{"id":72570,"date":"2017-12-08T21:16:42","date_gmt":"2017-12-09T03:16:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=72570"},"modified":"2017-12-08T06:47:55","modified_gmt":"2017-12-08T13:47:55","slug":"about-confusing-government-with-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2017\/12\/08\/about-confusing-government-with-state\/","title":{"rendered":"About confusing \u2018government\u2019 with \u2018state\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Rohana R. Wasala<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

This refers to a minor but significant verbal inaccuracy in the feature article by senior economist Usvatte-aratchi under the elaborate title State and govt. not interchangeable: Same goes for revenue and income hoax of free education and free health services\u201d posted in the Lankaweb of December 5, 2017. My focus here is Usvatte-Aratchi\u2019s wrong assumption that the Sinhala word \u2018rajaya\u2019 invariably translates as \u2018state\u2019 in the specific context. His opening sentence incorrectly suggests that the Sinhala term \u2018rajaya\u2019 is an adequate equivalent for the English term \u2018state\u2019: On 11 November in the evening news, President Maithripala Sirisena claimed that his state (mage rajaya) would not permit anyone who fought in the war against LTTE to be brought to court for his conduct in battle.\u201d While sneering at the president for allegedly claiming the (Sri Lankan) state to be \u2018his state\u2019, the writer implies that the former president was guilty of this same misconception as well (i.e., that the state was his \u2018estate\u2019). So, he translates president Sirisena\u2019s mage rajaya\u201d as his state\u201d, which is wrong. Could it be that Uswatte-aratchi\u2019s poor knowledge of Sinhala is the problem? Not likely, though. I think it is a slip of the pen.<\/p>\n

The following remarks are not relevant to the content of his essay, except insofar as they focus on his failure (to correctly understand what the president actually meant by the phrase \u2018mage rajaya\u2019) colours his opinion about the subject he is dealing with. I wish to leave it for a person more knowledgeable in the economics field to analyze Uswatte-aratchi\u2019s doubtlessly important observations on free education and free health services in Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n

To resume my subject, the president has no problem with his mastery of Sinhala. He will never fail to linguistically differentiate between \u2018state\u2019 and \u00a0\u2018government\u2019. What he intended to say and actually did say was mage rajaya\u201d or my government\u201d, by which he clearly meant the Yahapalana administration under his presidency as head of state. This is no different from the British monarch referring to \u2018my government\u2019 in the British parliament during the \u2018speech from the throne\u2019. (The difference, however, is that the British monarch is only a ceremonial figurehead, whereas the Sri Lankan president is required to play an executive role.) Neither the incumbent president nor his predecessor could be considered so ignorant as to confuse these two very simple concepts. A state in this context is a nation or territory considered as an organized political community under one ruler or administration\u201d which is a permanent political institution, whereas a government is the governing body of the state\u201d at any time. Governments come and go, but the state remains as something permanent. Ordinary Sri Lankans, who are among the most politically aware nations in the world, know the difference between the state and the government. The problem is Usvatte-Aratchi\u2019s erroneous interpretation of president Sirisena\u2019s rajaya\u201d as state\u201d. The president actually meant government\u201d in that speech. The question whether the present president considers the sovereign state of Sri Lanka to be his private property (or whether the former president acted likewise) is irrelevant to us here.<\/p>\n

The Sinhala language has precise technical terms to denote the notions of state and government, as English clearly does: State is rajyaya\u201d. Government is rajaya\u201d or anduwa\u201d in Sinhala. But, in rare informal situations where what is meant is contextually obvious, where there is absolutely no possibility of confusion, these Sinhala words (derived from Sanskrit) could be used interchangeably. Ordinary Sri Lankans who are proficient in Sinhala know which term to use in appropriate contexts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Rohana R. Wasala This refers to a minor but significant verbal inaccuracy in the feature article by senior economist Usvatte-aratchi under the elaborate title State and govt. not interchangeable: Same goes for revenue and income hoax of free education and free health services\u201d posted in the Lankaweb of December 5, 2017. My focus here […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[91],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rohana-r-wasala"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72570","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=72570"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72570\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}