An alternative to the ‘Devolution'
dilemma: Move the capital to Rajarata
by C. Wijeyawickrema
Southeastern Louisiana University. USA (Source: The Island, April 21-24,
1998)
"All human progress has depended on
‘new questions' rather than on ‘new answers' to the old questions."
Alfred North White - Science and the Modern World
"Anuradhapura should be the capital of Sri Lanka." In 1958
I wrote an essay on this topic as a ninth grader in a small public school
in Panadura. Now, after forty years, I find this topic so relevant,
yet completely forgotten or ignored by most of the Sri Lankans. I am
not reintroducing this topic for symbolic reasons such as our leaders'
habit of beginning their new programs by first offering flowers at the
Sri Maha Bodhi. From the perspective of political and legal geography,
I think, moving the capital of Sri Lanka from Colombo to the North-Central
Province is sine qua non for the survival of this tiny island nation.
Local and regional geopolitics and global economics compel us to select
a new forward capital in the nation's new centre of action in the NCP.
Sri Lankan political parties are tapped on to a tiger's tale called
the "devolution-revolution," and their leaders have placed
all the eggs in an economic basket known as "fast-track corporate
globalization."
A forward capital under a new Rajarata paradigm provides an alternative
to the dilemma of devolution, political and economic. Mr. Prabhakaran,
a son of a fisherman, who does not have a law degree or training in
a foreign university, has realized the value of a forward capital, when
LTTE declared that the capital of Eelam will be Trincomalee and not
the Fort of Jaffna. Like Colombo in the south, Jaffna is a symbol of
Tamil elites' grip over the Tamil masses in the north, whereas Trinco
has a forward location for seaward as well as landward expansion in
the future.
The current devolution fever first started in the 1980s as a reaction,
and to some extent a compromise, to the harshness of the Executive Presidential
form of government. In its extreme form, the devolution medicine will
create a union of regions, with nine or ten parliaments, which is not
accepted even by the patient himself, namely the LTTE. The Tigers are,
at least, frank in rejecting the package, unlike some others, who are
initiating a strategy allegedly attributed to the late Mr. D. S. Senanayake,
in his role as a negotiator during pre-independence time, "If I
am hungry and want a loaf of bread, I will not be foolish to throw away
the half of loaf given to me now?" This form of devolution is nothing
but a resurrection of the proposals submitted by the Federal Party in
1971, and the TULF in 1985 to achieve "Tamil aspirations"
otherwise known as a "Tamil homeland." The Federal Party wanted
to create 1 Tamil, 3 Sinhala and 1 Muslim autonomous states. Those who
prepared the package for the PA government has now increased the number
from 5 to 9 or 10 regions to maintain "symmetry," without
realizing that "one cannot legislate against geography," and
that "one law for the lion for the lion and the ox is oppression."
The political science concept of "symmetry" can never be accomplished
through the geographical concept of "region."
The other devolution alternative based on the Thirteenth Amendment to
the Constitution is as unlucky as the number assigned to it. The seven
southern provinces in Sri Lanka, did not ask for provincial governments,
and this is another case of "changing the pillow to cure a headache."
Recently, "The Island" carried an article which suggested
that Sri Lanka join with the Indian Union of States, rather than forming
the Union of Regions of Sri Lanka. This reminds me a bumper sticker
I once saw on a car of a geology professor, "Gondwanaland, Unite!"
Plate-tectonics, the forces that move the earth's crust, separated Sri
Lanka from the Indian landmass millions of years ago and this prevented
Sri Lanka ending up as the southern tip of South India.
A former cabinet minister Mr. Gamani Jayasuriya wishes to consider
the Executive Committee System we had under the Donoughmore Constitution
as a viable alternative to the current problem. In our Civics lessons
at public schools, we studied how these committees were compared to
seven horses trying to run in different directions, kept under control
or in focus, by the three British Secretaries on the Board of Ministers.
One reason why democracy is preferable to any other form of government
is that it is based on the principle of separation of powers, because
power corrupts anybody and everybody. The executive, legislative and
quasi-judicial powers must be separated from one another as far as practicable.
Mr. Jayasuriya is closer to the new interpretation given to the doctrine
of separation of powers, identified as "Montesquieu standing on
his head." Under which the distribution of the sum total of governmental
power to a wide spectrum of units possible, is considered the ideal,
but does it allow concentrating the executive and legislative powers
at the highest level of governmental hierarchy? We may end up with seven
donkeys or seven dogs!
Ironically, the best form of real "political devolution,"
can still be found within the famous B-C Pact. With modification, to
be in line with modern geopolitical realities, that formula plus a willingness
to take remedial action to answers given by Tamils to the question,
"What other discriminatory practices can you point out (still)
which makes you feel a second class citizen?," ought to take care
of the Tamil ethnic minority problem. The economic devolution, the other
face of the devolution panacea, is actually nothing but a question of
how quickly and effectively the ruling elites discard the Colombo paradigm.
In other words, how sincere is the Colombo group in changing the situation
aptly summarized on the Report of the Presidential Commission on Youth,
"milk to Colombo, and forage to us" (kolambata kiri apata
kekiri), a situation which bestowed a place for Sri Lanka in the 1997
Guinness Book of Records as the country with the highest (youth?) suicide
rate in the world!
The Colombo paradigm
The Colombo paradigm controlled Sri Lanka since the 1870s. During that
decade Colombo's fate as a world-class artificial port was sealed with
the decision to erect two long breakwaters to protect ships anchored
there from rough weather during the Southwest Monsoon season. While
the entire world came under the Age of Columbus (or Vasco da Gama) after
the discovery of the Americas and India, respectively, in the 1490s,
Sri Lanka‘s Colombo Age started in 1505.
Yet, its ascendancy to supremacy that it enjoys today, began in the
1870s when the British Governor William Gregory, bowing to the wishes
of the British planters, merchants, government officers, and local traders
and planters, decided to move the colony's commercial centre from Galle
to Colombo.
Governor Ward's ardent support or the backing of the Colonial Office
in London to develop harbour facilities in Galle could not stop the
rise of Colombo. Similar to the situation found in other colonial countries,
in Ceylon too, Colombo became the island‘s primate city, based
on an export-import economy connected to London or Liverpool. The roads
(railways) linked to a colonial port capital were compared to drains
taking the blood (resources) out of the colony. Fifty years after obtaining
political independence, Colombo's role as the primate city is increasing
uncontrollably.
Our grammar teacher in 1958, did not express any anti-Colombo sentiments,
but presented several reasons supportive of his thought that the late
Mr. S. W. R. D. Bandranaike actually entertained the idea of moving
the capital to Anuradhapura, long before he became the Prime Minister
in 1956. For the "five forces" that brought him to power (priests,
native physicians, teachers, farmers and workers), Anuradhapura as the
new capital would have been a lasting legacy. Ideally, the transfer
of the capital city, should have been included in the government's official
Ten-Year Plan. On the other hand, if the late premier made even a symbolic
gesture toward discarding the Colombo paradigm, the Colombo group and
the Colombo establishment would have advanced the 1962 Coup to 1959.
A Pandora's Box called Devolution
"Devolution-Revolution" is the latest product of the Colombo
paradigm, by the Colombo group, for the Colombo group. It is presented
as the path to political "Nirvana" and economic "Salvation,"
while it is nothing but Greek to the masses living outside the present
Capital territory. It is sad that the children, grandchildren and the
relatives of the members of the former Ceylon Congress or the Ceylon
National Congress, have now discovered a magic formula called "devolution"
with nine or ten IGPs, nine or ten Attorney Generals, nine or ten Governors,
Chief Ministers and Parliaments to "empower" the common man,
those who live away from Colombo or those who cannot speak English.
Previously, their parents and relatives repetitively objected to the
British rulers decisions to extend the voting rights to the poor and
the non-English speaking.
It is unfortunate that this class does not realize that there is no
dearth of laws, regulations, programs, schemes, departments and plans
aimed at achieving "devolution" that they are now preaching,
and those programs and plans have failed because they had to operate
within the Colombo paradigm. They failed not because we were short of
ten parliaments or ten governors or chief ministers, but because a ruling
elite, and a bureaucracy, paid lip service to decentralization and empowerment,
while making sure that the Colombo group will always have its supply
of milk and honey.
The real challenge, therefore, is to discard the outdated Colombo paradigm
which helps the rich, English-speaking Sinhala-Tamil-Muslim urban class,
and not to prescribe a medicine worse than the disease to the non-Colombo
people. For the blunders of the Colombo class, we should not punish
the country by breaking it into nine or ten pieces. The soldiers from
rural areas who cannot speak English, fighting with the terrorists in
the jungles of Wanni and with terrorist infiltrators in the city of
Colombo itself, have already paid enough with the supreme sacrifice
that they can offer to their motherland to prevent such a break-up.
Devolution: A hundred-year old concept
The spirit and purpose of devolution was very much in vogue in Sri
Lanka, long before the spread of current devolution madness. As soon
as the British government consolidated its military supremacy over the
island, and after constructing a system of roads aimed at unification
and centralization of administration, colonial governors directed their
attention to subjects that we in the 21st Century label as "empowerment,"
"devolution," and "regional development." Governor
Henry Ward enacted the "Village Council Ordinance in 1856 and Governor
Robinson increased powers of these village councils in 1879. These decisions
were based on the lessons learned from the Peasant Rebellion in 1848.
The British shrewdly utilized local institutions and customs, such as
the caste system, village councils, and the village headmen system to
achieve all three interconnected goals of "empowerment," "devolution"
and "regional development." They employed indigenous institutions
as checks and balances to maintain peace and good government. For example,
powers enjoyed by the village headman were to be moderated by the recognition
given to village councils and to local Buddhist temples.
British governors recognized the need for "regional development",
and proceeded in a logical fashion. Despite his taking the side of the
local capitalists in developing a port in Colombo, Governor William
Gregory, wanted to do "something" for the unfortunate people
of the Wanni. He created the North-Central Province in 1873 and called
it "my child." A long line of British governors and a cadre
of dedicated British civil servants devoted their attention to regional
development in the dry and arid climatic zones of Sri Lanka, because
of social, economic and political necessities. British governors and
British civil servants had no real estate or other vested interest in
the Colombo Area, other than that it was a convenient location for them
to be in contact with the mother country. During the hot season in Colombo
they temporarily moved their offices to cooler locations such as Nuwara
Eliya and Bandarawela.
British government also realized that the Crown Colony of Ceylon was
too small an area to divide into small pieces and that its geography
does not support viable independent units. Donoughmore and Soulbury
Commissioners heard these arguments for separate units, but did not
think an Indian-type division was the solution. Colebrooke-Cameron Commission
divided the island not on the basis of physical or human geography,
but for the purpose of administrative convenience. Coblerooke was more
interested in how to remove the influence the native chiefs had on the
Kandyan regions. The river system in Sri Lanka radiating from a central
mountain mass allows carving out administrative units, but not a Union
of Regions. British ruler also knew the limited governing ability of
local leaders and kept in their hands the three key portfolios until
they left the island, Finance, Justice and Foreign Affairs, the three
areas in which the Colombo group has failed miserably. The problem was
thus not what the British did, but what the Sri Lankans who replaced
the British did not do or did not want to do. It is in this context,
that the Colombo paradigm of the ruling elite has to be replaced by
an alternative Anuradhapura (or Rajarata) paradigm. Colombo has lost
its geopolitical importance and the centre of action is moving to the
North-Central Province.
Location of capital cities
If a kingdom or a state is considered an organism, the capital is its
heart and soul. For example London was known as the "engine of
growth" of Great Britain. Anuradhapura was perhaps the earliest
known capital city in the world named after the founder of that city.
The site and situation characteristic of a place are the two aspects
that mostly influence the location of a capital city. Absolute location
affects a site selection in such a way like a rock (Sigiriya) or an
island in a river (the original site of Paris), or availability of plain
land (London) or a river (Anuradhapura). Relative location on the other
hand considers a site in relation to other factors such as the distance
from invading armies (Sigiriya, Polonnaruwa), central location (Paris),
facing Europe with easy access via water (London), or central location,
sufficient distance from invading armies, access to ports and the availability
of a regular supply of water (Anuradhapura).
The Indian capital, Delhi, provides an example of how old Asian capitals
were selected relative to both local geography and foreign invasions.
The location of the actual seat of the king's palace within the Delhi
Area had changed at least 26 times before the British captured India
but Delhi acted as the last blockage to stop invaders entering through
the Khyber Pass. If a "Panipat war" fought near Delhi failed
to stop the enemy, then the entire Ganges Plain was open to plunder
and destruction. After the Sepoy Mutiny, in 1858, British government
moved the capital to Delhi from Calcutta. Bombay continued to function
as the commercial centre, with Karachi and Madras serving as regional
ports. Aurangzeb (1659-1707), the Mogul emperor, moved the capital from
Delhi to Aurangabad, a new capital city that he had built in central
India. He applied brute force to move people to this new capital, with
tragic consequences to both his power and to the Mogul Empire itself.
Sometimes a city is selected as the capital for sentimental reasons,
i.e. Israel's shift of capital from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem or given a
new name such as Ho Chi Minh City for Saigon or created to satisfy the
ego of a dictator as in the case of Stalingrad in Russia. The capitals
of Pakistan and Brazil provide more recent examples of "forward
capitals" that Sri Lanka is now compelled to follow. In the case
of Brazil, Brasilia, the new capital is located 400 miles inland from
Rio de Janeiro, the old capital, in order to conquer Brazil's internal
frontier or the periphery. In the case of Pakistan, the port city of
Karachi was replaced by Islamabad, near Rawalpindi, as the national
capital, so that the capital is near the disputed territory of Kashmir.
Thus the forward capital would be first to be engulfed by conflict in
case of strife with an "enemy." This was the role Delhi (Panipat)
played in the past. One can call this "taking the bull by the horns"
approach to statesmanship. This is what LTTE plans to do with Trinco
as the capital of Eelam.
The selection of a capital for a nation should not be based on sentimental
or personal reasons; however, there is no harm in capitalizing on such
factors, provided that the selection is based on sound geopolitical-geographical
reasons. Whether we like it or not, the North-Central Province is no
longer a remote region of empty lands, but has become the geopolitical
heartland of the nation. Despite the fact that Colombo, with a container
port, is considered the nerve center of Sri Lankan open economy, larger
and long-term, global and national economic issues require reorientation
of our attention to Trincomalee, one of the world's largest and safest
natural harbours. A forward capital in the NCP fits neatly with the
professed goals of the "devolution package". Economic devolution
(regional development) expects to reduce the gap between the center
(Colombo) and the periphery (dry and arid zones). One aspect of political
devolution, the empowerment of villagers, is possible only by taking
to their midst the seat of power. A decision to leave Colombo will itself
be a second 1956 revolution, more significant than the present habit
of offering flowers at the Sri Maha Bodhi and returning to Colombo in
the night. The other aspect of political devolution, giving some kind
of political recognition to the Tamil ethnic minority concentrated in
the North and East, will be easier to implement from a forward capital.
Reasons for moving the capital to Rajarata
Regional and Global Geopolitics
The Columbus Age or the Colombo Era in Sri Lanka began in 1505, and
the promotion of Colombo since the 1870s was needed by the geopolitical
forces prevailing at the time. This location provided optimum advantage
to the rulers and maximum profit to those who invested capital on tea
plantations. From the war-time industries to land settlement schemes
to government central school to difficult-area allowances for government
servants and district-basis university admissions to more recent names
of Gam Udawas, Jana Saviyas, and Gam Samurdis, successive governments
have tried to do justice to non-Colombo areas, with one foot always
firmly rooted in Colombo. Unlike in the past when these half-hearted
attempts focused on social and economic goals, events taking place in
Sri Lanka for the past 25 years, however, require looking at them from
a new geopolitical perspective. The geopolitical frontier of Sri Lanka
has now moved to the Raja Rata and the Wanni. Colombo can neither prevent
nor hide from the changes taking place at this frontier.
Historically, the three kingdoms in South India (Pandya, Chola and
Kerala) and the king of Anuradhapura or Pollonnaruwa, were locked in
a power struggle to maintain a regional balance of power. Whenever,
one of the four kings became too powerful, the others teamed together
to control him. The methods employed varied from matrimonial alliances
to secret agreements to actual invasions, reminiscent of what the Tamil
Nadu, Mrs. Gandhi and her son did in recent years to the government
of the late J. R. Jayewardene, by arming, training and funding the Tamil
Tiger groups. Or what the late Mr. Premadasa did to the IPKF by secretly
arming the Tigers.
The difference was that the ancient kings inherited their thrones while
the Delhi politicians had to depend on the votes of the Tamil Nadu politicians
to remain in power. Any attempts by Sri Lanka to develop extra-commercial
contacts with the Super Power (rumours of plans to lease Trinco harbour
to American Navy) or with China or Pakistan has brought chills to Indian
politicians. India did not like Sri Lankan government's willingness
to allow the Voice of America to expand its transmission station located
in the island. They resorted to acts overt or covert, to destabilize
the Sri Lankan government.
Referring to his southern neighbour, the United States, a Canadian
prime minister once said, "You cannot remain unaffected when you
are standing next to an elephant". India is our ailing elephant
and Tamil Nadu is India's lizard. Tamil Nadu will always be a military
base for Tamil terrorist acts directed against Sri Lanka. India is also
a dirty elephant as revealed by the Jain Commission Report and the Dixit
book. Tamil Nadu is the only state in India which once refused to accept
Hindi as the unifying national language of India. This state has 60
million people and has no doubts on what they want, if and when the
time is ripe.
Tamil politicians' desire for a separate state is not a result of the
1956 government change in Sri Lanka. Tamil Nadu's dream of a separate
state is buried and not dead. The Indian elephant has so many wounds,
all over, in the north, south, east and west, and the country we knew
as "Bharat", is no more. The leaders it produced adhering
to Panchaseela qualities died with personalities like Nehru, Lal Bahadur
Sastri and Radhakrishnan. Indian political scene is so unstable, and
to base Sri Lanka's defence strategy relying on the words of one Indian
prime minister, such as the Gujral doctrine, will be a grave mistake.
The World Federation of Tamils, or the World Tamil Movement, looking
for a homeland for world Tamils, does not, yet have a sovereign state
solely for the Tamil race. A part of Sri Lanka is a quicker base than
the Fiji Islands or the Tamil Nadu itself. Devolution or no devolution,
this is a reality, and Sri Lanka must accept it and face the challenge.
It is in this context that a union of regions is like "putting
the tortoise in water". Even without a union of regions UDI was
attempted once, and it is natural to expect another UDI, sooner or later.
The center of action must be taken to the NCP, in a systematic fashion,
so that in ten years one would find half the international schools in
Sri Lanka located closer to Anuradhapura. Sri Lanka cannot stop international
Tamil politics, their monthly collection of millions of dollars of donations
or how the Oxford Dictionary defines the word "Tamil", but
if we act prudently, we can prevent such acts becoming our headache.
A sea has separated us from India, and therefore, what India did to
East Pakistan or does to Bangladesh, India cannot now do to Sri Lanka,
without becoming an "aggressor state" under the international
eye. Sri Lanka did not become part of South India because of the Palk
Strait, just like England did not become part of Napoleon's France or
Hitler's Germany because of the English Channel.
The Indian and Tamil Nadu politicians are responsible for transforming
a rebellious "lower caste" Tamil youth who was once a challenge
to the Central Committee of the Federal Party into a ruthless murderer.
Indian plans boomeranged. The Sinhala soldiers' sacrifices to protect
the motherland kept LTTE at bay until the rest of the world had time
to realize the truth about the LTTE. All this reminds me the answer
my friend received from his father when they recently discussed the
present predicament of Sri Lanka. "Son, whatever it is Sri Lanka's
horoscope is good", the father answered. As stated in the Mahawansa,
God Vishnu must be protecting this island. It is a miracle that "the
Break-up of Sri Lanka" did not happen yet as predicted by the late
Mr. Chelvanayagam's son-in-law, Dr. A. J. Wilson. Otherwise, how can
it be possible for the rebels to have a well developed navy, while the
Sri Lankan president admits, after 15 years of war, that "we have
failed or neglected to develop our navy".
The war continued without another Vadamarachchi (in which Prabhakaran's
life was saved from Sri Lankan army by Rajiv Gandhi's war planes), solely
because the LTTE have had a steady pipe line of arms supply from Tamil
Nadu by sea. The Indian navy refused to cooperate in cutting this supply
route, and Sri Lanka's "Yankie Dickie", the late Mr. Jayewardene,
could not get the American Navy Seals to help him. How can our leaders
not know that a sea is a barrier as well as a high way, and that as
an island we must be prepared to convert, if necessary, each and every
fishing boat we have in this island into a low cost weapon directed
against the enemy sea power. Fisheries Department, Fisheries Corporation,
Coast Conservation Department and the Tourist Ministry, for example,
must pool their resources to destroy LTTE sea power, before they become
an air power too.
To face subversive activities originating directly or indirectly from
the Tamil Nadu we must go to NCP, and we cannot in modern day do what
the Sinhalese kings did then by fleeing from Anuradhapura. We need to
understand, that the counter attacks against the South Indian invaders
were organized by military strategists, Valagambahu, Dutugamunu, Vijayabahu
and Parakramabahu the Great, utilizing the manpower in the Ruhunu, Maya
and Pihiti regions. These "Moshe Dayans" of ancient Sri Lanka
did not go to foreign universities in Taxila or Nalanda to learn Sri
Lankan geography. This manpower in the South is still our most valuable
resource, and we must take it to the new frontier and meet the Tamil
Nadu-based enemy there. We must have a forward capital. This manpower
potential in the South must not be divided into seven or eight pieces
in the name of symmetrical empowerment.
The 1997 version of FP-TULF proposals of 1971 and 1985 will kill two
birds with one stone for the separatists: it will take them one step
closer to the next UDI, a temptation difficult to resist, more importantly,
it will break the ability of the south to act as a counter force against
Tamil Nadu sponsored terrorist attacks, border disputes, sabotage and
bomb attacks.
As late as 1450, Prince Sapumal, the son of Parakramabahu VI, invaded
and ruled the Jaffna Kingdom for seventeen years with the manpower from
the south. Peace will not come by breaking the majority race into pieces.
Not only the Sinhala people have no legal homeland, but the 1997 Constitution
will prevent any hope of getting one. We must strengthen our contacts
with Pakistan, China and the Super Power, the United States, knowing
that each country is interested in what it can get from a friendship
or a partnership.
We need to develop a separate force of Coast Guards, similar to our
civilian police force with one eye toward the sea. Foreign embassies,
the Marga Institute with its Group of 25, and the NGOs, good and bad,
must be in the NCP and not in Colombo. This will not happen until the
official capital and the national parliament is located near Anuradhapura.
If political leaders want to live near Colombo, Kotte, or Nawala, they
cannot expect the people or the government departments to move to the
dry zone. Who wants to live in areas with malaria or no better schools
for their children?
Thus, if doctors or SSPs refused to go out of Colombo or the Trinco
Kachcheri is empty without officers, one need to blame the Colombo paradigm
for that. Therefore, if a palace is indispensable, then build it above
the Kala Wewa or Tissa Wewa. If ministers or ministry secretaries have
to send their children to a school in Anuradhapura, they will see to
it that the schools in the vicinity get the best improvements possible.
In this regard, our leaders need to learn what sacrifices leaders of
Eritrea are making to build a nation in the desert, after 30 years of
war, and from practically nothing (The National Geographic, June 1996).
Moving the seat of government to the NCP will give Tamil farmers and
Tamil workers from Jaffna an opportunity to meet with Sinhala farmers
and Sinhala workers from the south by reducing the geographic distance
now exists between the two groups. Let Tamil farmers in Vavunia and
Kilinochchi meet directly with farmers in Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa,
without Tamils from Colombo or Wellawatta acting as intermediaries.
I once saw how this happened at the cement factory in Puttalam. Constitutions
cannot teach what people can learn by intermingling with each other.
Until the Sinhala and Tamil politicians from Colombo poisoned their
minds, Tamils and Sinhalese lived in harmony both before and after the
political independence. English was removed not to help the Sinhalese
but to help the poor Sinhalese as well as the poor Tamil. The sharing
of the Mahaweli water by these people will bring them closer, if the
seed for division is not planted by a constitution prophesying "symmetry".
On the other hand, Mahaweli water can be a source of water wars between
regions, because the river runs over several sovereign regions. Economic
interests and scarcity of resources put even the best neighbours like
the Canadians and the Americans at each other's throat! They often clash
over sharing fisheries resources in the oceans. Thus, real estate owners
of Ruhuna and Sabaragamuwa could fight with each other, despite whatever
precautionary measures taken by the constitution book. What keeps members
in a union under control is not the law in the book but economic forces
and other realities of life.
This is what one can learn from the history of devolution in the United
States or in India. Devolution based on the division of land as a solution
to an ethnic problem is a slippery path with no end. It is a dream of
curing a cancer by feeding it. Just think of what is in store for the
Canadian Province of Quebec, if it leaves Canada. An independent state
of Quebec will have to do "something" about the people living
in the Island of Montreal, the Eastern Townships along the Vermont border
and Western Quebec who do not want to be part of it. Also the Cree,
Inuit, Mohawk and Montagnais aboriginal groups with homelands covering
two-thirds of the Province of Quebec are not willing to give up their
ancestral lands without a fight (National Geographic, November 1997).
In Sri Lanka this will one day end up as a mass-scale ethnic cleansing,
and we will not find a Sinhala or Tamil lawyer from Colombo who can
stop it.
Global and national economy
The rise and fall of nations, great and small, depends ultimately on
the availability and wise use of resources. For the past 50 years we
have been talking about developing the peripheral regions, diversifying
the economy and improving the standards of living of farmers and workers.
The new economic devolution is expected to empower people and reduce
the gap between the center and the periphery. The concept of forward
capital, not symmetrical devolution, is the proper mechanism to help
the periphery. There must be a physical and psychological break-away
from the Colombo mentality. Changing the names of Bombay onion and Mysore
dhal to big onion and red dhal will not help to get rid of this mentality.
We cannot develop Wellassa, Panduwasnuwara or Thamankaduwa from air
conditioned offices in Colombo. Sacrifice for the benefit of the country
should go beyond the poor soldiers' level to other government officers.
We cannot expect farmers in remote areas to come to Agricultural Research
and Training Institute in Colombo 7 for advice. The foreign-trained
expert must go and live with the farmer next to his paddy field. This
is how real empowerment and real devolution can take place.
Sri Lanka cannot escape from the Pacific Century or becoming part of
the global village. The world stage is shifting from the Atlantic Ocean
to the Pacific Ocean. just like the way the Pacific (Chinese-Japanese)
coast of the United States, is gaining more importance than its Atlantic
(European) coast, Sri Lanka must move from the Colombo coast to Trincomalee.
This natural harbour is facing China, Japan, Malaysia and the Four Asian
Tigers (Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong and South Korea), Just like Colombo
was closer to the Suez Canal. While Colombo plays the role of primate
commercial city, Trinco will be the new port with the administrative,
national capital near Anuradhapura. With a modern international airport
located some distance north of Anuradhapura (at Vavunia?) to serve as
a hub for SAARC countries, Sri Lanka will be ready for the 21st century.
If the World Bank thinks that the proposed Hambantota port will be a
good cargo hub for South Asia, it is even better forTrinco's role.
India once had a proposal to dig a shipping canal between Sri Lanka
and India (the Sethu Samuduram Project), and if this ever becomes a
reality, then Sri Lankan ports in Mannar, KKS and Trinco can benefit
from it. When the low country was under the rule of the Dutch, Sri Lanka
had a viable coastal canal system, which is now in ruins, which can
be resurrected to link Sri Lankan ports and harbours, big and small.
In the past, Sri Lanka was a meeting p lace for Greek-Roman and Muslim
traders from the west and the Chinese traders from the east and Indian
traders from the north. This history will be repeated now within a new
global village.
Free trade, free enterprise and liberalization of the economy from
government control are catch words used today in an effort to raise
the living standards of the masses. The question is not whether we need
to promote international trade, but how we do that. There was a time
when Sri Lanka imported pencils and rubber erasers, while exporting
shiploads of crape rubber and raw graphite. Is this free trade? Or is
it importing frozen chicken from Holland for the Colombo crowd? Is this
the purpose behind creating a powerful World Trade Organization (WTO)
by the rich countries of the world? Do we want a globalization where
two ships, one carrying wood blocks from Minnesota to Japan and the
other taking tooth-picks and chop-sticks from Japan to California, past
each other in the Pacific Ocean? Sri Lankan Scholar the late Munidasa
Kumaratunga, once said that "a nation that does not look for new
things and innovative ways cannot progress", but does it mean that
we destroy our culture, our resources and our natural environment for
an international trade, which simply means meeting the consumers' hunger
in the West?
No country in the world solved its economic problems by allowing foreign
investors to locate their textile and other processing factories on
its soil. The economic freedom for a country like Sri Lanka can come
in the long-run by developing an economy in which agriculture and industry
are considered as its two legs. Investors come to take the advantages
of tax breaks, cheap labour, weak labour laws and ineffective environmental
protection laws, and they are not interested in developing a base for
agro-industrial growth. Employment provided by them will be temporary
until they find better deals somewhere else in other countries. This
is the history of capitalism. While accepting this necessary evil for
the time being and leaving it to take place in the Colombo area, we
must plan for our future under a new Rajarata paradigm.
Governments are talking about rural development, rural employment,
congestion in Colombo and protection of the environment. "Corporate
Globalization" is the latest wave of economic colonialism armed
with NGOs and aided and abetted by the World Bank, Asian Development
Bank and the new WTO. These agencies and the UN system now have a class
of "experts" hired from the Third World countries to serve
their masters, "Third World in color but Western in thinking".
The Sri Lankan geographer, Lakshman Yapa, has written extensively on
the subject of how the western concept of development sponsored by the
World Bank for over forty years has become the problem rather than the
solution to poverty in the Third World.
Instead of erecting several smaller reservoirs upland, in the 1940s
we made the mistake of building one huge dam across the river valley
of Gal Oya. This mistake was repeated in the 1980s with the Victoria
Dam and an "acceleration" that helped the contractors and
the commission "hawks". With the Mahaweli water, we are still
in a position to concentrate on developmental strategies based on concepts
such as "Small Is Beautiful", "Buddhist Economics,"
and "Appropriate-Intermediate Technology." The Sarvodaya philosophy
of community development based on the model of "Village-Wewa-Temple,"
fits ideally with a periphery-oriented Rajarata paradigm.
While Colombo and other coastal areas continue to work on export processing
industries, the rural base of the country could develop industries which
are in harmony with an agricultural way of life. Instead of one CISIR,
one Industrial Development Board and one AR & TI in the Colombo
area, each province, each district or each electorate can have mini
CISIRs, IDBs and AR&TIs manned by local people with local talent.
These can have link with local schools so that a student who studies
chemistry biology and physics at grade 12 level do not necessarily end
up as a bank clerk. Thus students do not have to wait for another 30
years before our leaders decide to really overhaul the colonial educational
system.
Environment and Development can coexist happily under a Rajarata paradigm,
and as Mahatma Gandhi said there will be plenty to meet the country's
needs. We have books produced by the Sarvodaya Movement laying out field-tested
plans on how we can achieve such goals. Do we need expensive foreign-experts
to advice us on such matters? The dry zone has its own rewards of solar
and wind energy, and this energy could help in pumping ground water
with tube wells. Total reliance on the Mahaweli alone could be an economic
disaster as it is only a massive rain water transfer scheme. Hopefully,
in future, marginal tea plantations in the headwater areas of the Mahaweli
would gradually come under a reforestation plan as recommended in the
Tea Commission Report in 1968 or as advocated by the JVP in 1971, in
one of its five original lessons. They should not be sold to Tata Tea
Company. Globalization, through trade liberalization under the watchful
eye of WTO, has increased the gap between the rich and poor countries
and the rich and poor classes within countries. This center-periphery
division within Sri Lanka can only be minimized by a non-Colombo paradigm.
Basic geography and history lessons
Any Sri Lankan who had an opportunity to read Horace Perera's History
of Ceylon or S. F. de Silva's Geography of Ceylon at grade 10-12 levels
would understand that the division of Sri Lanka into nine or ten regional
governments is a recipe for disaster. Or, one can get a quick lesson
in this regard by an overlay of Sri Lanka's physical geography map on
a map of provinces and districts. Rivers in the island radiate from
a central mountain mass and any division if necessary must be on the
basis of river basin systems, if the individual units are given power
over land and water resources. Take the Kalu or Kelani Ganga as an example.
These run through at least three regions. What if, the Western region
thinks that the water supply in the Kalu Ganga is reduced because there
was lot of forest clearing in the Sabaragamuwa Region? Can the constitution
solve this conflict? What if a lower region thinks that the upper region
is not taking action to prevent river pollution? The history of water
use conflicts in the world tells us that these are not hypothetical
questions. What is considered as a normal practice now will become an
objectionable behaviour under separate regions.
We were taught that the Mahaweli is not a river but a river system.
Water use conflicts that can arise between regions through which this
river runs will be constitutional lawyers' nightmare. Water use-related
clashes now common among the users of irrigation canals are mini scale
versions of what could be expected among those sharing large river basins.
Regions can be equal in constitutional law but not in the type or the
quantity of resources available. While human geography justifies some
special treatment given to areas with heavy concentrations of Tamil
minority population, the division of southern provinces into several
regions goes against it. In an attempt to bring geography and politics
closer, the British devised a system of electorates based on a formula
of population and area. By simply adjusting the area part of this two-part
formula, the Colombo group could have delivered a ton of devolution,
decades ago, if there was a genuine concern to help the periphery.
It is amazing how the former Ceylon Civil Service members, UNO-World
Bank system experts and the Colombo lawyers so easily forgot how the
Crown Lands Ordinances were used by the British to rob lands from the
Kandyan peasantry. They also forgot how the Kandyan king allowed the
Catholic refugees coming from the Dutch-controlled coastal areas to
settle down in his kingdom without forcing them to become Buddhists.
This is just two reminders from history to the Colombo group. After
the 1956, and to a lesser extent, the 1960 and 1970 General Elections,
the Colombo paradigm was shaken but not buried. What Sir John did to
M. S. Themis on the steps of the Parliament building was exactly what
the Colombo group wished to do to the 1956 MEP government. The late
Mr. Martin Wickremasinghe was gravely mistaken when he wrote at that
time about "The Donwfall of the Brahamin Caste." In reality,
this class never lost its grip over the affairs of the country, only
the chameleon-like, methods of control adopted changed. When the 1956
election brought new members to Colombo, who did not speak English,
the civil servants formed internal advisory committees to teach these
raw members how the government machinery and the parliamentary system
operate. Much later when a President openly ridiculed them stating "I
want a Bass not an engineer," and "I can write the Budget
on a bus ticket", some of these civil servants managed to become
his top level advisors.
The resilience of the Colombo group was such that no amount of reform,
including the abolition of the CCS system or the opening up of administrative
service jobs to Swabasha medium graduates after 1965, could break its
grip over the country. The officer groups, the police and the university
teachers are divided on partisan lines and not on the basis of truth,
justice and facts. Unlike those who left the country in disgust, they
play a game of survival, fooling the politician. Today, when a Carlo
challenges two Dasas to explain "Who are ‘black-whites'?"
we are dealing with a phenomenon easy to see but difficult to define.
We talk about a group that in 1835, Thomas Macaulay was planning to
create in India, "...a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour,
but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect."
This is the intellectual group that we have in Sri Lanka today who
wants to convince Dr. Gunadasa Amarasekera that this idea of a "National
Conscience" is a myth. It is amazing how Macaulay was able to help
invent a group of people and a system of thinking, which, like a blackhole
sucks in new batches and new waves of officers politicians, merchants
or anybody who can buy a small plot of land in the vicinity of Colombo,
and then ready to do anything to stay in Colombo and to retain fruits
of freedom in their hands, while preaching power sharing and regional
development.
Attending a Colombo school, simply because one's parents could afford
it does not necessarily make one a great-grandson of Macaulay. Some
officers simply become prisoners of Colombo, who had no choice but to
live in Colombo and had to become part of the establishment due to various
reasons, such as children's education. However, anyone who used English
as a "sword of oppression", (Kaduwa) (Youth Commission Report,
page xvii) is a member of the Colombo group or a "black-white".
English has been a ladder for those who had an opportunity to learn
it, similar to other languages of commerce, such as the computer language.
Therefore, to use the benefits of that opportunity, directly or indirectly,
to oppress others who did not have that opportunity for no fault of
theirs, is to pay homage to Macaulay.
It is immoral, if that opportunity came at the expense of the less
fortunate, such as the transfer of hard currency pumped into the economy
by people working as janitors and house maids in the Middle East, which
is used by the Colombo rich to send their children to foreign universities.
The Fundamental Right Number 46 in the 1997 draft Constitution, "...A
person shall be entitled to be educated through the medium of either
Sinhala or Tamil and if facilities are available, through the medium
of English," illustrates how the Colombo paradigm perpetuates through
the Colombo group with the full backing of the law. The fairness of
this right is not different from the fairness the French people enjoyed
under the French law which stated that "both the rich and the poor
are allowed to sleep under the bridges of Paris."
The most important history lesson then is the lesson we can learn from
the behaviours of the Colombo group. The biggest obstacle to a Rajarata
paradigm will be the mind set of the Colombo group, which is small in
numbers but widespread in control. From time to time the Colombo group
behaves like the farmer who comes home from his morning trip to his
paddy field to whack the dear skin on his arm-chair. For the political
parties in power the problem has been the Constitution. With a few modifications,
the Westminster Constitution of 1947 could have delivered everything
that the thick book of 1997 draft Constitution now professes to achieve,
if politicians and the establishment of the Colombo group did not spoil
it for their benefit. As long as this spoiling process continues, a
constitutional instrument, even if it is one hundred pounds in weight
and has a quota system of 25% women and 15% below 30 years will not
bring this or that devolution.
Western scholars have shown that some key concepts found in western
jurisprudence and in western democracy were not alien to Buddhism or
to the Buddhist way of life. Only an Archbishop with a Sinhala name
could disclose his ignorance by laughing at Buddhist civilization in
a Christmas message. In modern times, the principle of separation of
powers was first implemented in the British colony of Ceylon during
the time of the Governor North, when the Chief Justice issued summons
to the Military Commander to appear before his court to show-cause why
the latter should not be punished for contempt. The Colombo group systematically
removed these safeguards from the 1947 Constitution, and cranked out
new constitutional instruments paying lip service to such checks and
balances.
And today we have such a mess where the bribery commissioner is to
be questioned by her subordinates, and a citizen group wanting to do
something on the behaviour of the members of the parliament! Those who
support dividing the island into nine or ten regions and those who suspect
whether they are really in the Colombo group need to consider the following
questions. They will help in trying to find answers to the two questions
so often asked with regard to the devolution package; (1) For Whose
benefit and (2) on what criteria are the divisions of this Island into
nine or ten regions contemplated?
1. Legislature
Why was the Senate abolished? What was the purpose of a second chamber?
Who packed the Senate with defeated candidates and party loyalists?
Who made MPs slaves of the party leadership? Who took away MPs freedom
to vote and MPs right to secret ballot in the parliament? Who enacted
an election law that will encourage only thugs and crooks to come forward
to contest? Who stopped the role of an independent local MP? Which party
killed the local government system of town and village councils? Who
introduced a Political Authority at district level and killed the local
government system?
2. Public Service
Who politicalized the public service? Who started the practice of job
applicants submitting a letter from the local MP? Which party ruined
the state industrial corporation system, CTB, CWE etc. by appointing
its set of party loyalists as directors and top officers? Which party
did not find a genius within the cabinet who can handle so many portfolios
at the same time?
3. Judiciary
Who ruined the independence of the Judiciary? Who appointed active politicians
as Supreme Court Judges? Who asked S. C. judges to give a signed letter
before the re-appointment? Who was behind the demonstrations before
the judges' residence? Why a Chief Justice cannot criticize the nation's
education policy?
4. Others
Which party killed the highest number of Sinhala youths for taking up
arms against the Colombo paradigm? Which party uses traditional symbols
as an eye-wash? Which party built a capitol on a marshy land and which
party wants to add a palace to it? And which party did not use the Tamil
ethnic issue for political mileage?
If the devolution package is the answer to stop such behaviour, then
go for it! If you think that the Colombo group is taking you for another
ride, consider whether the time is not ripe for a third political party
to get rid of the "black-whites" and their NGOs.
The End of the Colombo Paradigm (1948-98): Sri Lanka's Need for a "Forward
Capital" Under an Anuradhapura Paradigm
For the Tamils and Sinhalese who could not speak English, February
4th, 1948, was a celebration held in the City of Colombo, by the people
of Colombo, for the people of Colombo. From their perspective, the first
significant colonial constitutional reform, the universal suffrage,
took place in 1931, and the next real political change reached them
with the 1956 General Elections. Since the mid-1980s, a panacea called
"devolution" has been thrown at the non-Colombo people by
the ruling elites in Colombo, promising to empower the periphery, politically
and economically. Symmetrical or asymmetrical, the devolution plans
exhibit an end of the central role hitherto played by Colombo. Recent
changes in regional and local geopolitics and new developments in global
and local economics, including the Mahaweli system, on the other hand,
point to a need for a new capital under a new Rajarata paradigm, sustained
by the country's National consciousness (Jatika Chintanaya).
In 1948, the British, handed over the reins of power to Ceylon's "Macaulay's
children." This new class of rulers successfully thwarted whatever
fruits of freedom reaching the rural-urban farmers and workers who did
not know 'how to use English.' The 1956 people's government as well
as all other governments after 1960 were under the effective control
of this ruling elite. This group, under the Colombo paradigm, implemented
"regional development," "poverty alleviation," and
"diversification of the economy," programs for fifty years
with the results aptly summarized by the Youth Commission Report as
"Kolambata Kiri Apita Kekiri" (milk to Colombo, forage to
us). And the Guinness book of world records gave them a report card
recently on (youth) suicidal rates.
In a constitution tossing game, the ruling elites have systematically
removed from the 1947 Westminster model constitution, the spirit and
purpose of the rule of law, the principle of separation of powers, politically
neutral civil service, independence of the judiciary, the village council
system and even the freedom of a member of parliament to use his free
and secret ballot in the parliament. As a result, corruption is rampant
at every level of public life, irrespective of which political party
is in power. In frustration, the Sinhalese youths, and the Tamil youths
in Jaffna, before the Indian politicians misled them, took extra-constitutional
measures, and the Colombo elites, both Tamil and Sinhalese, have now
prescribed a devolution medicine for Sri Lanka's ills.
From the viewpoints of island's geography and history (history is past
geography), this medicine is worse than the disease. This paper examines
how the concept of forward capital in political geography (example:
Brazil and Pakistan) can be utilized to provide solutions to Sri Lanka's
present political and economic predicament.
For leaders with foresight, wisdom and statesmanship, a forward capital
will help conquer several Sri Lankan frontiers; to get rid of the vestiges
of the Colombo paradigm, physically and psychologically; to achieve
real devolution and real empowerment without dividing the island into
nine regions; to provide equality of opportunity to all rural workers
of all ethnic groups by providing such opportunities away from Colombo;
to avoid ethnic homelands by locating the capital near the conflict
zone, closer to Tamil Nadu; to be able to nip in the bud in the source
region itself, any attempts of sabotage and infiltration by those against
a unitary state of Sri Lanka; to become part of the global village with
minimum adverse effects on our people, economy, culture and the natural
environment; and most importantly to allay the fears of the majority
Sinhalese that the granting of local autonomy to Tamils in the North
and East to enjoy their own culture (i.e. they may not want Vesak or
Poson as public holidays) will not be a passport to break-up Sri Lanka
into two countries at war with each other.
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