“They are trampling our graves with their boots,” said Kavitha, a young Tamil woman, as the torrential rain lashing our faces washed away her tears. Standing barefoot and ankle-deep in mud at the site of a former cemetery in Visuvamadu, Sri Lanka, she mourned the neighboring military base built on the graves of fallen Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) fighters, including that of her brother.
The LTTE was an armed group dominant in the northern and eastern provinces of Sri Lanka that fought for the establishment of an independent Tamil state for nearly three decades, until its final defeat and surrender to the Sri Lankan state in 2009. During the war, the state bulldozed and repurposed many buildings that belonged to the LTTE, like the cemetery where Kavitha’s brother was buried, because he had seized territory from the armed group.
On that humid late November day, Kavitha and thousands of others were at the former LTTE graveyard to mark the “Maaveerar Naal” – an annual event commemorating LTTE fighters who died in the decades-long war. And it was not an isolated manifestation of nationalist commitment. According to government figures, the scene at the Visuvamadu cemetery has been replicated at more than 200 locations – including universities, places of worship and other former cemeteries – throughout north-east Sri Lanka, with tens of thousands in attendance.
The level of interest in celebrating Maaveerar Naal in 2024 – equal to, if not higher than in previous years – served as a strong rebuke to ill-informed observers in Sri Lanka who declared the end of Tamil nationalism after the Sri Lankan elections held two weeks earlier on November 14. .
The National People’s Power (NPP), a left-wing Sinhalese coalition, secured a landslide victory, winning 159 seats in parliament – more than any other party in Sri Lanka’s history. Importantly, they also won all but one of the Tamil-majority constituencies in the northeast, leading many outside observers to conclude that Tamil dreams of autonomy and independence had been completely abandoned.
The real political situation in the claimed Tamil homeland, however, is much more nuanced.
The NPP unleashed a national wave of anti-establishment sentiment that grew out of frustration with persistent economic failures and endemic corruption.
The fall of the Rajapaksa family – which dominated Sri Lankan politics since 2005 – has been stunning. They never received support from the Tamils, who accused former presidents and brothers Mahinda and Gotabaya Rajapaksa of genocide. However, they have long been seen as heroes in the Sinhalese south for winning the war against the LTTE.
Gotabaya Rajapaksa convincingly won the presidency just five years ago, in 2019. However, less than three years later, in 2022, he was ousted by a popular uprising in southern Sinhala. Since then, the family quickly lost all political power in Sri Lanka. In the November 2024 elections, their party managed to secure only three seats in parliament.
Gotabain the replacement did not bring about a change which the public demanded either. As a result, last November, the anti-establishment NPP secured a victory that seemingly overcame the country’s deep-rooted ethnic divisions. The left coalition even managed to win the coveted Jaffna constituency – a Tamil nationalist stronghold that has historically supported an independent Tamil state.
This came as a shock to many outside observers of Tamil politics and led to some commentators heralding the beginning of the end of Tamil nationalism. Moreover, even some NPP officials themselves interpreted their victory in Jaffna as rejection of “racism” by the Tamils.
However, equating the NPP’s victories in the North-Eastern Province with a widespread rejection of Tamil nationalism is a blatant mistake rooted in the laziness and lack of serious engagement in Tamil politics common among outside observers.
Anyone with a finger on the pulse of the Tamil street can see that the change in the voting preferences of the population in this election had nothing to do with any disillusionment with Tamil nationalism, but everything to do with their frustrations with Tamil politicians. The survey results simply showed that Tamils, like any constituency, are pragmatic and take into account both economic interests and political preferences when casting their vote.
Many staunch Tamil nationalists and supporters of independence voted for the NPP in the hope that it could bring about a better economy. Others simply wanted to punish established local politicians who they saw as corrupt and incompetent. The NPP’s moves to present itself as a coalition against corrupt political elites also helped trigger the Tamil elections. Their display at a popular meeting place in Colombo luxury cars confiscated from various ministriesfor example, it was a desired slap to the elites. Their initial positive attitudes towards Tamils, their anti-racist messaging and their promises to allow the observance of Maaveerar Naal and repeal the draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act, under which many Tamil nationalists were persecuted, contributed to their appeal in the Northeast.
Even Kavitha, a committed Tamil nationalist, admitted that she voted for the NPP. In our conversation at the Maaveerar Naal commemoration, she drew a clear line between her frustrations with the largest Tamil party ITAK, the need to address pressing economic needs and her vote for the NPP.
But support for the NPP from Tamils like Kavitha is contingent and already showing cracks. Continuation arrests Tamils under the Prevention of Terrorism Act for participating in the Maaveerar Naal commemorations are causing frustration and anger. Meanwhile, the deadline to remove the army camp in the Tamil city, announced with great fanfare, passed without any indication of action. All this sends a message to an already cynical Tamil electorate that the positive actions taken during the campaign season were nothing but empty gestures.
The NPP never held power and therefore did not have the same baggage as the rulers of the past. This does not mean that the NPP has no baggage. Their main constituent party – the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP, People’s Liberation Front) – was also banned as a “terrorist group” because of their violent insurgencies in the 1970s and again in the 1980s, which left tens of thousands of Sinhalese dead. They openly opposed negotiations with the LTTE and played a significant role in the breakdown of peace talks in the mid-2000s. While the leadership now has a different tone, their current actions show that they are either disingenuous or will find it difficult to overcome the chauvinistic sentiments at the heart of the party and the electorate. As has been shown time and again, if a party in power is seen to make concessions to the Tamils, it mobilizes the opposition against them, which affects their performance in the next election. All major Sinhala parties have joined in this behaviour, including the JVP.
All this raises an important point about Sri Lankan politics and Tamil nationalism. The nation-building project in Sri Lanka is fundamentally rooted in the primacy of Sinhala Buddhism. Tamils were never accepted as equal citizens, pushed to the periphery through the Colombo-centric approach not only by the state, but also by the unimaginative Tamil elite. Leading Tamil politicians have repeatedly acquiesced to long-standing political demands for mere scraps, in exchange for membership of the Colombo elite. While historically these parties have continued to gain support among Tamils, and this election is more likely to be a blip than a big change, Tamil political energy cannot be read through electoral politics alone. The Maaveerar Naal and related activities of commemoration and protest rooted in Tamil nationalist practices are more accurate representations of a political imaginary deeply rooted in the Tamil psyche.
This national life at the center of Tamil Eelam exists outside the purview of not only the Sri Lankan state, but Tamil politicians as well. He will continue to thrive, on and off the island, and pursue his goals through means beyond the constraints placed upon him by electoral politics. Although this government now has an opportunity to take Tamil concerns seriously and address longstanding demands for self-rule, Tamils will not hold their breath.
In order to make progress on these issues, the NPP needs to use every day of its five-year mandate to work, methodically addressing Tamil demands. Low-hanging fruits include the release of political prisoners, the abolition of the PTA, and the liberation of a country occupied by the military. Efforts to change the demographic composition of the North-Eastern Province through land grabbing, the construction of Buddhist temples and the expansion of Sinhalese settlements must also be stopped immediately. Relatives of the forcibly disappeared continue to protest and reject state mechanisms that do not have a foothold in the judicial mechanism. Their concerns must also be taken seriously – many refused to perform last rites for their relatives who were handed over to the security forces at the end of the war. Sri Lanka must reveal what it has done to the thousands of Tamils it has detained.
Tamils have learned through repeated painful experiences that a political solution will not come from the state. It is precisely because of this broken faith that Tamils demand justice and accountability from the international community. Breaking this pattern will require the new government to take clear steps towards dismantling the ethnocratic nature of the state and achieving meaningful accountability. Without it, the existing divisions in the country will only continue.
The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.
