Minority As Nation: The Politics Of Collective Delusion - Rejoinder To Mahendran ThiruvaranganMinority As Nation: The Politics Of Collective Delusion - Rejoinder To Mahendran Thiruvarangan

By  Dayan Jayatilleka  -  April 5, 2014

Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka

Mr Thiruvarangan 's views in his article " Should Minorities remain Forever All Insurances? A Response To Dayan Jayatilleka's Response "in Colombo Telegraph , represents the subjectivism and emotionalism that has dominated (but not monopolised) Tamil Politics in Sri Lanka From the outset. He seems to think that a minority need not remain one and can redefine itself as a nation if it so wishes.  

He completely ignores the fact that even in those few countries in which nations are recognised within a state / country - and these belonged or belong to the socialist tradition-the status of nation was accorded to those compact ethnic groups which were roughly comparable in size to the main ethnic group. Indeed many of these societies were composed of several ethnic blocs of roughly equivalent or comparable size. As such recognised nations were enjoying the right of self-determination and were accorded the status of structural Autonomous republics .   

However, this was only one of the types of categories for ethnic groups and one of the several structural arrangements. Groups that were large but not significant for ethnic As the Main One of comparable size, was the classification of (All Insurances) Nationalities , and was the structural space of Autonomous regions , not republics.  

For still smaller ethnic Groups, was the designation of National Minorities who were accorded the structural space of Autonomous Areas .   

If one were to go by this paradigm, the Tamils ​​of Sri Lanka would fall into the third category or at best, the second.

If one were to avoid this neo-Leninist paradigm and use a paradigm of liberal universalism, then the Sri Lankan Tamils ​​would be regarded (as did Asbjorn Eide) as an ethnic group or a community which constituted an ethnic minority. Indeed the initial international focus on the predicament of the Tamils ​​was in the report by Walter Schwartz for the Minority Rights Group (London) in 1972 entitled 'The Tamils ​​of Sri Lanka'.Read More