The Way TNA Handles Its Options
By S.Sivathasan -August 14, 2013 |
S.Sivathasan
In sixty years since independence, Tamils have come one full circle. At which juncture have we arrived and are staying now? Have we come to a point of interdiction in 2009 and yet set to describe the second circle. Or have we reached a point of departure, from where we set out on a new course? If the latter be the choice of prudence, are there options before the TNA? Yes. One is, even after emerging as the acknowledged depository of trust, to belie it and to trumpet that they have lived true by the politics of self-imposed exclusion. The second is to win the election, get lost in the trappings of seeming power or the lack of it and be immersed in minutiae and routine. The third is to secure a decisive victory, consolidate it, capture the office of Chief Minister, establish a strong and clean administration and coterminously mount a struggle for more finances and greater authority.
Why do Provincial Councils get little money and less authority? The system was emasculated at conception itself and the law ensured deformity. Hence the limp. The Provincial Councils Act was drawn up in the wake of the demand and later a struggle for four decades by the North East for a substantial measure of autonomy. No other Province ever asked for it because they experienced neither marginalization nor deprivation. More pertinently, the interests of the Centre and the periphery coincided. But in the final stages of formulation, Devolution encompassed all nine Provinces. What started as a major step towards pacifying the aggrieved minorities of the North East with ethnic peace as the quid pro quo, digressed into nominal devolution in the whole country. It failed to meet the power needs of the North East but certainly catered to the status seeking proclivity of the rest of the country. Neither finance nor authority worth speaking about was handed over.
What is money? It connotes power. With power goes prestige. When both are gone everything is lost. The major community with its hands securely on the state apparatus had no illusions about it.Parting with them to one segment may not be objectionable. But extending it to all would mean multiplying it eight fold. When all the yolk reposes in the Province, only the shell remains at the Centre. So come what may, dilute devolution and give the shell to the Province while retaining the yolk where it remained. This was the sum and substance of 13A. An exercise in which even if JR was willing, Rajiv was weak. He had an overarching cast iron frame to contend with at home. Power to be devolved to the Provinces in Sri Lanka cannot exceed the power enjoyed by the States in India. If it does the bluff of quasi federalism, passed on as federalism in India will be called. With this constraint, 13A was made a mess of. Unraveling it will be the primary task of the Chief Minister.
