The Devolution Debate:Facts that should not be forgotten

Continued on yesterday

By G. H. Peiris-October 5, 2017

Repeating the multifaceted case against adopting a Province-based devolution as provided for in the '13thA' has been so persuasively presented from diverse viewpoints by many critics over several decadesmakes it unnecessary for me to embark on yet another of its reiteration here. Accordingly, what I think is more productive is to focus on certain prevailing misconceptions on the merits of district-based devolution, but subject to an overarching qualification based on my personal conviction that a tiny nation like Sri Lanka does not need a second tier of sub-national institutions of government between the Centre and the network of Local Government Institutions (the latter described in Ursula Hicks' classic,Development from Below, as one of the best of its kind in the Less Developed Countries) in order to rectify prevailing deficiencies from perspectives of the ideals of consociational democracy and social justice.I am encouraged to make such an attempt,albeit as briefly as possible, because of the faint silver-lining I see in the most recent instalment of Dr DJ's discourse – stemming ironically from his sustained campaign for the 'Province', resorting to patently absurd pronouncements such as: "The Steering Committee report also puts paid to the debate on the unit of devolution" and, implicitly an indication that there still remains an effort to revive the 'District case' which he finds it necessary to crush. I also have reason to wonder whether his incessant flow of wisdom during the past fortnighton the 'Province vs. District' issue is also aimed at suggesting to his readers that at least some of the eminent personalities who shared with him the recent 'Eliya' platform also share his viewson a '13thA plus' reform.

One of the most obvious merits of the District as the spatial unit of devolution is that it would serve as a far more effective system of facilitating the objectives of devolution than the Province in the context of the present spatial pattern of ethnicity in the island (as depicted in Figure 1).In this context what is of paramount relevance is that the majority of Tamils and Muslims in Sri Lanka live outside the 'North-East'; and since dispersal of political power is meant for the people rather than territory, devolution to provinces cannot result in a change in political entitlements of the majority in these two communities. The transfer of political power to Districts, on the other hand, has the potential of genuine political empowerment of a far larger share of their respective populations. Since such empowerment at district-level will not be seen as a serious threat to the territorial integrity of the nation, the need for overarching central control of the devolved powers and functions of district governments will be substantially reduced. Such an arrangement will also provide scope for an institutionalisation of effective inter-ethnic power-sharing at the Centre. In this sense, it is the District, rather than the Province that epitomises the 'middle-path' between total abandonment of devolution to a sub-national network of intermediate institutions, and a further reinforcement of devolution in accordance with the '13th A' with the risks and uncertainties it entails.

A reform involving untrammelled devolution of all powers and functions on the provinces envisaged in the '13th A', quite apart from its probable effect of strengthening the centrifugal forces that have continued to pose a challenge to territorial integrity of Sri Lanka,will, in addition,result in total chaos in respect of the functions of government pertaining to 'Law and Order', and 'Land and Land Settlement' as stipulated in the three Appendices attached to the 'Provincial Council List'.The glib advocacy of the '13thA' without reference to this fact is, indeed, beyond the realm of sanity, for the reason that exact specification of the powers and functions to be devolved ought to be considered the foremost determinant of the spatial framework of a devolution. A careful study of the dispensations on 'Law and Order' and 'Land and Land Settlement' as stipulated in the Government Gazette of 20 November 1987 (pages 23 to 32 of minute font), for instance, suggests that the Steering Committee had not even bothered to look at those segments of the '13th A', leave alone consider their implications and impact to the contemporary realities in our country.

A sane reader of the section titled'Law and Order' will undoubtedly see that,in the context of province-based devolution, some of the most arduous tasks such as preventive action against politicised mob violencein Metropolitan Colombo and its substantially urbanised hinterland, or the conduct of operations against organised crime in its spatially hazy underworld the tentacles of which extend from the metropolis well into rural areas in all parts of the island, will encounter bewildering confusions,especially in respect of coordination, chains of command and accountability, under the fragmentation of police manpower, functions and operational areas of authority.It also does not require expertise on this subject to realise the chaos that would ensue in the maintenance of law and order specially in unit such as the Eastern Province stretching as it does from Kokkilai to Kumana over a linear distance of some 180 miles, or the Northern Province, covering about 14% of the total area of the island much of it providing forested hideouts for subversives and criminals,and fully exposed to irredentist infiltrations, being policed by a hierarchical structure headed by a DIG, appointed to that post with the concurrence of a Chief Minister (who could be even more unreliable than one we have at present), but accountable to both to a Colombo-based IGP and a national Police Commission. There is reason to speculate that in such a system the maintenance of law and order especially in the North and the East is likely to replicate that of several parts of the 'Red Corridor' of India stretching across the Deccan where, as studies conducted by scholars like Ajay Mehra on 'People's War Groups' (a.k.a. 'Naxalites') indicate, there are well over 150 Districts out of India's total of some 700into which formal government penetrates only in the form of occasional quasi-military operations. Delhi's 'South Block' bureaucrats who made it possible for theParathasarathys, Bhandaris, Chidambarans, Venkateshwarans and Dixits to disregard, often with contempt, the submissions of their Sri Lankan counterparts like ACS Hameed, Gamini Dissanayake and Lalith Athulathmudali at negotiation forums probably wanted to create that kind of chaos in Sri Lanka.

The related landmark episodes were, first, JRJ'sconciliatory meeting with a less-than-cordial Indira Gandhi and the discussions he had with the aggressive diplomat Parathasarathy in November 1983 who, it is said, insisted on the Sri Lanka president abandoning his 'District Development Councils' scheme. The tangible outcome of that encounter was the so-called 'Annexure C' which engraved the 'Province' as the TULF bottom-line for negotiation.

This happened, it should be recalled, in the aftermath ofJRJ's 'Referendum' blunder of December 1982 which, among other things, paved the way for a distinct transformation of the electoral morphology, and the early signs of an economic downturn. More importantly, it happened in the all-pervading gloom of the '1983 Black July' of when it was known to those in Colombo's corridors of power that certain TULF leaderswere prodding Delhito undertake a Bangladesh-type military intervention in Sri Lanka to "liberate" the island's 'Northeast' ̶a distinct Indira Gandhioption kept in storage until the suppression of the Khalistan challenge through her massive 'Operation Blue Star' of June 1984.

With Rajiv Gandhi succeeding his assassinated mother, events moved swiftly. There was the 'Delhi Accord' of August 1985, followed by many other Indian intrusions with scant regard to the usual diplomatic nicetiesmeant to enforce the Indian will on the working out of the details of the Accord. The 'Political Parties Conference' of April 1986 summoned byour lame-duck president in desperation about the intensifying tempo of insurrectionary violence in both the 'North-East' as well as the 'South', the participation in which was confined to the TULF leaders whose "boys" had up-staged them(and probably earmarked them for future liquidation), and a few worthies of the "Old Left" whose trade-union base was virtually non-existent. The rejuvenated SLFP led a massive campaign of protest. The key leaders of the Muslim community remained noncommittal. Even stalwartsin the ranks of the ruling party like Premadasa, Athulathmudali, Gamini Dissanayake, Gamini Jayasuriya, Ranjit Atapattu and HM Mohammedeither maintained low profile or remained aloof making no secret of their opposition. There was then the shocking Indian air-borne military intervention staged tofoil the 'Operation Liberation' staged in Vadamarachchi in June 1987 – a devastating indication to JRJ that affable Rajiv had not abandoned Indira's policy of supporting secessionism in Sri Lanka.

This is how the infamous 'Rajiv-JRJ Accord'and the Provincial Council cancer was implanted. Having heard certain details from a few ex-Peradeniya officials who had to painfully witness the aforesaid"negotiations" (one of my graduate students, along with three others,were incarcerated for aiding a minor deviation, as requested by Gamini Dissanayake, from 'Annexure C' specifications on land settlement under the Mahaveli Programme), I just cannot "Fuggetaboutit" – no way.

The fallacy of the notion that the Provincial Council system (with a supposedly interim merger of the Northern and Eastern provinces) was the outcome of an indigenous evolutionary processof compromise and consensus in mainstream politics could be grasped fromthe following portrayal by another illustrious De Silva – Professor K. M., a close and loyal associate of JRJ – ofthe ethos at the formalisation of this pernicious Accord on 29th July 1987.

"Even as the cabinet met on 27 July violence broke out in Colombo when the police broke up an opposition rally in one of the most crowded parts of the city. It soon spread into the suburbs and the main towns of the southwest of the island and developed into the worst anti-government riot in the island's post-independence history… When Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi arrived in the island on 29 July to sign the accord the security services and the police were still engaged in preventing the mobs from entering the city of Colombo intent on demonstrating their opposition to the accord. The situation in the country was very volatile at the time of signing of the accord, with news coming in of a dangerous mob making its way to Colombo on the Galle road through Moratuwa and the Dehiwala Bridge. There was every possibility that the government would have been overthrown and JR himself deposed.

To be Continued