NO TO FEDERALISM
A group of MPs, including some SLFPers have gone to study the Federal Systems operating in other countries. Most of the MPs after their study tour would probably attempt to justify a federal system for Sri Lanka. I only hope that there would be at least a few MPs who would consult their voters on the proposal of a federal constitution for the country. Most of the Sinhalas are against a federal set up but unfortunately their opinion is not considered when taking important decisions. It is thought for some reason or other that their opinion is irrelevant as they would be voting either the UNP or the SLFP at general elections irrespective of the policies of the parties. The western powers who think that the Sinhala Buddhists are responsible for the problems created by Tamil racism, would be only looking at ways and means of satisfying the "aspirations" of the LTTE.
However the voting patterns of the Sinhalas have begun to change and the JVP has become a force in the country. No longer the SLFP and the UNP should think that the Sinhalas have no third party to vote and especially in the case of the SLFP, under the present circumstances, they should know by now that they would not be able to form a government without the support of the JVP. In fact the Sinhalas have begun to show that if the SLFP, JVP and the MEP together with other nationalist forces form an alliance to defend their rights, then they would even give that elusive two third majority. Such an alliance has to obtain roughly 80% of the Sinhala vote in order to obtain a two third majority in the parliament. This is not an impossible task, if the voter is given the assurance that the alliance would not betray the Sinhalas after coming into power.
The so called minority parties would support the SLFP only if the party is capable of forming a government. Otherwise they would continue to support the UNP (F) in keeping with the text or the formula of the western powers. The SLFP cannot obtain the support of the "minority" parties if the party does not show that it has the required numbers to form a government. These numbers could be obtained not from the LSSP or the CP or the other small parties in the PA, but from the MEP and the JVP. Both the latter parties started off as Marxist parties but since then much water and dead bodies have passed under the Kelani bridge, and they could be considered as national parties. However the JVP leadership and the activists have a problem in that they still follow the Marxist theories, though relative to them. It is not necessary to add the words relative to them as Marxism or any other knowledge is always understood relative to some observer(s). The JVP is not prepared to shed its Marxist theories as they are yet to find a suitable alternative. It is not difficult to formulate theories within our culture, as we have shown during the last fifteen years or so. Few of us have made a start and with the passage of time the JVP would most probably be in a position to see through the hollowness of some of the western theories that they are imitating like parrots. More importantly they have to understand that it is mainly through the theories created in the west that the westerners brainwash, manipulate and rule us. The knowledge more than anything else has been the most effective weapon in the armory of the western colonialism during the last five hundred years.
As far as the SLFP is concerned the situation is somewhat different though many parallels could be seen. The SLFP was formed as a liberal party by Mr. Bandaranaike way back in 1951. However about two years after that with Buddha Jayanthi as the immediate cause the Sinhala Buddhist movement, that had been dormant since Anagarika Dharmapala passed away, went through a resurgence. As a result the SLFP after a metamorphism became a Sinhala Buddhist party at least with respect to its rank and file. The leadership may not have gone through the same process but what is important is the view of the followers and the sympathisers of the party. Similarly though the JVP leadership subscribes to Marxist theories the vast majority of the people who vote for the party see it as a Sinhala Buddhist party. As far as Mr. Bandaranaike was concerned he remained the liberal who advocated federalism in the twenties soon after he came back from Oxford.
It is interesting to see that Mr. Bandaranaike advocated federalism then, as it was his view that there were three nations living in the country. He considered the Up country Sinhalas, the Low country Sinhalas and Tamils as three different nations.We do not know the definition of nation that Mr.Bandaranaike used but it is quite clear that his Oxford education had not helped him to understand the history, politics and the culture of the country. It may be that Oxford, being one of the pillars on which British colonialism was erected, misguided him to see Sri Lanka the way they wanted. While there had never been a Tamil nation anywhere anytime in the world, there had never been a Tamil kingdom either in Sri Lanka or India as the kingdoms in South India were Chola, Pandya, Chera, Vijayanagar, Pallava etc., the Up country and Low country division was a creation of the British. During the time of Dutugemunu there were no Up country Sinhalas as such and in Kotmale he was living among the Sinhalas and not among Up country Sinhalas. Though the division into Up country and Low country was not even hundred years old by the time Mr. Bandaranaike returned from Oxford with his knowledge of Federalism(s) and western political science he considered it as some fixed division. (These so called sciences that cannot explain anything have gained currency due to the limited success of western "natural" sciences and associated technologies such as engineering and medicine, and more importantly due to the political power of the western colonialism. Western political science as a so called science exists due to western politics. Foucault following Bacon may have said that knowledge is power, but it appears that both of them forgot that the equation could be read as power is knowledge as well. In the jargon of western Mathematics it is a symmetric relation.) As a result of British colonialism, it fell on an Oxford educated Sinhala to lead the party of the Sinhalas, especially of the Sinhala Buddhists. However, in spite of the leader, the Sinhalas, in general, who did not learn their history from the British have been opposed to any kind of federalism from the very beginning. The Sinhalas have learnt their history mainly from Mahavansa and not surprisingly the British and their followers have developed a Mahavansa phobia and some kind of hatred towards the great chronicle, as the former have continued to reject all the "theories" cooked up by the Schalks of Uppsala and the Gunawardahnes of Peradeniya. (I am not referring to the Gunawardhane who later became a Vice Chancellor of the University of Kelaniya).
The unitary states, according to the western historians and western political scientists were first formed in Europe after the sixteenth century. For them and their imitators, it is axiomatic that there could not have been any unitary states prior to that anywhere in the world. Anything that Europe invented after the so called renaissance could not have been known to the "uncivilised barbarians and savages" before that period. The "uncivilised" had to wait for the European masters to introduce these inventions to them. The western political scientists tell us that it was the British who made Sri Lanka a unitary state after 1815. However, the Sinhala Buddhist historian as well as political scientist, Ven. Mahanama Thero, who did not have a degree from a western university, that in any event came after Bologna University in Italy in the twelfth century, in the Mahavansa, had used the word "ekachchathra" or "eksesath" to describe the state in Sri Lanka. (I would not be surprised if a sterile political scientist or a historian tells us that there were no states in this part of the world before the term state came in to use in Europe!). An "eksesath" state for all purposes is not different from a unitary state and the Sinhalas know that at least from the time of king Devanampiya Tissa they have had an "eksesath" state in Sinhale. (What happened to all those "historians" who tried to create a Theesam out of Tissa? How many Theesams are there among Tamils today, either in Sri Lanka or in the Tamil homeland Tamil Nadu, though there are thousands of Tissas, whether liked by the gods or not, among the Sinhalas.) The Sinhalas who know their history, unlike Schalks and Gunawardhane s, and Bandaranaikes, (the latter, could still learn history from the Sinhala Buddhist historians, if they are interested in widening their horizons and zeniths.) would oppose a federal state.
In any event what is the basis for a federal or confederal state with a separate "province" or "state" for the northern and the eastern provinces as one unit? These provinces were demarcated by the British in the present form only in 1889. The eastern province was part of the Ruhunu Rata while the northern province was in the Raja Rata. When the British first demarcated the provinces even Anuradhapura belonged to the so called northern province! These provinces have no political, geographical or historical basis and were formed for administrative convenience of the British. They are not the so-called Tamil homelands a fact that even the Prime Minister Mr. Ranil Wickremesinghe has acknowledged. The eastern province even today is different from the northern province not only geographically, but demographically as well. Tamils who are mainly descendants of those who were brought by the Dutch for the tobacco cultivation may be the majority in the northern province but in the eastern province the population ratios are very much different. The Arya Chakravarthi kingdom formed in the thirteenth century in the Jaffna peninsula ceased to exist after it was captured by the Portuguese and there is no continuity with respect to the population nor were there any independence struggles against the Europeans after that period.
The present Jaffna is the creation of the Dutch and the British, and only the British and their Norwegian friends together with the Americans that sponsor Tamil racism could back the "claim" for a federal constitution. The Eelam map of Tamil racists from Suntheralingam to the LTTE claim a land mass stretching from Chillaw to Panam Pattuwa in the eastern province for the Eelam. This is nothing but the result of a racist stretching of imagination that cannot be "substantiated" even by the Theesam historians. This land mass, as has been shown by Mr. Gamini Iriyagolla, had been one of the three judicial districts created by the Dutch. They were not even administrative districts and it is clear that the Tamil racists have to depend on the Dutch and the British for the demarcation of a so called Thamil Eelam.
In any event by carving out a separate province or a state under a federal constitution how are the Tamil racists going to solve the so called problems of the Tamils. If there are problems for the Tamils, if there are injustices caused to them by the Sinhalas, then these have to be common to all the Tamils in the country and not only for those living in the northern and the eastern provinces. Thus a federal constitution carving out a separate province or state for the northern and the eastern provinces would not solve the "problems" of the Tamils living in the other areas even if it were to solve the problems of the northern and the eastern province Tamils. This merely shows that it is not a problem that the Tamil racists want to solve but they want to fulfil their aspiration to deprive the northern and the eastern provinces to the Sinhalas. It is a racist demand and the Sinhalas would naturally oppose it. The present discussions between the equals GL Peiris and Anton Balasingham do not mean anything to the Sinhalas. GL Peiris does not represent the Sinhalas and merely because he nods his head before Balasingham agreeing to various demands by the Tamil racists, it does not mean that the Sinhala people are agreeable to those. The Sinhalas also know the "little now more later" policy of Chelvanayakam and the other Tamil racists and that a "con"federal state is only the stepping stone to an Eelam.
Professor Nalin de Silva
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