{"id":105840,"date":"2020-08-24T14:51:45","date_gmt":"2020-08-24T21:51:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=105840"},"modified":"2020-08-24T14:51:45","modified_gmt":"2020-08-24T21:51:45","slug":"13a-unwanted-even-by-india-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/08\/24\/13a-unwanted-even-by-india-today\/","title":{"rendered":"13A Unwanted Even by India Today"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dilrook Kannangara<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

India\nimposed 13A to the Constitution in 1987 at the height of the Cold War. 13A is\nliving testament that Sri Lanka\u2019s non-aligned\u201d policy failed (and the same\npolicy of India failed too!). The northern and eastern provinces were merged\nand India appointed all councilors for the North in 1988. Only councilors for\nthe East were elected. It was a Tamil majority province that toed India\u2019s\ngeopolitical objectives. With the withdrawal of the IPKF, the Chief Minister\nbooted fearing for his life. However, Sri Lanka continued with the embattled\nprovincial council for another 17 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

India\ninsisted Trincomalee should be the Main City of the combined province. Although\nLTTE and its political proxy the TULF previously said the same thing, fearing\nIndian military foothold, they backtracked in 1987. A clear indication of what\nIndia wanted from the provincial council system. Worse, IPKF\u2019s first victims\nwere Sinhala villagers in Trincomalee. Over one hundred Sinhalese were\nslaughtered for no reason. India was trying to evict them out of Trincomalee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2007 the\ncombined province, which was temporarily\u201d combined pending a referendum, was\nseparated as the two provinces were. The northern province is essentially\nTamil-only. But the Eastern province is not. Although the first Chief Minister\nof the Eastern Province was a Tamil (a former LTTE terrorist), its subsequent\nChief Ministers reflect its demographic realities. Muslims are likely to be\nChief Minister in Eastern Province.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is not\nwhat India wants. It gives nothing to India under today\u2019s circumstances. In\nfact, continuation of a Muslim province south of India is certainly not what\nIndia wants. This is especially so given the steady sinking of the Lankan\nMuslim community into extremism. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The old excuse\nfor not doing away with 13A \u2013 India wants it kept \u2013 is not valid anymore.\nTherefore, the government\u2019s plan to replace the patched-up Constitution is\ntimely and doable. USA which is not India\u2019s master in the region also want a\ndifferent setting. USA wants to link up Colombo with Trincomalee. 13A is an\nimpediment to this. Therefore, doing away with 13A does not have any\ninternational objections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keeping 13A to ward\noff USA is a foolish tactic. Although 13A is an impediment to US interests in\nthe island, they can easily overcome it with the concurrence of four provincial\ncouncils. Instead, US interests must be exploited to get rid of 13A. Locally,\n13A is not useful for anyone, not even for Tamils. As for moderate Tamils, 13A\noffers nothing \u2013 over 55% of Tamils live outside the north and east. 13A offers\nnothing for extremist and racist Tamils either. Taking a departure to TNA,\nWigneswaran is laying claims to the entire island, not just the north and the\neast. So even the extremist sections have no use of 13A today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The nasty\nimpacts of 13A were most visible during the 2009-15 era when the north and east\nsaw highest ever development activity in history. However, governance was\nlayered. The Centre could not reach out to people there directly. They had to\ngo through the provincial councils. That was how despite wasting billions of\ndollars, the government was painted as the enemy of the people by provincial\nracists. Gotabaya regime must not end up like that. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the perfect\ntime for a new Constitution without provincial or district devolution. Bringing\nthe entire island under the policy priorities of the Centre is the best for\neveryone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dilrook Kannangara India imposed 13A to the Constitution in 1987 at the height of the Cold War. 13A is living testament that Sri Lanka\u2019s non-aligned\u201d policy failed (and the same policy of India failed too!). The northern and eastern provinces were merged and India appointed all councilors for the North in 1988. Only councilors for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-105840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dilrook-kannangara"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105840"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105840\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}