Palitha Senanayake Courtesy The Island

All the declared contenders for the forthcoming Presidential race in Sri Lanka have now made their manifestos public.  The respective Manifestoes of the 5 leading candidates are titled ‘Puluwang’ (Possible)by Ranil Wickremesinghe, ‘A Win for All’ by the SJB, ‘A Thriving Nation, a Beautiful Life’ by the NPP, ‘A National Strategic Plan’ by the Sarwajana Balaya, and ‘For You- A Developed Country’ by the National Peoples Front of Namal Rajapakse. This is a unique situation for the discerning public because the majority of the contenders in the fray, except Mr. Ranil Wickremesinghe, are new to the Presidential stakes, and hence, the propositions on offer could be new but may warrant a lengthy public inquest.

All these manifestos ostensibly promise to make the country literally ‘A land flowing with milk and honey,’ but the examination of these propositions should be engaged in with circumspection to ensure that the proposals are aimed to make Sri Lanka economically better and socially stable; the national need of the hour. In this context, we find the offer to raise the salaries of the public servants, in competing degrees, by the three contenders considered ‘front runners’ to be somewhat politically expedient.  That is not because the present salaries they receive are commensurate with the needs of everyday life but rather because the public service in Sri Lanka at present is an acknowledged white elephant that is highly unproductive. Hence, this sector has been a primary economic burden on the masses. Therefore, if the country is to come out of the economic morass it has fallen into over the years, restructuring and pruning the public service to make it more productive is a primary national requirement.

However, the purpose of this article is not the lengthy analysis of different manifestoes for their ‘vote catching’ idiosyncrasies but to point out a salient issue that the manifestoes of these ‘leading’ contenders have given vent to, which could lead to a moronic social and political order if implemented. That is the issue of the full implementation of the 13^th Amendment to the SL constitution, as pronounced by the SJB candidate, Mr. Sajith Premedasa and the NPP candidate, Mr. Anura Kumara Dissanayake, considered as leading candidates at present. 

The SJB, in its manifesto, under STRENGTHENING DEMOCRACY & RECONCILIATION, states that, ‘ SJB Alliance is committed to change the present constitution …. our principle is to convert our present political system to parliamentary system and with maximum devolution based on 13^th amendment…’ Statements with similar connotations are present in the NPP manifesto as well but what is significant is that both these leaders have made public pronouncements in the North and East as to their intentions to give police and Land Powers to the provincial Councils that are enforceable under the present SL constitution. It is a fact that Sajith Premedasa has even entered into a written agreement with the regional party in the north Ilankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi (ITAK) to this effect, and it is also reported that he has also entered into a written agreement with Mr. Rauf Hakeem who has been clamoring for Sharia Law in the Eastern Province.

As for the manifestos of other candidates in the fray, Sarwa-Jana-Balaya and the National Peoples Front have not committed to implementing the 13^th Amendment or made such public pronouncements.

Full implementation of the 13^th Amendment will grant extraordinary power to the Chief Ministers elected for each Provincial Council, and from the ordinary man’s perspective, this could mean that the items listed in the provincial list get restricted to a particular province. In day-to-day affairs, this means that a citizen of SL will have to seek the permission of the Chief Minister of the PC if they desire to pursue those provincial listed facilities. The writer of this article is a resident of Sabaragamuwa but was engaged as a professional in a number of private and public institutions and World Bank projects located in the western province and sent his children to education in the central province. Once the 13^th Amendment is fully implemented, such activity may not be possible unless you seek the permission of the Chief Minister of the respective Provincial Council. Thus, this is the net effect of this 13^th Amendment when you analyze its practical aspect on the day-to-day life of an average citizen.    

As for crime and national security, the situation will be very complicated. After committing a crime, a criminal only has to cross the provincial border to evade arrest. Then, the Chief Minister of the province will have to seek the co-operation and goodwill of the adjoining provincial minister to evoke police powers to track that criminal down in the adjoining province. In this setup, it will be interesting to note how the two chief ministers interact when they belong to two different political parties. As for national security, the Central Government will have no authority to quell terrorism or unlawful behavior in a particular province unless invited by the Provincial Government. 

Some apologists of the 13^th Amendment try to argue on the grounds of greater devolution to the provinces. Still, the Central government’s powers have already been devolved through the provincial Secretary administration system and Pradeshiya Sabhas to cater to the needs of citizens in respective areas. And the people in provinces have never appealed for further devolution of any particular powers as there never have been such requests reported. The issue to note here is that before the introduction of the Indo Lanka Accord and the 13^th Amendment Sri Lanka had a system of devolving power to the periphery as ‘one country one law’ whereas the 13^th Amendment brought a situation of ‘a country with different laws to the peripheries.       

Effectively, what the 13^th Amendment seeks to implement is not devolution but a federal system of government in the country. Yet Federalism, wherever it exists today, has always been brought to integrate small states to strengthen their existence for security and social reasons. For instance, the United States of America came to existence by combining all the states in that part of North America to stand up to the colonial domination by the British.  Even Switzerland was made a federal state as the country felt the need to become a worthy and proper member of the United Nations in its membership.  Therefore, if Federalism is implemented in Sri Lanka, as proposed under the 13^th A, it will be the first instance where a single country is to be decimated into 9 provinces, and that would go against the very principle that has brought federal governments into existence in this world up to now.  

Last but not least, the popular argument of this apologist of the 13^th Amendment is that it gives greater power to the different ethnicities inhibiting the island nation. This is against the natural law of nation-building because every nation that has come into existence after the UN charter has to have a shared national identity. Thus, there is no way a country can permit different ethnicities to have their own way, overriding the interest of the particular nation that they are a part of. Further, such patronization could lead to fragmentation and chaos, especially in a small nation island like Sri Lanka. Such activity could lead to permanent conflicts and a situation like that in Gaza.

We must remember that this entire episode of ‘ethnic enclaves’ was the concept of certain Tamil leaders who sought to preserve the privileges the Tamil community enjoyed at the time of independence. Those were the privileges British colonials nurtured on minorities to administer this country on the ‘divide and rule’ basis for 150 years. Therefore, now, 150 years after independence and after making free education available to the majority,, and in this compute- age, privileges on a communal basis are no longer relevant.

Another fact that makes this concept of ethnic enclave irrelevant is the revelation by the Department of Census and Statistics of Sri Lanka that 56 % of the SL Tamil community does live outside the North and East. This was the position even in 1980 when the pre-war census was taken.  This shows that the Tamil community considers the whole of Sri Lanka to be their homeland, and in such a context, restricting them to the North and East would be discriminatory and work against national integration.

Arun Siddharthan, the Tamil political activist, has publicly stated that the Tamil community is at peace now, and the children who carried guns then are now carrying books. Hence, he, too, has stated that the 13th Amendment is redundant and that the Tamil community at large is not in need of such an amendment to confine them to the North and East only.

In conclusion, the whole point about the 13^th Amendment is that it was introduced by India in 1987 as a solution to the terrorism that plagued this country with no end in sight at the time. It was a time of desperation, and India was aiding and abetting the LTTE at the time.  At the time, however, the Sri Lankan leaders and even the international community believed that the LTTE was invincible and, hence, needed to be appeased to end terrorism. Yet the LTTE did not accept the 13^th Amendment as a solution and continued their armed struggle, confirming the need to eliminate terror only by counter-terror.  

In this milieu, the question now is, why are these Sinhalese politicians from the SJB and NPP falling over one another to implement the 13^th Amendment fully at this time when there is no terrorism and when the country is marching towards unity and ethnic harmony? The answer is that these opportunistic politicians are either competing to win the Presidency with no regard to peace and ethnic harmony in the country, or alternatively, they wish to hoodwink the Tamil community to garner few Tamil votes by patronizing their racial instincts. Either way, this position is against the interest of the country and its ethnic composition, and therefore, the people in this country shouldn’t elect leaders of such political opportunism to rule this country.