WHY UNITARY - I
It is said that certain parties including the MEP, which I represent at the All Party Representatives Committee, have insisted on the unitary character of the state. It is pertinent to ask the question as to why insist on unitary character when most of the Tamil Parties and at least one Muslim Party want the constitution to be amended so as to establish a Federal State. It has to be emphasised that some Muslim Parties are not opposed to a unitary state. On the other hand one could have asked a federalist why insist on a Federal State when the majority of parties that represent the Sinhala opinion is in favour of a Unitary State.
Before answering these questions let us consider how practical is to establish a Federal State. What is being envisaged is a revision of the constitution and not framing of a new constitution altogether. If a new constitution is to be framed then either there should be a revolutionary situation where not only a government but the state itself has been changed or a mandate has been given by the public to frame a new constitution. In Sri Lanka at present neither the state has been changed nor has a mandate been given to the government (and the legislators) to frame a new constitution.
However one could say that the LTTE has been fighting for a separate state and as such there is a necessity for a change of the nature of the state as the so called civil war conditions could be deemed to be a revolutionary situation. Also one could say that from late forties the Federal Party or the Ilankai Thamil Arasu Kadchi or its successors have been advocating a Federal State first as a solution to the so called discrimination against the Tamils, and then subsequently as a solution to fulfil the aspirations of the Tamils. Now the LTTE is not an invincible outfit and if not for external assistance they have obtained from India and the western countries as in the case of Vadamarachchi and threats from people such as Holmes and Evans, not to mention the training the terrorists have been given in countries such as India, Ireland with help from the United Kingdom or England effectively, the former could have been defeated long time ago. The presence of an LTTE that is helped by foreign powers could not be considered as an internal revolutionary situation. If the western forces allow the government of Sri Lanka to defeat the LTTE without cutting down on loans and so called aid, then everybody would be able to see that there is no necessity for a change of the nature of state. In fact one would argue that the assistance that the LTTE gets from the westerners amounts to an infringement of sovereignty, in spite of the third rate theories on responsibility to protect and limited sovereignty, and as such the constitution need not be changed at all at this stage.
Thus it is clear that the constitution could be at most amended and that there is no provision for framing a new constitution. Now the constitution could be amended only by adopting the procedure laid down in the constitution. In the present constitution there are some entrenched clauses that can be changed only by a two thirds majority in the parliament and by approval at a referendum. The nature of the state or the unitary character is one such clause. One has also to consider the feasibility of going through the instruments provided in the constitution to change the unitary character before one embarks on changing the nature of state.
Leaving aside those technicalities let us concentrate on the so called problem that a change of the nature of state would presumably solve. The problem is formulated in different ways but basically the solution is supposed to be in response to the so called grievances or aspirations of the Tamils. At one stage Tamils was replaced by Tamil speaking peoples but with the Muslims forming their own parties this has been changed. The Muslims to my knowledge have not spoken of aspirations and they claim that there are some problems to be solved.
Now how did the so called problem arise? There are some Sinhala people who also think that there was no problem before 1956 and that everything began after the Official Language bill. However, I have discussed the problem in my "An analysis of Tamil racism in Sri Lanka" and it is very clear that the problem started in the third decade of the nineteenth century when the British appointed one member each to represent the Sinhalas, Tamils and the Burghers in the legislative assembly. Since then the idea went into the heads of the Tamil Vellala elite in the Jaffna peninsula that they are equivalent at least in numbers to the Sinhala elite. In fact they would have felt themselves to be superior to the Sinhala leaders as they were invited by the latter to represent themselves as well in the legislative assembly as the elected member of the so called educated Ceylonese. The Tamils were elected as Presidents of the Ceylon National Congress, and gradually the Jaffna Vellalas with special privileges given to them by the British began to manipulate with the British governors to keep the perks for themselves. When universal franchise was introduced the Tamil leaders opposed it fearing that with the increased number of Sinhala members in the State Council, they would lose their advantage over the Sinhala leaders. The infamous fifty - fifty demand arose as a result of the increased number of Sinhala members in the legislative council.
The Tamil elite, mainly the Vellala leaders from the Jaffna peninsula began to lose some of their privileges as the number of Sinhala members increased, and they interpreted these loses as discrimination against the Tamils. Of course, at the beginning the Vellalas from Jaffna were not interested in the Eastern Province Tamils or the Upcountry Tamils, not to mention the Muslims. They were somehow interested in increasing their numbers in the legislature, and reducing the Sinhala majority to a minority if possible. When they went before the Soulburry Commission with such intentions they had to be told that it is not possible to reduce a majority to a minority by artificial means. However, from the very beginning the Tamil elite were interested only in becoming a majority at the centre, and were not thinking of the periphery. The leader who realized that it was not possible to make a majority becomes a minority at the centre was SJV Chelvanayakam who wanted a separate state for the Tamils.
In order to achieve his ambition he formed the Ilankai Thamil Arasu Kadchi which meant Lanka Tamil State Party, but translated it into English as Federal Party. He also agitated on behalf of not only the Eastern Province Tamils but the Muslims as well! It was obvious that without the support of the Eastern Province Tamils and the Muslims he could not establish a separate state in the Northern Province and the Eastern Province. It has to be emphasised that previously the Jaffna elite had not given much attention not only to these communities but even to Tamils in present Killinochchi district. It was none other than Mr. Ananda Sangaree who recently said that he could develop Killinochchi only after it became a separate district. The concept of Tamil speaking people(s) was developed and a full scale campaign was begun to establish a Tamil Eelam after adopting the Vadukkodai resolution in 1976.
In order to justify their claim for a separate state the Tamil leaders had invented discrimination of Tamils by the so called Sinhala governments. As we have said before these discriminations were nothing but the loses of privileges that the Tamil elite had, and also reductions of certain privileges that the Jaffna Tamils in general had under the British. It is well known that though the Jaffna Tamil population as a percentage was less than ten, the members of that community occupied more than 40% of the positions in the public sector. In the Universities especially in the Science based faculties the Jaffna Tamil ratio was more than 40%. Some would even say that 40% is a low estimate. However, these percentages began to come down after 1972 due politicisation of the public service and other factors. It was not due to discrimination against the Tamils as such but due to employing people who had supported the political party or the alliance in power. As the Tamils led by Chelvanayakam and others kept away from political alliances with parties that formed governments, not many Tamils were able to obtain employment in the public sector. However, that was only one reason, the other being "natural selection" taking over. Even if the Tamils in the Eastern Province were added the population ratio of the Tamils was not more than 12%. Thus one could not expect more than 12% of the public service being consisting of Tamils on the basis of "natural selection".
Nobody seems to know the percentages in the private sector which has a more than fare share of Tamil ownership. Are there many Tamils employed in the private sector as a ratio when compared with public sector? I doubt that the percentage of the Tamils employed in the private sector is more than 12%. What is not mentioned is that the percentage of Tamils in the past twenty five years has gone down from 12% to some other figure. I do not posses accurate statistics in this regard but if one looks at the players in the Tamil Union Cricket Team one could have some idea of what has happened. There are many Sinhalas playing for the Tamil Union team which was not a phenomenon of the past. One could evade the issue by saying that Sinhalas also can be members of the Tamil Union Cricket Club, but why Sinhalas were not required to play for the Tamil union in the bygone days is not something that can be explained by the ethnicity of the members of the club. Further, the leading schools in Colombo those days had about four or five Tamil players in their first eleven cricket teams that included players from the Burgher community as well. Now it has been reduced to two or three players. Surely it cannot be due to discrimination against the Tamils by the Principals, Wardens and Rectors of these schools.
(To be continued)
Professor Nalin de Silva
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