The Sri Lankan Supreme Court’s opinion that the merger of the Tamil majority north and eastern provinces was invalid could not have come at a worse time for the fragile and almost non-existent peace process between the Liberation Tigers for Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the Sri Lankan state.

Almost 19 years ago, the Supreme Court in a 5-4 judgment dismissed petitions challenging the constitutional validity of the provisions of the Indo-Lanka accord. At that time the minority judges were perceived as being communal. Yesterday the court seems to have changed its mind. The five-judge bench, headed by the Chief Justice Sarath de Silva, unanimously agreed with the petitioners, the Sinhalese nationalist party, the JVP, that the merger of the northern and eastern provinces was invalid because two conditions of the accord had not been fulfilled: namely, the cessation of hostilities and the demobilisation of militant groups. The JVP vehemently opposes federalism and the merger on the grounds that these would pave the way for a separate Tamil eelam. While the North is almost completely Tamil, the east has a Tamil majority and a Muslim and Sinhalese minority. In fact, the JVP’s argument in court focused on debunking historical and current claims by Tamils to a north-eastern homeland and highlighted the secessionist consequences of allowing it. By agreeing with the petitioners, the court risks being seen as a Sinhalese nationalist anti-Tamil entity even though the judges used a “right to equality” rationale.

As far as India is concerned, the judgment is both ill-timed and ill-conceived since it undercuts the federal and minority home-base arrangements under the Indo-Lanka accord of 1987. The Indian state has always backed the views of the moderate Tamils who are united with all other Tamils on the issue of having a Tamil homeland in the north-east, albeit within a Sri Lankan state. The Accord had temporarily merged the two regions to comply with these demands that had predated the emergence of the LTTE. More importantly, the court’s view sends a bad signal to the moderate Tamils that their one demand (which Tamils of all ideological hues agreed on) would not be acceptable to the Sri Lankan state, particularly the Sinhalese majority.

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