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 Is this model outdated?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!

malindasenevi@gmail.com. www.malindasenevi@gmail.com

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The LLRC and devolution

The politics of skipping the caveats

When the Government proposed setting up a Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC), there were howls of protests from the likes of Jehan Perera and Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu. Many of these I/NGO operators didn’t even appear before the LLRC perhaps fearing that the Commissioners would ask them to submit in full their various comments to the media, in the form of statement or political commentary. When the LLRC finally came out with a ‘Report’, they changed their tune. They said ‘Implement the LLRC Recommendation!’

They forgot, conveniently, that the LLRC had exceeded its mandate. That’s ok. A lot of people, after all, are happy to ‘exceed’. More importantly, they appear to be blissfully unaware of two things. Firstly, that the LLRC was a far cry from a body enacted to draft a constitution. Secondly, some of the recommendations require constitutional amendment and even referenda. A third ‘forget’ can be added: the Government is not bound (as per the mandate-limitation) to implement all of the recommendations. There’s can-do and cannot-do in all this. There is, moreover, ‘done’, ‘doing’ and ‘forget it’ too. There is wanted-speed and doable-speed.

 

What has excited these ladies and gentlemen, and of course some members of the Opposition, is the inclusion of the word ‘devolution’. True, it’s not ‘federalism’, that F-word dominating what passed for ‘political discourse’ when the reins of power were held by patently anti-Sinhala, anti-Buddhist and indeed pro-LTTE, pro-Eelam elements, but then again, in an LTTE-les Sri Lanka of ‘reduced circumstances’, if ‘straw’ was sought, ‘devolution’ was good enough a cling-on.

 

What is most interesting is the fact that true to form, they have taken the LLRC recommendation on devolution totally out of context and have never once referred to the relevant caveats. They would do well to read the points elaborated in Section 9.231 of the LLRC Report.

9.231 Devolution should necessarily be people-centric in nature and the following considerations should be borne in mind –

 

A. Devolution should essentially promote greater harmony and unity and not disharmony and disunity among the people of the country. The promotion of this ‘oneness’ and a common identity should be the principal aim of any form of devolution while protecting and appreciating rich diversity.

B. The focus should be to ensure that the people belonging to all communities are empowered at every level especially in all tiers of Government. Devolution of power should not privilege or disadvantage any ethnic community, and in this sense, should not be discriminatory or seen to be discriminatory by the people belonging to any ethnic community within the country.

C. The democratic empowerment of the people should take place within the broader framework of the promotion and protection of human rights which is a fundamental obligation of the elected government deriving from specific provisions of the Constitution and the Treaty obligations the country has voluntarily undertaken.

D. In addressing the question of devolution two matters require the attention of the government. Firstly, empowering the Local Government institutions to ensure greater peoples’ participation at the grass roots level. Secondly, it is also imperative that the lessons learnt from the shortcomings in the functioning of the Provincial Councils system be taken into account in devising an appropriate system of devolution that addresses the needs of the people. It should at the same time provide for safeguarding the territorial integrity and unity of Sri Lanka whilst fostering its rich diversity.

Let’s take these one by one. Caveat A imposes the condition of ‘harmony’. Now if devolution uses the current provincial boundaries (randomly drawn, let us not forget), which constitute the basis for the (diminished) Eelamist demarcation, if the majority of Tamils people live outside the North and East (for example), how on earth can devolution along these chauvinist lines powered by myth-models and exaggeration inspire anything but suspicion and anxiety among the Sinhalese? They would consider such devolution as ‘Threat to Existence’! There won’t be harmony. ‘Oneness’ would be wrecked.

Caveat B speaks of empowerment. This is good. It calls for much better governance and greater affirmation of citizenship-meaning. One does not need ‘devolution’ for this and if any community feels disadvantaged then all that needs to be remembered is that the felt ‘discrimination’ will continue to prevail in the other 7 provinces (where the majority of Tamils live). Devolution does not combat discrimination; better laws might. 

Caveat C is about human rights. The upholding or subverting of human rights has nothing to do with the structure of the state (for example, whether it is a federal, unitary or other arrangement). So Caveat C, like Caveat B, is an add-on that is not devolution-specific.

 

Finally, Caveat D. It is about ‘building on what we have’, i.e. the local government institutions. It is about greater and meaningful participation. Such ‘democracy,’ again does not require devolution as per the 13^th Amendment, 13 Plus posturing etc., but about scripting in checks and balances into the relevant articles of the constitution. Caveat D also unequivocally salutes the need to ‘provide for safeguarding the territorial integrity and unity of Sri Lanka whilst fostering its rich diversity’. The devolution debate has gone too far with taking as ‘fact’ and ‘legitimate’ the extrapolations of Tamil chauvinism for any power-devolution to established provincial lines not be seen as a threat to territorial integrity and unity.

 

Take all these caveats and power devolution to existing lines can be safely ruled out as ‘not in line with LLRC recommendations’. The only devolution that abides by these caveats, then, is a formulation that trashes current provincial boundaries and re-draws geographical units in more scientific (e.g. based on river-basins) ways with close attention to ensuring that no community, large or small, feels threatened.

 

Given all this, one thing is clear: those who have been waving the LLRC Report have just seen one word, devolution. That, or else, they are intellectually dishonest. Take your pick!

[Published in THE NATION, April 7, 2013]

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Devolution talk and devolution talkers

Are you for 13, 13-minus or 13-plus, someone asked me.  Political circles are a-buzz with the 13^th, i.e. the Amendment thrust down the Sri Lankan polity by India in 1987, defended ferociously by Indophiles and non-Tiger separatists and happily used by politicians of all color intent on furthering careers and making bucks.  The pro-13^th commentators have all come out of the woodworks, as have those who opposed it and oppose devolution to boot. 

Debate on the matter is not new.  The present buzz follows a statement by Gotabhaya Rajapaksa advocating its repeal.  Context in brief is as follows: a) the 13^th is a part of the constitution, b) the President has at various times talked about devolution and pledged to go further, i.e. ’13 Plus’, c) it has no discernible connection with expressed grievances and makes no sense in terms of demographic, developmental and historical realities. 

And yet, those who are dismayed do make some interesting points.  Dharisha Bastians (‘From 13 Plus to 13 Minus’) argues that there is presidential double-speak.  Sumanasiri Liyanage (‘The UPFA government is heading for its first defeat in Parliament’) on the other hand is a victim of his own fantasies and notions of democracy predicated on faulty reading of conflict.  Laksiri Fernando (‘Gotabhaya’s talk about abolishing the 13^th Amendment’) is fascinated with status quo (right or wrong) and erroneous in the assertion that a repeal would necessarily wreck language rights. 

Tissa Vitharana’s outburst is perhaps the most clownish, for he sees ‘foreign conspiracy’ in moves to abolish the 13^th.  The biggest conspirator with respect to the 13^th was India and that’s certainly ‘foreign’, not to mention that the darlings of those intent on dragging his leader to the Haig are also ‘foreign’ or ‘foreign funded’ AND are staunch 12-Plus advocates (their backtracking from separatism to federalism to the 13th corresponds to the decline and fall of terrorism: no coincidence!). 

Fernando’s is nevertheless the most thoughtful of the responses.  He has detailed, for example, pre-13^th devolution talk.  He has also referred to the LLRC recommendations pertaining to devolution.  He has conjured a gonibilla factor: ‘Devolution and the 13th Amendment are the ‘trophies’ that the government has been showing the international community and the UN as indications of Sri Lanka’s commitment to resolve the ethnic question in the country. Backtracking on them would undoubtedly spell disaster for the country in the international sphere.’

Now the statements made on devolution from time to time does not necessarily make it logical, necessary, meaningful or sustainable.  These statements could be shot to pieces with the as-is situation of the 13th.  Fernando argues that as-is is mendable.  This is true except for the fact that devolution to provinces is antithetical to current economic theory in terms of resource endowment and allocation.  We have to keep in mind also that the X-Country success is not necessarily replicable in Country-Y.  

As for the ‘trophies’, Fernando misses the blatant truth that Sri Lanka’s detractors are as interested in ‘solutions’ as they are concerned about ‘democracy’ In Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya or the Arctic.  Showcasing ‘achievement’ is simply not going to cut ice unless the relevant lines are toed. 
Grievances (and no one can deny that Tamils have them, as do various other segments of society, including Sinhalese) need to be resolved in different ways, especially through democratization. Here, Fernando’s comments on the 17^th and 18^th are extremely valid.  But we are not talking about ‘democratization’ here but ‘grievance-addressing’. 

What all these people forget is that the lines we are talking about here are white-drawn.  They have nothing to do with the longer history of the country (where demarcations – Ruhunu, Maya and Pihiti --made political but more than this geographical sense) or make sense in terms of present day prerogatives (economic hub, resource-complement, seaboard and so on).  Secondly, I am willing to wager that if asked to enumerate ‘grievances’ and tie each of them to territory-based ‘resolution’, they would be stumped, particularly given the fact that the majority of Tamils live outside the North and East. 

It is in this sense that the line Fernando quotes from the LLRC Report (‘appropriate system of devolution’) and the one he misses (‘acceptable to all’) need to be considered.  We can have devolution, not to resolve grievances that are not devolution-resolved but for better and more meaningful development.  That would necessitate re-demarcation of provincial boundary.  That’s the ’13 Plus’ we could aim for.  If there’s anything that thumbs a nose at reality, then it is better to scrap.  No 13, no 13 Plus, no 13 Minus.  Zero.  

 

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A note on smart-ass devolutionists

When they called it ‘separatism’ is sounded like a cuss-word.  Separatists took time to get smart.  Perhaps it would be more correct to say it took them a long time to recover smartness.  S.J.V. Chelvanayakam hit the correct idea when he said it was possible to extract anything from the Sinhalese as long as it is done slowly, an idea he captured in the pithy ‘A little now, more later’. 

Leaving aside the notion that whoever did the ‘taking’ would be taking from all Sri Lankans and not just the Sinhalese, the slogan only pushed separatism to embrace terrorism while it rubbed the Sinhalese majority quite the wrong way.  Had Chelva thought but not said, separatism may have benefitted, but chauvinists and land-thieves often trip over themselves. G.G. Ponnambalam’s ‘Fifty-fifty’ for a little lover 10% of the population may have been the product of greed gone crazy but it also framed the dimensions of aspirations for more than half a century.  By 1976, Chelva himself lost his way, the Vadukoddai Resolution being nothing less than a go-for-broke adventure that wanted it all; not power-sharing but land and coast grabbing.  Blood-letting was the unscripted inevitable.  Close to a hundred thousand lives were lost. 

When the LTTE was in fully cry Tamil moderates (so-called) either out of fear or awe or outright salutation went gear-down on devolution.  The statements of the ‘moderates’, both individuals and parties (in coalition and isolation) make for a symptomatic reading on this aspect.  The TNA’s election manifestoes of 2001, 2004 and 2010 would do in fact.  Post-LTTE, devolution has been resurrected out of consolation-need more than anything else, one might argue, if not for Chelva’s Action Plan of incremental construction of Eelam. 

The 13^th Amendment’s most important contribution to the Eelam cause has been its utility as reference point. India fostered terrorism in Sri Lanka. India gave refuge, armed, trained and funded terrorism.  India took some sparks poured gallons and gallons of fuel, whipped up a roaring fire and then brought fire-size down (for a while) and now insists that where the fire is now is foundation-point for resolution. No mention now of what it is that is sought to be resolved.  No talk either of the fact that foundation-point is still a fire that anyone including India, Tamil Nadu, Tamil and Sinhala chauvinism included can add fuel to. 

Today’s Prescriber is undoubtedly India.  Today’s prescription-approvers are the Chelva-Tamils and wooly-headed Marxist-Leninists who are in a permanent state of denial about all that being passé.  Other approvers include anti-Buddhist heirs of the Colonial encounter who are smarter than their 16^th-20^th Century ideological and political forefathers.  Their logic seems to be based on the notion that if you rob from the Sinhalese it is the Buddhists who lose the most due to the sheer numbers.  They are smart, because they are not running around burning temples in the way the Portuguese did or extracting conversion through the carrot of privilege and the skewing of institution and process against Buddhists.  If you have any doubts about this, just check who the most vociferous approvers are, their ethnic identities, their ideological preferences and their faiths. 

The smartest of course are those who say without saying.  There are, for example, those who take ethnic identity and religious faith out of the equation and talk ‘development’.  They know that the Indian Thesis crumbles in the fact of history, geography and demography.  The history that is relevant to the discourse has always been that associated with the claims pertaining to traditional-homelands.  Those who are devolution-smart talk therefore about a history of relative self-sufficiency and administrative decentralization which they conveniently argue indicate that power-devolution was always with us and indeed made us. 

Anyone who has studied the extensive and intricate hydraulic system of this land as well as laws about resource exploitation and allocation would understand that while there were times of division, invasion and even anarchy, for the most part there was centralized control and decision-making.  Had it been otherwise, there wouldn’t have been an anicut built in Minipe.  We wouldn’t have the Yoda Ela or the Jaya Ganga.  Kings would not have employed large quantities of resources to build large irrigation structures, temples or places of learning in places far away from the capital.  Rivers would not have been diverted through a series of anicuts. Such schemes were not built subsequent isolated communities conferring with neighbours about how best to use the water flowing down a river. 

True, there is a vast mismatch of resource-allocation today. Certain things don’t get done.  The devolution-smart say triumphantly that in a devolved polity things would get done.  A decentralized administrative structure would suffice in most instances, but they don’t want to admit this.  Neither do they acknowledge the fact that devolution would not have given resource-poor areas the kind of access to education that centralized decision-making has.  There is also remarkable silence about the bridges, reservoirs, hospitals and other infrastructural facilities and services that would have remained distant dreams had it not been for centralized decision-making if not for anything the sheer lack of resources and other necessary capacities.  Nothing is said either of the fact that populations are not static, that they move, that we’ve moved a fair distance from (relatively) self-sufficient village-units, or that aspirations have spilled out of the idyllic ‘village’ and perhaps will never be containable in those territorial dimensions again. 

What is needed is an overhauling of the entire governance structure and a streamlining of institutional mechanisms and processes to encourage enlightened decision-making.  That this is an uphill task is used as logic for devolution.  That’s being lazy and indeed irresponsible for there are no short cuts to peace and wholesome citizenship.  In this case, any kind of devolution that takes current provincial boundaries as given (never mind their artificiality and pernicious association with homeland-claim – a convenient exaggeration of existing demographic patterns) will etch in such hard lines the Eelamist positions on the Sri Lankan political landscape that it would in effect transform into irreversible fact. 

We can do better.  We must.

[first published in the Daily Mirror, July 5, 2011]

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A note on the history-phobia of devolutionists

‘It takes centuries of life to make a little history; it takes centuries of history to make a little tradition.’ – Dr. Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan

The term ‘power sharing’ (like its typically recommended, on-the-ground articulation, ‘devolution’) has been used for a long time in the Sri Lankan political discourse, especially in the context of resolving what are called ‘minority grievances’. 

Now ‘devolution’ can be argued for outside of ethnic politics as well -- for example in discussions of development, better distribution of wealth, greater degrees of participation in decision-making processes etc.  On the other hand, there is nothing to state that the objectives relevant to these other arguments can only be obtained through devolution.  Better structures of governance and decentralization of administrative functions can do the same job.  As for ‘development’, the current thinking on relevant economics actually rebels against ‘devolution’. Indeed, in the Sri Lankan context, the devolution argument, when played to its logical conclusion, can result in exacerbating regional disparities. 

While many devolutionists have alluded to economic and governance factors (selectively and erroneously), these have been little more than addendum to the principal argumentative thrust, i.e. resolution of issues pertaining to the ‘ethnic’, in particular the grievances/aspirations of the Tamil community.  This in turn is predicated on two claims/assumptions: the notion of a ‘traditional homeland’ and demographic realities pertaining to ‘ethnic concentrations’.  The former necessitates a reference to and substantiation in terms of historical evidence.  The latter, often framed in terms of a description of Sri Lanka as a ‘multi-ethnic’ and ‘multi-religious’ country, necessitates a discussion of relevant numbers and demographic data.  On both counts, the advocates of devolution appear to fumble and tongue-tied. 

Let’s begin with the numbers.  First of all, in today’s world of massive demographic shifts within and without countries and continents, there are no pure mono-ethnic nations. The only mono-religious state would be the Vatican.  Thus the notions of multi-ethnic and multi-religious often amount to gross misrepresentation. Moreover, leaving them unpacked in terms of numbers indicates political and ideological sleight of hand.  Interestingly, though, the devolution advocates who use these terms liberally also talk of ‘majoritarianism’.  That term ought to be followed by a demographic breakdown but devolutionists are consistently loath to engage in any such exercise.  They don’t do this and one wonders if this is because the term implies that there’s something more than one-collective-one-vote in these things that have the ‘multi’ tag. 

 

When they do talk numbers and demography the discussion almost exclusively focuses either on ‘status quo’ or charges of deliberate attempts to alter the same through racism-motivated colonization.  There are three problems with hooking the number issue onto ‘status quo’. First, it assumes that people are born and die without moving around at all.  Today’s ‘status quo’ was not yesterday’s and will not be tomorrow’s and as such ‘resolution’ of ‘grievances’ relative to ethnic-enclave based status quo demands re-resolution each time the compositions get altered.  Secondly, ‘status quo’ by definition rebels against history and summarily throws out all arguments about ‘traditional homelands’ since this is a notion that is embedded inextricably in things historical and not ‘momentary’.  A third objection would be that the ‘multi-ethnic, multi-religious’ essentially calls for an erasure of citizenship anomalies across the board.  One cannot demand this and also want a privileging of certain collectives over another in a given territorial unit.  Devolutionists consistently gloss over these issues and this indicates a rank disavowal of fact and reason and thereby an unholy deference to myth, obfuscation, error and crass communal politics.

The question of ‘history’ is as interesting. Ask anyone who talks of traditional homelands how far back in history he/she wants to go. Ask him/her about substantiating claim.  Clamming up, shifting gear and diverting attention usually follow.  It is remarkable how those who strongly advocate devolution and liberally use terms such as ‘traditional homeland’, ‘self-determination’, ‘power-sharing,’ etc. are also extremely reluctant to talk about the history of this country.  We often here statements such as ‘the past is all over, let’s focus on the present’ uttered by devolutionists, even as they use history-laden terms such as ‘traditional homelands’.

It is no coincidence that the vast majority of those who get intellectually fidgety with respect to the above happen to be non-Sinhalese or non-Buddhists or else subscribe to apparently identity-less or identity-disavowing ideologies such as Marxism or at least have had their political baptism in such doctrines. 

The length of historical memory preferred indicates political location, ideological bent, preferred outcome and of course the defensible claim on historical time in terms of the particular individual’s ethno-religious identity.   Those who don’t have the ‘centuries’ relevant to Dr. Radhakrishna’s observation above cannot afford to talk history. They can, at best, fudge it (by tagging ‘multi’ to the ethnic and religious) or take it out of the equation by talking ‘present’ and ‘status quo’ (and of course fiddling with the curriculum as was quite effectively done in the nineties).  Without the centuries and the histories not much ‘tradition’ can be made except of course in the fly-by-night, one-hit-wonder kind of formulation that simply cannot replace ‘tradition’ made of way-of-life, cultural ethos and artifact-reality that show undeniable longevity and resilience.  An ‘I was here’ fact of an odd artifact or mention in a verse has very little historical weight and perhaps this is why the historically light would rather not talk about it.

No nation can move towards a better future if it is stuck in the past.  On the other hand, a nation that disavows the past, is destined to walk into trap and confusion.  Only clarity and a certain deference to reason, both about the past and present, can produce useful thinking when it comes to thinking about the future.  A greater claim on the past does not and should not translate automatically into greater citizenship privileges, but a reluctance to acknowledge that past and the who-did-what of civilization-building, it must also be acknowledged, is a recipe for communal disharmony.  If Community A, whose history is two days old, tells Community B whose history is 17 centuries old that history never happened and even if it did happen it is no longer relevant, no one can fault Community B for treating Community A with suspicion.  If Community B tells Community A, ‘we made this country, so you have to live with the fact and moreover submit to us,’ the Community B cannot claim to have acquired any civilization worth talking about.

History-Phobia is not healthy. It reveals pernicious design. History-Fixation is also unhealthy.  History-disavowal is a malicious project that seeks to erase ‘centuries of life’.  It is good to be clear on these things.  The more we try to hide history under the political carpet, the more untenable becomes the matter of inter-communal embrace on a common humanitarian floor.  We would all trip and fall flat on our faces.  We’ve done that enough now.  It is time to acknowledge fact and toss myth out.   It is time to name those who are reluctant to do this as political frauds, racists and chauvinists, and in some instances religious fundamentalists who for their so-called evangelical ‘mission’ fervently seek the erasure that the ‘multi’ tag gives, a kind of politics they would never ever advocate in countries where the particular faith is dominant.  The reason why this last category champions devolution, perhaps, is the knowledge that when you pull the rug from under the Sinhalese (in terms of land-theft for example), the vast majority of those who fall will necessarily be Buddhists. 

We are history-made.  That’s the bottom line.  Anyone who denies this denies instantly his/her parents. To begin with.  He/she then calls his/her child a bastard.  That’s also ‘bottom line’.

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Let’s not be lazy on grievance or resolution

There was a time when ‘talks’ with the LTTE were touted, vociferously too, as the one and only way of combatting terrorism.  There was a time when the champions of the 13^th  Amendment (principally the Old Left, various self-styled Left ‘Intellectuals’ and civil society activists – so-called- who were almost all anti-Buddhist) argued that power devolution will result in alternatives to the LTTE emerging from the Tamil community, thereby isolating the terrorists. 

Now that all this has been proven to be just bunkum, the question that remains is whether or not power devolution resolves grievances of the Tamils in Sri Lanka, and here we are talking of grievances that can be proven and not those based on myths (e.g. traditional homelands) or aspirations dressed up as grievances.   

If all or the vast majority of Tamils lived in the North and East, if all or most of the North and East were geographically made of predominantly Tamil residents, if being in the North and East (as opposed to say Uva or Wayamba) meant special deprivations to the inhabitants, then even if traditional homeland claims had some substance (for example in historical account or archaeological tract), then of course ‘devolution’ makes perfect sense.  Indeed, if all this were true, then Rajpal Abeynayake’s reference to Aceh (even though the entire exercise was about resource extraction and not self-determination by the inhabitants) makes sense (see his piece in the Sunday Lakbima News of August 21, 2011: ‘New seeds of conflict, Yale variety’), even though he is way off the mark regarding the Chittagong Hill Tracts, what happened there and what is still happening there.   The problem is that it just doesn’t add up on any of these counts. 

What remains then is a debunked theory that serves only third rate Tamil politicians whose only remaining card is communalism.  None of them are ready to come out and say that the ‘traditional homeland’ claim has no base in history.  None of them will say that Prabhakaran and the LTTE caused more harm to Tamil people and their aspirations than Sinhalese ever did, except of course Douglas Devananda who has quickly moved into Prabhakaran’s thug shoes. 

What remains is a threat.  Earlier Tamil chauvinism could say ‘we have guns, so empty your pockets!’   Tamil chauvinism, since it finds itself in reduced circumstances, now says, ‘we can take up guns again, so empty your pockets!’  Only those who want to pass on communalist headaches to the next generation or a few generations down the line would say ‘let’s devolve,’ believing erroneously that that would be that.  Forgotten is that Tamil chauvinism readied itself for a the long haul of a land-grabbing exercise, a ‘vision’ that is clearly captured by the S.J.V Chelvanayakam Thesis ‘Little now, more later’.  Getting Eelam boundaries ‘fixed’ by way of the 13^th (this time by agreement whereas in 1987 it was the outcome of arm-twisting) would be no small victory after the grand designs of Prabhakaran were sunk (at great cost, mind you). 

As I have pointed out in numerous commentaries (in particular ‘Power-sharing yes; devolution, no’, in the Daily News of June 8, 2011 -- http://www.dailynews.lk/2011/06/08/fea02.asp), ‘power sharing’ and ‘power devolution’ are not the same thing.  One can have the former without the latter and whereas the former is necessary given the preponderance of power with the politician vis-à-vis the citizen, the latter does not necessarily offer the citizen a better deal. 

Most importantly, the current demarcations (pertaining to provinces) are utterly arbitrary and damningly make for wide disparities in resources.  You can’t have the cake and eat it.  If you want devolution, then you’ll have to manage as best you can and cannot demand resource rich provinces to toss out surpluses to develop the resource poor.  That would have to be done by the centre and no centre in a devolved structure can take from one province to develop another.  

What we are seeing is the argument of the weary, the give-them-something-and-be-done-with-it kind of logic which is clearly irresponsible and blind to the outcomes, which have to be calculated in terms of the relevant histories, whipping up communal sentiment included. 

If devolution results in averting conflict, bloodshed, grief and human suffering, yes it needs to be considered.  In Sri Lanka’s case, however, the whines were based on indefensible claims and the grievances were common to many but could be dressed in the convenient colours of communalism for greater effect.  Averting conflict, bloodshed, grief and human suffering is good. 

‘The Way’ to that lovely place cannot contain a pandering to fictions.  What is necessary is to obtain the full dimensions of grievance and match these against proposed ‘solution’.  As things stand (and this includes demographic realities as well as the gross dishonesty in claims made regarding histories and of course the arbitrary nature of lines drawn to demarcate provinces) devolution of power fails the test, even if one were to put aside the history of Tamil chauvinism a la the Chelvanayakam Thesis. 

As things stand we are just seeing a lot of grandstanding by the TNA and other affiliated and non-affiliated separatists, and by a Government that is refusing to cut to the political chase by calling out the lie on grievances.  That’s what politicians do.  We don’t have to follow suit.  We have suffered too much to continue to dodge issues or be lazy about grievance and resolution. 

[Courtesy, Sunday Lakbima News, August 28, 2011]

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A note on smart-ass devolutionists

W hen they called it ‘separatism’ is sounded like a cuss-word. Separatists took time to get smart. Perhaps it would be more correct to say it took them a long time to recover smartness.  S.J.V Chelvanayakam hit the correct idea when he said it was possible to extract anything from the Sinhalese as long as it is done slowly, an idea he captured in the pithy ‘A little now, more later’. 

Leaving aside the notion that whoever did the ‘taking’ would be taking from all Sri Lankans and not just the Sinhalese, the slogan only pushed separatism to embrace terrorism while it rubbed the Sinhalese majority quite the wrong way.  Had Chelva thought but not said, separatism may have benefitted, but chauvinists and land-thieves often trip over themselves. G.G. Ponnambalam’s ‘Fifty-fifty’ for a little lover 10% of the population may have been the product of greed gone crazy but it also framed the dimensions of aspirations for more than half a century.  By 1976, Chelva himself lost his way, the Vadukoddai Resolution being nothing less than a go-for-broke adventure that wanted it all; not power-sharing but land and coast grabbing.  Blood-letting was the unscripted inevitable.  Close to a hundred thousand lives were lost.

When the LTTE was in fully cry Tamil moderates (so-called) either out of fear or awe or outright salutation went gear-down on devolution. The statements of the ‘moderates’, both individuals and parties (in coalition and isolation) make for a symptomatic reading on this aspect. The TNA’s election manifestoes of 2001, 2004 and 2010 would do in fact. Post-LTTE, devolution has been resurrected out of consolation-need more than anything else, one might argue, if not for Chelva’s Action Plan of incremental construction of Eelam.

The 13th Amendment’s most important contribution to the Eelam cause has been its utility as reference point. India fostered terrorism in Sri Lanka. India gave refuge, armed, trained and funded terrorism.  India took some sparks poured gallons and gallons of fuel, whipped up a roaring fire and then brought fire-size down (for a while) and now insists that where the fire is now is foundation-point for resolution. No mention now of what it is that is sought to be resolved.  No talk either of the fact that foundation-point is still a fire that anyone including India, Tamil Nadu, Tamil and Sinhala chauvinism included can add fuel to.

Today’s Prescriber is undoubtedly India. Today’s prescription-approvers are the Chelva-Tamils and wooly-headed Marxist-Leninists who are in a permanent state of denial about all that being passé. Other approvers include anti-Buddhist heirs of the Colonial encounter who are smarter than their 16th-20th Century ideological and political forefathers. Their logic seems to be based on the notion that if you rob from the Sinhalese it is the Buddhists who lose the most due to the sheer numbers. They are smart, because they are not running around burning temples in the way the Portuguese did or extracting conversion through the carrot of privilege and the skewing of institution and process against Buddhists. If you have any doubts about this, just check who the most vociferous approvers are, their ethnic identities, their ideological preferences and their faiths.

The smartest of course are those who say without saying. There are, for example, those who take ethnic identity and religious faith out of the equation and talk ‘development’. They know that the Indian Thesis crumbles in the fact of history, geography and demography. The history that is relevant to the discourse has always been that associated with the claims pertaining to traditional-homelands. Those who are devolution-smart talk therefore about a history of relative self-sufficiency and administrative decentralization which they conveniently argue indicate that power-devolution was always with us and indeed made us.

Anyone who has studied the extensive and intricate hydraulic system of this land as well as laws about resource exploitation and allocation would understand that while there were times of division, invasion and even anarchy, for the most part there was centralized control and decision-making. Had it been otherwise, there wouldn’t have been an anicut built in Minipe. We wouldn’t have the Yoda Ela or the Jaya Ganga. Kings would not have employed large quantities of resources to build large irrigation structures, temples or places of learning in places far away from the capital. Rivers would not have been diverted through a series of anicuts. Such schemes were not built subsequent isolated communities conferring with neighbours about how best to use the water flowing down a river.

True, there is a vast mismatch of resource-allocation today. Certain things don’t get done.  The devolution-smart say triumphantly that in a devolved polity things would get done. A decentralized administrative structure would suffice in most instances, but they don’t want to admit this. Neither do they acknowledge the fact that devolution would not have given resource-poor areas the kind of access to education that centralized decision-making has.  There is also remarkable silence about the bridges, reservoirs, hospitals and other infrastructural facilities and services that would have remained distant dreams had it not been for centralized decision-making if not for anything the sheer lack of resources and other necessary capacities. Nothing is said either of the fact that populations are not static, that they move, that we’ve moved a fair distance from (relatively) self-sufficient village-units, or that aspirations have spilled out of the idyllic ‘village’ and perhaps will never be containable in those territorial dimensions again.

What is needed is an overhauling of the entire governance structure and a streamlining of institutional mechanisms and processes to encourage enlightened decision-making. That this is an uphill task is used as logic for devolution. That’s being lazy and indeed irresponsible for there are no short cuts to peace and wholesome citizenship. In this case, any kind of devolution that takes current provincial boundaries as given (never mind their artificiality and pernicious association with homeland-claim – a convenient exaggeration of existing demographic patterns) will etch in such hard lines the Eelamist positions on the Sri Lankan political landscape that it would in effect transform into irreversible fact.

We can do better. We must.

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