominee of the EPRLF in the TNA. It was after he won that he switched sides and joined the ITAK. When he was fielded as a candidate, some questions were raised about his connections to the LTTE. Shritharan’s brothers in law are the late “Brigadier” Theepan and “Lt Col” Kilman of the LTTE. Shritharan said that though the LTTE stalwarts were his brothers in law by marriage, he himself had no links to the LTTE.

Startling disclosures

Yet during his recent campaigning in the East, Shritharan made startling disclosures. He claimed that he had joined the LTTE as a 13-year-old when studying in grade 8; he claimed that he had received arms training, he claimed that he had helped bury the bodies of fighters belonging to the Jeyanthan infantry division at the Tharavai LTTE Cemetery; he said that he was part of a special LTTE team that helped the victims of Tsunami. Shritharan also said he does not wear a wedding ring because he has taken a vow that he would wear gold only after Tamil Eelam was achieved.

Awaiting Shritharan’s response

When I heard of Shritharan’s claims and heard recordings of his utterances, I wrote to him seeking clarification on these issues. I have not received any responses. At least not yet. Now after his statement calling for a return to the pre-2009 situation and the invitation to realise the dreams of fallen LTTE fighters, I have sent him another set of questions seeking clarification. I hope to follow up with more articles after the ITAK President Sivagnanam Shritharan replies.

(The writer can be reached at [email protected].)