Territorializing the environment:

The political question of land and the future of the

displaced in Musali South

By Sivamohan Sumathy-July

2, 2015

I have in the past few weeks attended two of Shahul Hasbullahs excellently laid
out map of the displaced in the Musali South area and the entanglement of that
in a controversy of environmental proportions, the Wilpattu question, first at
the University of Peradeniya, where he is a Professor in Geography, and later at
the Social Scientist Association Auditorium.
Imagine my shock and dismay then, when just a few hours after
listening to an informative and layered lecture, delivered by him on
the 28th June, 2015, pointing at the complexity of the situation
surrounding the current controversy over Wilpattu and Musali
South, I had to listen to a news broadcast on the subject, which
rode roughshod over many of the concerns raised by Hasbullah. It
was a report on Wilpattu featuring Sajeewa Chamikara, the
supposed environmentalist expounding on the controversy, from
the perspective of environmentality. But what is the environmental
issue and where is it located? Why did the broadcast not have any
countervailing account? As Hasbullah stated in an earlier article,
"Wilpattu is a non issue, and even the environmentalists have
moved from being concerned about Wilpattu to further west and
north as regards their claims: Musali South. There is a huge
upsurge in popular thinking regarding environmental damage in
the Mannar District, particularly Musali South (confusing it with
Wilpattu), that has permeated the thinking of academics as well:
the idea that forest is being destroyed in the Mannar District by
returning Muslims. There is a need for an informed understanding
today. I write this, then, with a view to raising some cardinal
questions about the controversy.

It is sad that those who are concerned about the environment are
not raising their voices on behalf of the returnees. Questions of the
environment are simultaneously questions about ethnicity, class
and gender. They are political questions and cannot be seen as
neutral. It behooves us to examine the politics of environment
critically. Environmental concerns are vexed ones in general and
where the ongoing debate about Wilpattu is concerned, one has
to critique not only interested parties but our epistemologies as
well. Land and people are not opposed entities. We should not see
the environment as being opposed to peoples concerns, a
cardinal mistake that we make in our conceptualization. The
symbiotic relation between nature and people is a complex field of
study and has to be explored further in any attempt to raise
environmental issues, instead of which, urban dwellers, perhaps
damaging the environment much more than the displaced in
Musali, are raising the cry of environmental here. This is the irony
environmentalists, and others, seem to miss here.
The issue that lies at the heart of the controversy is the return of
displaced people, in this instance largely but not exclusively
Muslims. The people immediately concerned are people who had
been displaced for decades. I do not wish to reproduce Hasullahs
lecture here, nor am I going to make a plea on behalf of any side.
As far as I am concerned, there are no sides here. As Hasbullah
stressed again and again, we need understanding and dialogue,
not meaningless strife. This is not to say that all strife is bad, but
we must develop an understanding that is analytic and
contextually holistic rather than piece meal. I also hope that all
parties sincerely interested in dialogue here would approach what
I write here with the intention of listening and engaging in a
dialogue rather than in polemics and dismissal. Hasbullahs
lectures in fact demanded such a frame of mind and I hope I can
capture the spirit in which it was delivered as well as its key
points. What I present here would not be exhaustive, but would be
providing a framework for us to analytically engage with the
concerns.

Locating "people" at the centre of any resolution to the question,

Hasbullah argues for a historically rooted political analysis of the
subject. His lecture, titled, Territory, Territorialization and
Competing Nationalisms, placed at the centre of the debate,
contestations carried out over land and possession of land; for our
purposes today it is Musali South. Adopting a historical, sociopolitical and geopolitical approach toward the issue, he started off
by tracing the history of settlements in Marichchukaddi, Karadikuli,
Palaikuli and Mullikulam, from pre colonial or early colonial times
to the period up to the onset of the civil war the 80s. The
contested area today that environmentalists have said as one that
is being deforested has had human settlements from pre-colonial
times.
He showed us a map of Musali and adjoining areas, and the
locations of paddy land, settlements, and tanks, with Wilpattu
Forest Reserve forming a flank in the Puttalam District in the south
and Anuradhapura District in the east.
Colonialism sees the rise of a centralized state. Independence in
1948 brought along with it both insecurities and securities of the
state into the equation in new forms.
For him, state territorialization and competing territorialization by
armed Tamil Militants in the 80s was the pivotal point of the
controversy. The competing claims made by both the state
mechanisms, through colonization schemes, and the contestation of
that by Tamil groups, which were involved in their own perhaps
smaller scale settlement efforts, made certain areas , such as
Musali, contested terrain. With time, the contestation led to the
evacuation of people from these areas; and for our purposes today,
the area around Musali South.

The conceptualization of state and territory has to be rethought in

our national imaginary. While state colonization schemes, moving
people toward the north and east, from the wet zone to the dry
zone, might have been based on a practical solution for over
crowding in the south west, land distribution patterns, around, say
the Gal Oya scheme, led to great consternation among Tamils in
the east, and was one of the leading factors in spurring Tamil
nationalism. With counter claims made by Tamil nationalist forces,
and with time, by armed Tamil groups, borders and borderlands
came under great stress, as the state of Sri Lanka and the statewanting-to-be, of the armed groups, particularly, the LTTE, fought
for control of the borderlands.
Musali South is one such contested area. Geographically, Musali
has a central tank and many subsidiary tanks, feeding fertile paddy
land of the villages, and resource and culture rich fishing villages.
Muslims, Tamils, and seasonally migrating Sinhala fisher
communities made up the social composition, while it was and is
still today, a 90 %Muslim concentration-area. The clandestine
movement and training of cadres in the jungle by armed Tamil
groups, the advancement and entrenchment of Sri Lankan armed
forces and the intensity of war, impacted on the peaceful existence
of the people carrying out their day to day tasks. At the height of
the conflict, the evacuation of people took place in phases, and
that becomes crucial for any understanding of the problem.
The eviction of Muslims in 1990 by the LTTE, displacing the
population to Puttalam and other places, was one of the decisive
happenings of the times, and an answer to this goes hand in hand
with any solution.

With the evacuation of people, the forest, much of it secondary

forest cover, overtook the land mass occupied and/or used by
people. During the cease fire, and with the conclusion to the war,
many of the Muslims returned, with feelings of trepidation.
Nevertheless, with advancing forces and escalating war, Tamils and
Muslims in the area became displaced again in 2007. The
insecurities of Muslim IDPs, and the plight of Tamils of Mullikulam,
where a navy base has been established, and the poor conditions of
existence of all IDPs, are critical questions today. That the
government categorized returnees as old and new, with 2008
forming the demarcating line, did not help alleviate this feeling of
insecurity. With the conclusion to the war, when Muslims returned,
they found their former lands being overtaken by shrub, secondary
forest and a large navy base in the south west. In the meantime,
the gazette notification of October, 10, 2012, demarcated 6042
hectares of land as the Marrichukaddy-Karadikuli Forest Reserve.
But people, even before Rishard Badurdeen got into the fray, had
cleared the land and settled along the Silavathurai- Marichukaddy
main road; they occupied a land mass that extended less than 500
metres from the main road for the length of roughly 2 miles. But
sadly, satellite pictures and drone photography have been
manipulated to produce an exaggerated view of the extent of the
land cleared.
I have given here only a snap shot view of the presentation, which
was rich in information and theory, and visually striking in its
multiple and complex mapping of criss crossing patterns of
displacement and the frittering away of peoples sense of
ownership of land. In conclusion, Hasbullah talked about competing
nationalisms: Majoritarian state nationalist drives, for our purposes
of discussion, touted largely as environmental concerns, deny the
right to return of the displaced; Tamil nationalism, drawing upon
the aspirations of the Tamil people, contested state
territorialization and created is own hegemonic considerations of
land in the psyche of the people; Simultaneously, the actions of
Muslim politicians are focused on the enhancement of their voter
banks, and not on a durable solution.
A solution cannot be reached, if these forces are allowed to take
control of the debate. People located outside of this must claim
ownership of the concerns and take preemptive measures.

There is a) an urgent need for a national policy on resettlement of

the displaced, a solution acceptable to the people b) a need to
check the retrenchment of military bases that has taken land away
from the people, c) and the need to focus on the concerns of coexistence of the people of the area. The rights of the Tamils of
Mullikulam who have been displaced by the establishment of a
large navy camp, the inalienable right to return of Muslims of
Musali South and the landing rights of seasonal fisher people,
mostly Sinhala, from places such as Chilaw and Negombo, have to
be reinstated and reassured.
It is my view that any democratic practice necessarily entails a
culture of discussion and openness. I ask politicians, politicians
who are committed to democratic principles, particularly our
President, to pay heed to the voice of the marginalized and seek
answers to thorny questions. I ask all of us too, to raise these
questions in all forums of engagement. What has happened to the
land of the people? Why is there a navy camp in Mullikulam? Why
are the people of Mullikulam displaced? What is the environment?
Are the displaced people of roughly a 100 families in the contested
area actually destroying the forest? Or are they helping in
nurturing it? Whose environment are we talking of?: that of people
in Colombo and other urban areas or that of the displaced? Why
arent we asking these questions? With this call I close this short
note, hoping that this can initiate a sustained and open discussion
on the subject.
(Sivamohan Sumathy is attached to the Department of English,
University of Peradeniya.)
Posted by Thavam