Discrimination against Tamils

by Arul

(January, 06, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Although it is more than 20 years since Tamil was made an official language, a Tamil who addresses a communication to the government in Tamil does not receive a reply in Tamil, which is his birth right. This month I received a printed copy of a life certificate in Sinhala and English but not in Tamil, to be perfected and returned to the Divisional Secretariat which pays my pension.

I complained about it in the press. But who takes any notice of complaints regarding non-implementation of an Act pertaining to the use of Tamil?

This is not a stray case. This is the normal practice in this country and the cause of this war and the resultant suffering. There are many individuals in Sri Lanka including the intelligentsia who foolishly ask whether the Tamils in this country are being discriminated against, and if so what their grievances are. But if any Tamil were to stand up and say what their grievances are and how they are being discriminated against, he would immediately be branded either as an LTTEer, an LTTE sympathiser or a supporter, and perhaps that would be his end, as we have seen in the past.

If eminent persons as Rev. Fr. Tissa Balasuriya, in a sense of justice and fairplay would speak about this matter with facts and figures, he too will be branded as an LTTE supporter or being in the pay of the LTTE or a traitor. If a foreigner were to say that there is discrimination against the Tamils in Sri Lanka, he too would be called a terrorist or a person bought over by the LTTE, as we have seen happen recently.

During the latter part of 1999 when Professor Ratnajeevan Hoole said that Tamils were being overlooked by government and professional bodies, Prof. Kalasuriya refuted that statement. Before Prof. Hoole replied Prof. Kalasuriya, I pointed out that in the matter of promotion of 18 Assistant Superintendents of Police to the rank of Superintendents of Police, the Tamils and Muslims had been discriminated against as out of the 18 promotions given there wasn't a single Tamil or a Muslim.

Many persons including intellectuals objected to my statement and asked dramatically whether the Tamils really had any grievances and if so what those grievances were. They refuted my arguments citing cases of promotions of Tamils which were few and far between.

The government openly says that it is not against the Tamils and is genuinely trying to save them from the clutches of the LTTE. This is in spite of the government having abundantly made it clear that the President and the government were elected by the Sinhala Buddhists who are the majority in this country and that the President is concerned only about the welfare of that section of the people and no one else.

I have found that it is a futile exercise to try to meet the arguments of these people, because it is not that they do not see the discrimination taking place, but because they refuse to see and understand and are only duping and ridiculing themselves by doing so.

But I must however say, there are right thinking persons in the majority community in this decadent and degenerating society who can see and feel the discrimination taking place against the Tamils, and that fact alone is a matter of consolation to the Tamils in this country.