Ashraff: From the SLMC towards the National Unity Alliance

(Continued from the Sunday Island Sept. 13)

By the late 1990s, Ashraff was beginning to speak differently about his political future. Published historical accounts record that he argued a political party representing a minority community had reached certain limitations and needed to expand into national politics.

The National Unity Alliance was subsequently created and formally registered on 23 August 23, 1999.

This should not be exaggerated. The NUA had not existed long enough before Ashraff’s death for us to describe it as a completed ideological transformation. It could also be interpreted as an electoral strategy. Ashraff was ambitious, and a politician seeking influence beyond a minority constituency would naturally benefit from a wider platform.

But I came to understand the NUA differently because of a conversation I had with Ashraff at the time.

A plate of rice and a question I wanted to ask

At that period, I was attached to the Department of Political Science at the University of Colombo as a lecturer. One day, I received a telephone call asking me to come and meet the leader. I went to his ministerial bungalow in Colombo.

When I arrived, M.M. Mohideen, Sammanthurai Yaseen and several other senior SLMC leaders were there. The atmosphere was relaxed and celebratory. They were marking the registration of the National Unity Alliance and eating kiddu rice together.

Ashraff noticed me and asked that a plate be brought for me. I had already had lunch. But when the Leader himself invited me to join the meal, refusing did not seem appropriate. I therefore took a little rice and joined them.

It was a surprisingly ordinary setting for what would become one of my strongest political memories. There was no stage, no microphone and no formal political speeches. Just the Leader, senior party colleagues, food and conversation. But I had a question.

I had watched Ashraff build the Muslim Congress. I had myself worked within the movement. I knew how much political strength the SLMC had given him. He had reached Parliament and become one of the country’s most powerful Muslim Cabinet Ministers. Why, then, another political organisation?

I asked him respectfully, “Sir, may I ask you a question?” He agreed.

I asked, in substance: You have built the SLMC into a powerful political force. Through this party you have reached one of the highest positions attained by a Muslim political leader in Sri Lanka. Why, then, have you registered the National Unity Alliance? His answer has remained with me for more than two decades.

Ashraff reflected on the atmosphere that had been created during the process of building Muslim political power. He spoke about the language used in political mobilisation, including ethnic appeals and community-centered slogans that had helped mobilise and unite Muslims.

But he was worried about where such politics might eventually take the younger generation. The very political atmosphere that had helped create Muslim political consciousness, he suggested, could become volatile if it continued without change.

His concern was especially about Muslim youth. He feared that they could eventually be taken in a direction he did not want them to go. He wanted to correct that course. He wanted Muslim youth to move towards a broader national agenda.

I do not present this conversation as a verbatim transcript. I was not recording him, and more than two decades have passed. What I recount is my recollection of the substance and meaning of that exchange.

What struck me was his willingness to reflect critically on his own politics.

Political leaders are generally comfortable describing the mistakes of their opponents. It is much rarer for a leader to ask whether the political language that helped him acquire power may itself have produced unintended consequences.

Ashraff was not saying that Muslim political mobilisation had been unnecessary. Nor was he abandoning Muslim political rights. What he appeared to be recognising was something more complex: the politics required to awaken and organise a marginalised community may not be the same politics required to lead the next generation of that community.

The SLMC had told Muslims that they needed their own voice, that others could not decide their political future without them, and that they had to organise. That message transformed Muslim politics.

But once a community possesses political confidence, what comes next? Can young Muslims be taught to defend their identity without being politically separated from the rest of the country? Can Muslim political confidence become part of a larger Sri Lankan citizenship?

My conversation with Ashraff suggested that these questions were occupying his mind.

The NUA may therefore also have represented an element of political self-correction. Ashraff had used identity to build representation, but he appeared increasingly unwilling to allow identity to become a permanent political prison.

Once a community has been successfully mobilised around its identity, how does a leader prevent that identity from becoming a permanent boundary between that community and the nation? Ashraff never had the opportunity to answer that question fully.

On September 16, 2000, Ashraff’s helicopter crashed near Aranayake. His death ended not only a political career but also an unfinished political experiment.

There would be no opportunity to see how the NUA developed. There would be no Ashraff at the negotiating table during the 2002 peace process, no Ashraff to respond to the final stages of the war, and no opportunity to see whether the man who had built the country’s strongest autonomous Muslim political movement could genuinely move beyond it towards a broader national political platform.

History stopped Ashraff at perhaps the most interesting point in his political evolution.

Ashraff’s death exposed an important weakness in the movement he had created. The SLMC possessed an exceptionally powerful leader, but it had not developed an equally strong succession system.

Leadership disputes followed. Fragmentation became a defining feature of post-Ashraff Muslim politics. There is an obvious irony here: Ashraff spent much of his political life consolidating Muslim political strength, while after his death political actors increasingly competed over different pieces of that inheritance.

The SLMC survived. Other Muslim parties emerged. Muslim politicians continued entering governments. Cabinet portfolios continued to be obtained. Coalition bargaining survived extremely well.

But the question is whether Ashraff’s method survived more strongly than Ashraff’s purpose.

Political leverage can secure ministries and appointments, but it can also create institutions, correct structural inequalities and influence national policy. Political success must eventually be measured by what remains when the politician leaves office: institutions, policies, rights, educational opportunities, administrative reforms, security, social cohesion and a stronger generation.

If bargaining repeatedly changes who holds office without changing the structural conditions affecting the community, bargaining has lost its transformative purpose.

Remembering Ashraff without making him a saint

Ashraff should not be transformed into a politician who never made mistakes. He was a political actor operating in a deeply divided country. He sought power, used powerful community-centered rhetoric, and led in a highly personalised manner. His political mobilization attracted criticism for communal and ethno-religious tendencies.

Acknowledging these contradictions does not diminish his historical importance. It makes the final stage of his political journey more interesting.

A leader who had used identity politics appeared to be asking whether identity politics had reached its limits. A leader who had taught a community how to stand separately was beginning to ask how that political confidence could be taken back into a national space.

For me, this journey is captured in two memories. The first is Maruthamunai: I was a district-level party activist, I spoke at the Masoor Moulana Grounds, Ashraff listened, and he later promoted me to a national youth role. That was Ashraff the political organiser, building a movement and strengthening Muslim political consciousness.

The second memory is Colombo. Years had passed. The NUA had been registered. I was sitting with Ashraff, M.M. Mohideen, Sammanthurai Yaseen and other senior SLMC leaders, sharing a simple celebratory meal. I asked why he needed the NUA after achieving so much through the SLMC. I heard a leader worrying about where mobilisation might eventually lead Muslim youth.

Only much later did I realise how closely those two encounters were connected. At Maruthamunai, I saw a leader determined to build a generation of politically conscious Muslim youth. Years later in Colombo, I heard the same man worrying about where that political consciousness might lead if it remained permanently tied to ethnic slogans. That change in Ashraff’s thinking has stayed with me.

More than a photograph on a September stage

Every September, commemorating Ashraff is easy. His photograph can be displayed, a stage can be decorated, speakers can call him Thalaivar, his achievements can be listed and his speeches replayed.

But political inheritance is not measured by how often a dead leader’s name is mentioned. It is measured by what later generations do with the political space he created.

Ashraff helped give Sri Lankan Muslims an independent political voice. What has that voice produced during the 26 years since his death? He demonstrated the power of coalition bargaining. How much of that bargaining has been converted into durable policy rather than temporary office? He helped build institutions. What comparable institutions will the present generation of Muslim politicians leave behind?

And if Ashraff himself became worried that communal political rhetoric could lead Muslim youth in an undesirable direction, who continued his effort to bring that generation into a broader national agenda?

These questions should not be treated as criticism of one particular Muslim political party. They concern the direction of Muslim political leadership as a whole.

From Sammanthurai to an unfinished national journey

Sri Lanka in 2026 is very different from the Sri Lanka Ashraff left behind in September 2000. The war has ended. The LTTE no longer exists. The traditional political system has undergone dramatic change. A younger generation has grown up without direct memories of much of the violence that shaped Ashraff’s political career.

Yet many underlying issues remain. Land remains sensitive in the East. Administrative boundaries remain politically contested. Tamil-Muslim relations periodically become strained. Religion can rapidly become politicized. Questions of minority representation remain unresolved.

Sri Lanka continues struggling with one of its oldest democratic challenges: how can communities maintain their identities and political dignity while simultaneously building a common citizenship?

Ashraff did not solve that problem. History should not pretend that he did.

But several times during his political life, he recognised when an existing political model had become insufficient. When traditional Muslim representation seemed inadequate, he helped create an autonomous Muslim political movement. When demographic weakness appeared to condemn Muslims to the political margin, he transformed organised votes into national bargaining power. When political representation alone seemed insufficient, he used political influence to build institutions. And when the language of identity politics itself appeared capable of producing consequences he feared for a younger generation, he began exploring a broader national political platform.

Then the helicopter fell. The leader disappeared. The SLMC survived. The tree survived. Coalition politics survived. The politics of bargaining survived. But the larger journey from identity, to representation, to political confidence, and finally towards a broader national citizenship remains unfinished.

Perhaps that is why, 26 years after his death, the most meaningful question on September 16 should no longer simply be: Who inherited M.H.M. Ashraff’s party? A far more important question is: Who understood where Ashraff was trying to go next?

Yusoff, M.A., Sarjoon, A., Hussin, N. & Ahmad, A. (2017), “Analyzing the Contributions of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress and its Founder–Leader to Muslim Politics and Community in Sri Lanka,” Social Sciences, 6(4), 120.

Yusoff, M.A., Sarjoon, A. & Mohd Zain, Z. (2018), “Analyzing the Fragmented Sri Lankan Muslim Politics in Post-Ashraff Era,” Journal of Politics and Law, 11(3).

Johansson, Andreas (2019), Pragmatic Muslim Politics: The Case of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress. Palgrave Macmillan.

Parliament of Sri Lanka, official profile of M.H.M. Ashraff.

D.B.S. Jeyaraj, “Remembering SLMC Leader M.H.M. Ashraff,” Daily FT.

D.B.S. Jeyaraj, “MHM Ashraff: From Muslim Leader to National Statesman,” Daily Mirror.