The Sixth Amendment and Naga Academy
Ruben Nagesparan Chandrakumar, BS
The Sixth Amendment, enacted in the August of 1983 after the genocide of Black July, made supporting and advocating of “the establishment of a separate State within the territory of Sri Lanka” illegal. This Amendment was designed to restrict several aspects of the Eelam independence movement. Through its passing, the tyranny of the Government of Sri Lanka is revealed. Through denying both the principle of free speech and the rights articulated in the United Nations Charter, the Government of Sri Lanka has demonstrated their desire and willingness to stifle the Tamil call for independence.
The right to self-determination is suppressed under the amendment as it denies civic rights to anyone who acts in support of a separate state and mandates politicians to declare an oath of loyalty to the unity of the state. As a result of this act and many other actions of the government, there is a sentiment of fear which permeates Eelam to this day. Through criminalizing speech and dissent, the government destroyed any hope for Tamils of attaining a separate state through peaceful, diplomatic means. The inability of the government to acknowledge the voice of Tamils throughout the country, and in the diaspora, speaks to the potency of the Sri Lankan Buddhist narrative. This narrative of Sinhalese Buddhism rests upon a belief that the entire island of Sri Lanka is a sacred site where Buddhism must be protected. Due to this belief, the conflict extends beyond a geopolitical war and into the realm of religious conflicts.
This complicated geopolitical and religious conflict requires historical research, philosophical discourse, international justice, political diplomacy, and more to be resolved. Unfortunately, due to the stringent laws and fundamentalist beliefs within Sri Lanka, this resolution is unlikely to be achieved domestically. Thus, there is a necessity to gather and strengthen the tools needed to resolve the injustices and the conflict within the diaspora. Naga Academy, because of its explicit stance supporting the right to self-determination of Eelam, is illegal under the Sixth Amendment.
As Benjamin Franklin so brilliantly articulated in his essay ‘On Freedom of Speech and the Press’, “Freedom of speech is a principal pillar of a free government; when this support is taken away, the constitution of a free society is dissolved, and tyranny is erected on its ruins.” Without the freedom to speak and the freedom to criticize the government, all that is left is tyranny. As the Government of Sri Lanka has restricted the construction of private colleges throughout the island, all educational operations are run by the state. This monopoly on the infrastructure and budget of higher education allows the state to significantly influence public opinion and minimize dissent. Without private institutions acting as bulwarks against government overreach and indiscretions, the state is free to act with impunity.
The inability to express dissent was also prevalent during the reign of the LTTE. The infamous supremo, Velupillai Prabhakaran, was notorious for murdering those who dissented and those who he felt betrayed the cause. Due to the horrors inflicted by the LTTE, many civilians did not feel safe nor free to publicly criticize the actions of the movement. This was further driven by the LTTE’s affinity for Marxism; in pursuit of an egalitarian society based on revolutionary socialism, the LTTE emphasized public agencies over private entities.
As a result of Eelam’s peculiar historical circumstances, a space has formed in the diaspora. This space is that of the political, philosophical, and multidisciplinary conversations within the diaspora which concern the current state, the pathways forward, and the potential futures of Eelam. By providing institutional frameworks which allow these conversations to flourish and through promoting the ideal of free speech, Naga Academy’s mission is to transform the space into a central, guiding force in the independence and development of Eelam.