Division!

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe is talking ‘division’. No, it’s not THAT division which his party has been advocating on the sly or in the very least aiding and abetting. No, it’s not the incremental progress towards Eelam that has been a well-rehearsed script diligently played by Tamil nationalists. Let’s elaborate before we talk about the ‘division’ that Wickremesinghe is talking about right now.

Here’s the process: 1) Formulation of objective (Eelam), 2) Construction of history (‘Myth modeling’ a la Traditional Homelands), 3) Inflation of grievances, 4) Wild Extrapolation, 5) Demand the Unreasonable, 6) Armed insurrection (because ‘democratic avenues will not yield objective), 7) Obtain incremental gains. That’s Chelvanayakam’s ‘A little now, more later’ thesis in action and the oxymoronic  M.A. Sumanthiran is up to. 

Now. This is not THAT ‘division’. It’s something else. Think ‘Divisional Secretariat’ (for now).   Wickremesinghe has laid it out at the launch of ‘Citra,’ dubbed as ‘Sri Lanka’s first social innovation lab’.  

‘Our divisional level should work. President Premadasa wanted the division more independent but today it is overloaded. When you think of 2020 or 2030 is division enough? Or do we have to think of a new unit. We are wondering whether the Division can spend all the money that is being put by all levels of the government. There are many competing programs. We are now trying to identify a common unit to implement all these.’

‘Long ago the basic unit of administration was the province and a GA. In the 60s it was the district. However, subsequently early 80s it was a division. Divisional secretariats are in a tug-o-war with the central government and the provincial council. However, those are today’s problems. I am looking at tomorrow’s problems. Is this model outdated? Have we got to rethink of divisional structure,’ he added.

Wickremesinghe is talking about getting things done and of course things not getting done. He’s talking about operational units. He is talking about provinces and divisions.  He’s focusing on the administration aspects but does talk of devolution units. 

First he says that the divisional secretariats are overworked. Then he claims that they are further hampered by tensions between the central government and provincial councils. 

The issue can be resolved in any number of ways. Endless postponement of provincial council elections and absolute silence on the part of the devolution lobby, provincial politicians and the people in the relevant provinces clearly indicate that provincial councils need to be done away with. They were, for those who may not remember, thrust down our throats by India and embraced by political parties and politicians to further political projects. Well, they are not functioning and no one is bothered. 

That alone will not resolve the issue. Wickremesinghe says that divisions cannot handle all the matters that come to them. He has mentioned that it is hard for citizens to interact with officials. He cautions that the bureaucracy is a problem. Most importantly, he asks, ‘is there enough space for citizen’s participation at the grass root level?’

That’s about participatory democracy. He should know better than most how democracy does and does not work. He can talk about participation and of course non-participation or rather the subversion of participation. 

The proportional representational system of elections has clearly distanced representative and the represented or rather those who ought to be represented. The elected are answerable to an entire district and not an electorate. It’s the same with the provincial councils. Electoral reform to cure these ills were deliberately fudged by those responsible. What was promised was a mixed system, but what we got was a perverted version of the same problematic system.  

The planning conundrum that Wickremesinghe has so accurately described is made worse by the decentralized budget where each Member of Parliament is allocated a certain amount of money to spend as he or she wishes. This turns legislators into mini-executives and nurtures a mindset that infringes upon the principle ‘separation of power’ in the state. 

So what’s the solution that Wickremesinghe is pointing towards? He has not spelled it out. What he has done is suggest that the way things are is not the way things ought to be. In other words, when it comes to decentralization, we need even smaller units, i.e. smaller than the ‘division’.  That would take us to the map of local government authorities or rather the lines that indicate jurisdiction. In an administrative sense we would be talking ‘Grama Niladhari Plus’ here. In a political sense, i.e. in terms of representational unit, it would indicate something smaller than the local government authority. 

Getting things done. That’s what devolution advocacy is mostly about. The Prime Minister has clearly indicated that the provincial councils are not getting things done and moreover are essentially subverting the development project. Even District Development Councils (DDCs) would not work according to his argument. 

The solution then would be an administrative/representational arrangement that is not burdened by PCs and kept to manageable proportions by going for smaller units. Interestingly this is the logical direction indicated by devolution ideology. That thought-process has stopped at the boundaries of the PCs, but Wickremesinghe has boldly come out and said, essentially, ‘it is not working!’  

Way to go Prime Minister! Now convince your party and your fervent allies!

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