Restoring A True “Democratic Socialist Republic Of Sri Lanka”
By Varatharaja Perumal -March 9, 2015
Varatharaja Perumal
Engrave The Qualities Of Advanced Civilization As The Basic Structure Of The Constitution
Only the provision of voting rights to the people, existence of multi-parties and occasional conduct of elections to different political posts do not indicate that true democracy prevails in its full meaning. In fact, the democratic civilization has, through the history of political developments, accumulated wider constituents and components.
The experiences and experiments that Sri Lanka has so far undergone prove that it is essential for the Sri Lankan Constitution to have provisions of basic structures inalienably enshrined in it. Constitutional democracy in industrialized European and American Countries do not need to have such provisions in their Constitutions because democracies in those countries are evolved compatibly to the historical development of their political economy. But that is not the case in countries, which were under European colonialism ruled for over two – three centuries.
The capitalism, which we as people of the third world countries experience now, is not a historical evolution of our own mode of political economy that prevailed during the Middle-Ages. Instead, the colonial powers destroyed our political economic system and the status, which prevailed then and in its place the capitalism was imposed for the benefits of such powers. The capitalism which was forced on us to adopt was not the capitalism of the independent nations but perhaps the dependent and distorted / appropriated capitalism, in order to obtain primary products and raw materials as much as possible at cheaper costs and also to control monopolistically, the markets for their manufactures. In such capitalism, exploiters were completely European and all skills and labour of our nationals and resources were exploited and carried away. It took 200 years for the middle class and 300 years for the industrial class to emerge in our countries. In the case of Sri Lanka – due to the non-availability of basic minerals and metals for industrial development and the lack of agricultural inputs to the modern industrial sectors, except Tea industries – national industrial capitalists did not come up until the colonial rule existed and only the collaborated middle class emerged out of services and trading activities. So the Sri Lankan nationalism against the British Raj was largely a result of socio-political awareness among the educated middle class and universal enfranchisement of 1931 and it was definitely due to the effect of the Indian independent struggle.
The Constitutional governance and the rule of law of the colonial powers accompanied from time to time with reforms were also to preserve and protect the prosperity of the colonial capitalists and their strategic interests.