Sri Lanka At The Crossroads – Part II

By Arya Selvaraj –December 9 2017

[Part 1 of this series was published on December 8, 2017]
III – Legacies of British Colonialism Conducing to our Constitutional Crisis

When the first colonizers, the Portuguese, arrived in the island around the year 1500, it was ruled in three separate kingdoms: the northern kingdom (the most powerful of the three), the Kandyan kingdom in the hills and the Sinhala kingdom in the south. If Lanka had not gone under colonial rule at all, we would have faced the modern age with three separate kingdoms. Being a small island, and given the improved transportation, trade and communications of the modern era, there is little doubt that the three kingdoms would have come together to be ruled as one. However, this would have been achieved through voluntary agreement, under specified rules (a constitution), with equal rights for all parties, under an arrangement whereby one could not rule over the other without its consent. This starting point would have obviated the danger we now face, of the state being ‘owned’/controlled by one community only, while another seeks federalism or self-determination even after 70 years’ of independence.

This predicament has been made possible by the British adopting three steps that have led to the current outcome. The first is the British decision to rule Ceylon as a separate unit, separate from India. This need not necessarily have been the case. In fact, Ceylon was ruled for some years by the Madras Presidency (now Tamil Nadu) as part of British India. The decision to rule Ceylon separately from India was made around 1805 for a colonial tax reason and not because the British felt that Ceylon was a separate nation with a special race or religion. If not for that British colonial decision, we would have got independence as part of India, such that our regional language would have been Tamil (instead of Sinhala Only), and our national language would have been Hindi! Thus ‘Ceylon’, as separate from India in the modern age, was purely a British colonial construct, forged only for reasons of colonial convenience. It is well known that the Sinhalese had a glorious civilization for many centuries; but it is also known that the Tamils of the north have not been ruled by the Sinhalese from the 11^th century onwards: that is for over 1000 years – until now, because our current constitution almost guarantees it.

The second determining colonial factor is that when the British or French gave their colonies independence, they imagined or pretended that their colonial territories with their existing boundaries constituted true ‘nation states’. The absurdity of this notion is seen in Africa, where different tribes and nations have to contort and convolute themselves to fit into the geometrical shapes of their so-called nation states. Closer to home, the boundaries of Myanmar include the Shaan and Karen ‘states’ which are still fighting (after 70 years) for their independence. In Sri Lanka, the Sinhalese and Tamils have been locked together in one state. While we are lucky not to be locked up together with South India, this is an accident of colonial history and not a God-given right for the Sinhalese to rule the other communities according to the Mahavamsa’s communal fancies. This conceptual and constitutional decision of the British to treat Ceylon as one ‘nation’ resulted in the provision of a unitary constitution based on their Westminster model. This has given the Sinhala Parliamentary majority the power to change the nature of the state from a secular state to one that identifies itself with one race and religion – which is not what was agreed at independence.

The above colonial boundaries can, moreover, yield perverse results when exposed to so-called ‘democracy’. For example, would any Sri Lankan (Sinhalese or Tamil) accept the outcome of ‘democratic elections’ if the colonial boundaries included Sri Lanka as part of the Madras Presidency (now Tamil Nadu), as it was at one time? Thus elections within arbitrary colonial boundaries often result in a meaningless counting of heads within meaningless boundaries, whose outcome could be undemocratic or even dangerous, as in Rwanda, Burundi or Mali.

This danger is exacerbated by communal, ‘nationalistic’ developments in the ex-colonial territories. After years of suppression under colonial rule, many racial/religious/ communities/ nations feel a natural resurgence of their race, language or religion. This has resulted in elections being run along racial, religious or language lines (as in Sri Lanka) rather than along secular, policy lines. This in turn has had the result of particular ethnic or religious majority seizing the entire powers of the state through the vote: a conquest by the ballot and not by the bullet. In these circumstances, why even have elections now, since the communal majority was determined when the British or French drew up their colonial territorial boundaries some 200-400 years ago? This together with the British-type unitary constitution and Parliamentary sovereignty has empowered the Sinhala-Buddhist nationalists to run away with the state, the same one that the Tamils and Muslims call their own.

Obviously, neither all Sinhalese nor all Tamils vote as one block for communal benefit. There are well known divisions of class, caste and creed within the Sinhala majority as well as among the Tamils. However, when it comes to macro politics and national elections the Sinhalese, like the Tamils, vote (overall) communally for the party that offers the most in terms of Sinhalese or Tamil rights. All past elections since 1956 have shown this to be true. Although the Tigers like the JVP started with perceived discrimination based on caste and class, while election to a particular seat may be determined by caste, it is disingenuous to pretend that the main factor determining our General Election outcomes (in a total sense) or the ‘civil war’[1] was based either on class or caste.

The Tamils too are not blameless in bringing about this bitterness between our communities. For it is their acquiescence in the Tigers assuming leadership of their community that led to years of ‘civil war’. Moreover, for argument’s sake, let us assume the opposite. If by some chance, the Tamils had the majority that the Sinhalese now have, they would probably have done the same. Hence, this is not a communal problem but a constitutional one: one that can only be solved by a sharing of power.