Why Self-Determination Cannot be Constrained: A Response to TNPF/TPC & Aekiya Rajya Frameworks
This op-ed challenges recent political narratives and constitutional frameworks that seek to confine the self-determination of Eezham Tamils within an indissoluble Sri Lankan sovereignty.
A serious question has arisen from the recent narratives advanced by the single parliamentarian Tamil National People’s Front (TNPF), which recast the political question as a choice between “unitary” and “federal” models while repeatedly promoting the 2016 TPC framework. This framing introduces a false dichotomy. It conceals the core issue, namely, the continued imposition of an indissoluble Sri Lankan sovereignty over the nation of Eezham Tamils. It aligns with a long-identified tactic in which deceptively semi-federal negotiations are used to foreclose the sovereignty question itself by conditioning self-determination on acceptance of an overriding Sri Lankan sovereign framework (TamilNet 9259).
In rhetorical terms, the TNPF manoeuvre amounts to “ஒரு மாங்காய், இரு கொட்டைகள்” (one mango with two stones), where a single framing simultaneously preserves the single state while neutralising the substance of self-determination through the slogan of “one country, two nations” (ஒரு நாடு, இரு தேசங்கள்).
The self-determination of the nation of Eezham Tamils is foundational and continuing. It was never exercised at decolonisation because it was refused, and a right that is denied cannot be presumed exhausted.
As affirmed in the Vaddukkoaddai Resolution (which turns 50 this year) colonisation did not end in 1948 but continued under new masters, with power transferred without the consent of the Tamil people (TamilNet 30460).
That democratic mandate, endorsed in 1977, was never withdrawn or ceded. The brutal end of the genocidal war in 2009 cannot be construed as a defeat of the struggle’s foundation, nor as a capitulation, nor as an extinguishment of sovereignty or rights. International law does not permit inalienable rights to be erased by force, mass violence, or the destruction of leadership (TamilNet 35636; 39999).
Following the 1977 democratic expression, the Sri Lankan state responded not through engagement but through prohibition.
The Sixth Amendment to the Constitution, enacted in 1983, criminalised the articulation of Tamil political aspirations that had already been democratically expressed. A constitutional order that outlaws self-determination cannot lawfully condition a future constitution-making process, nor can Tamil political parties allow themselves to be constrained by a prohibition enacted precisely to suppress an already asserted right (TamilNet 16023; 20700).
Within this context, the TNPF’s repeated invocation of the Sixth Amendment as a binding constraint to narrow self-determination within its TPC semi-federal model constitutes a fundamental error. This reasoning treats a coercive silencing provision as a legitimate constitutional horizon and conflates imposed restriction with popular consent. It also reproduces a pattern long identified in Tamil political analysis, where autonomy negotiations are deployed not to realise self-determination but to defer and neutralise the sovereignty question itself (TamilNet 9259).
This internal contradiction is most clearly exposed in Article 1.4 of the TNPF/TPC proposal (TamilNet 38114).
The provision begins by recognising that the Tamil people constitute a distinct people possessing an inalienable right to self-determination. Yet the same clause immediately requires the Tamil people to pledge commitment to a “united and undivided Sri Lanka” that is said to respect and affirm that right.
An inalienable right cannot be conditional (TamilNet, Tamil article 39998; Substack article).
By subjecting self-determination to prior acceptance of an overriding sovereign framework, the proposal transforms an inherent right into a contingent one. It converts self-determination, not merely autonomy, into a derivative and subordinate entitlement, thereby negating the very principle it claims to uphold.
This contradiction is reinforced structurally within the TPC framework.
Clause 21.1 functions as a decisive override by subordinating Tamil political authority to the territorial integrity of the Sri Lankan state, while a sub-clause under Clause 1 pre-defines the entire framework within Sri Lankan sovereignty.
Taken together, these provisions operate as a constitutional lock-in mechanism, not by gradually diluting self-determination, but by redefining it out of existence at the threshold.
The same structural logic is evident in the Aekiya Rajya proposal, which constitutionalises Sri Lanka as “undivided and indivisible.”
Despite differences in terminology, this formulation performs the same legal function as Clauses 1 and 21.1 of the TPC framework. It converts political space into a form of permission exercised within a predefined state structure and cannot be treated as a neutral or pragmatic alternative.
‘Internal self-determination’ has been persistently denied. Devolution was never implemented as constitutionally envisaged, autonomy was systematically hollowed out, and colonisation of the Tamil homeland continued. In these circumstances, external self-determination remains legally alive (TamilNet 37617; 37618).
Genocide fundamentally changes the legal and moral equation. A people cannot be compelled to remain within a state structure that has sought its destruction, particularly after the international community failed its Responsibility to Protect in 2009, a failure later acknowledged by the United Nations itself (TamilNet 36496; 39999).
This collapse of international protection was also underscored by Noam Chomsky, a renowned public intellectual, who described the events of 2009 as a Rwanda-like major atrocity that the West did not care about, pointing to deliberate international indifference at the moment of greatest need (TamilNet 29846).
It is in this context that remedial secession becomes relevant. When internal remedies are systematically denied and international mechanisms fail, external self-determination arises as a lawful remedy of last resort rather than an act of secessionist preference (TamilNet 30460).
The Tamil Sovereignty Cognition affirms that sovereignty remains unceded and is rooted in historical nationhood and democratic will. Sovereignty cannot be re-engineered, conditionalised, or subordinated through constitutional language, electoral compromise, or political constraint (TamilNet 34656).
Any framework that constitutionally entrenches an undivided or indivisible state, whether framed as unitary, federal, semi-federal, or Aekiya Rajya, forecloses the people’s free choice in advance and repeats a long-established strategy of sovereignty negation.
Self-determination necessarily includes the right to a free and genuine referendum. It cannot be deferred, conditioned, or subjected to another round of so-called exhaustion. Denial of a plebiscite is itself a denial of self-determination.
There remains a clear pathway for course correction.
Neither the single-seat TNPF, the DTNA, the independent parliamentarian, nor, more importantly, the Ilankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi (ITAK), with its eight parliamentary seats, need fear that articulating Tamil self-determination necessarily entails an immediate demand for separation.
At the same time, refraining from explicitly or implicitly denouncing the right to secede makes it all the more vital to reject any constitutional “nuclear option” that renders self-determination subordinate, conditional, or extinguishable in advance.
This is precisely where post-2009 electoral politics has repeatedly gone wrong: by assuming that restraint in outcome requires surrender in principle, and by accepting constitutional traps that pre-empt the people’s future choice. In this respect, the TNPF’s approach mirrors that of the ITAK in method, even if it differs in rhetoric.
A more accurate analogy for these stakeholders is that of a voluntary union entered into without the forfeiture of the right of exit, where consent remains continuous rather than irrevocably fixed.
Just as a marriage based on free consent presupposes the continuing agency of both parties, political coexistence can only be meaningful if it does not extinguish the right to withdraw that consent.
The right to self-determination of the nation of Eezham Tamils is even more fundamental than this analogy suggests: it is not a discretionary privilege but an inherent and continuing right, one that must remain intact regardless of whether the chosen political future is coexistence, restructuring, or separation.
Any framework that conditions unity on the abandonment of this right negates consent itself and renders the choice illusory.
At a minimum, what is required is an uncompromising articulation of Tamil self-determination as an inherent right, including the possibility of freely chosen coexistence grounded in equality, dignity, and consent.
Such a position would not pre-empt outcomes or foreclose options.
It would simply insist that any future relationship with the Sri Lankan state must rest on genuine recognition of Tamil nationhood and self-determination, without constitutional “nuclear options” that subordinate those rights in advance.
Removing these structural traps would allow Tamil political representation to reclaim agency, restore coherence to a struggle-centric discourse, and enable the people themselves to decide whether coexistence or separation best secures their future.
For readers who wish to explore primary source evidence underpinning several of the arguments articulated above, the following interviews conducted by Kealeer (in Tamil) provide crucial documentation of both internal and external dynamics that have shaped the post-war political landscape:
No constitution without consent.
No consent without a referendum.
The nation of Eezham Tamils must decide.