• Asymmetric devolution to three units, or ‘Cutting the Gordian Knot’

I believe it is now accepted by most thinking people in Sri Lanka, that the devolution proposals which have been tabled to date - the one which Mr. J. R. Jayewardene was coerced to produce (with arm-twisting by Mr. Dixit, pro-Consul of Rajiv Gandhi), containing provisions for a North East merger, and the ‘Package ‘ advanced by the PA government, and still under discussion - really do not answer to our needs. They are overwrought, and extended - not convincing they will provide the necessary debility nor the hope needed to make a rapid advance towards a prosperous future. Most of all, they fail to take proper account of the latent threat to division - in spite of the open warfare, as we see today in the North and the East.

The clamour for ‘devolution’ came from unhappy Tamil throats, which were articulating a vision for separate development - after Sinhala was enthroned as the national language. Some like Prabhakaran wanted instant separation, others like Mr. Chelvanayagam, Amirthalingam and the rest of the TULF were more diplomatic - without coming to a military confrontation, they too wanted the same thing: Separation. When you have regions established on the basis of race or language or religion, their happy coexistence for long is a matter for conjecture - especially when we make provision for self-sufficiency for the very unit that is threatening to break-away. We have too many examples available to us, to dismiss this fear as fanciful. There has to be the rationale of ‘dependence’ or of wanting to remain within the confederation, for ‘devolution’ to work, and not to proceed to break-away. It is to vitiate this very principle (of dependence) that Tamil pressure groups have been insisting on the Sri Lankan government to link the Eastern Province to the North. By such linking, separation on the basis of Tamil ethnicity becomes possible. The Eastern province will provide necessary ‘lebensraum’ and resources for the Tamil state they are dreaming of- to become reality. I wish to maintain, that in order to make devolution work for the entire nation, for federation’ to remain, to endure — it is very necessary for the principle of ‘dependence’ of the unit of devolution, to be given due consideration. The Eastern province must be kept as a separate region - it must not be linked to the North I suggest we look at the problem a fresh, in a creative light, in order to suk a solution.

The Eastern province is by no means an exclusively Tamil homeland, as has been made out by some. There are Sinhalese and Muslims in almost equal number living in this province. That is in terms of the present, if we go back into our past history, we see this region as home to a great Sinhala Buddhist civilization which flourished for over 2 millennia. Ours is a small country which has yet to sort out its rising population trend, the threat from population pressures will be very real in another 25 years. We are not in a position to hand over a large portion of our and-area to one segment of our population to retain and develop as their very own This is tantamount to saying: ‘We are conferring this largesse (the Eastern province) on you as your home land, to keep as your very own - and it is Our hope, that you will remain with us". We may well ask - Who has the right to make such a gift of land ? There has been no referendum on the subject It is not a matter for the people in the Eastern province to say whether they wish to merge with the North or not, it is a matter for everyone in the island to have his/her say. It is clear to me, the Eastern province is the indispensable link which should bind the Sinhala South to the Tamil North. It is not something that we can give away to silence the clamour from Tamil pressure groups. We must retain it, as our common inheritance in order to hold the country together.

Language is at the heart of the controversy - the cry for devolution, separate development, and for separation - all this came up from a perception of ‘disenfranchisement’ by Tamil people, in the wake of the Sinhala only Bill. The ‘fracture energies’ from this momentous event (to borrow a term from earthquake science) are still being dissipated in the war we are fighting today. We cannot go all the way back to the ‘status quo ante’ - nor do we need to. Giving pride of place to Sinhala, and making it the official language - displacing English - gave hope to the Sinhalese, but it also took away hope for the future, from the Tamil people. In hind-sight we could perhaps say, it might have been better for us to have focused on the Economy and not on Politics (the overnight switching from English to Sinhala was political) - that we should have kept English as the official language, and gone the way of Singapore. But we had an entrenched elite which was good at keeping power within the familial domain, feudal in out-look, and not very entrepreneurial - unlike the Singapore Chinese. So, there may have been no take-off as in Singapore - even with English retained as the national language. But we would have had national unity - it is only now after twenty years of a costly war and the trauma of a near break-up of the nation, that we see how important it is to work towards Unity - to enable us to march towards Prosperity.

We have to be practical, giving the Eastern province to the Tamils - as compensation to any wrongs that may have been done to them in the past - is not the answer. After all, it should be remembered, what the British took away was the independence of the Sinhalese, and in the exercise of their power over the Sinhala masses they utilised the Tamils skilfully (as well as others including those Sinhalese, who would help the British to govern over the Sinhala masses). With Independence, and power restored to the people, the Sinhalese could be expected to assert themselves - recover from a sub-servient position, and advance as a free people. Tamils, who prospered under British rule, by the same token could have expected to suffer some dis-location from their privileged position - on the vacation of the British from these shores. These need to be addressed, but giving the Eastern province as a ‘homeland’ is not an answer to the problem. If we do that, all that will happen is that in the not too distant future, the Tamil federated portion comprising the East and the North, will break off from the rest of the Sri Lankan nation. It may be called Eelam or by some other name, the name is not important, but what is certain is that it will happen. It is wishful thinking on the part of Sinhala politicians to imagine, that this large region with all the reasons for going it alone’, would long remain tied to the rest of Sri Lanka. Those who demand the linking, also want to enter into direct negotiations with other countries for developmental loans,, have dealings with international banks etc; for their rapid economic advancement. They would not want to be fettered by the Centre - when the justification for their detachment is a separate ethnicity.

This current problem of ours has its basis in language. As much as Sinhala has pride of place in the Southern provinces, it is proper that Tamil should be 1st language in the North However the Eastern province should not be merged to the North, and the language of administration in this province - a key element in this exercise in devolution - should be English. The Eastern province should be the strong link holding the Sinhala South to the Tamil North. The Tamils, the Muslims and the Sinhalese should all realise their aspirations by working together to make the Eastern province the fastest growing region in Sri Lanka. A maximum of developmental funds, foreign investments and new industries should go into this region. As for the devolution of powers to the rest of the provinces — there should be some re-thinking. It may be better for the current system of administration to remain without change - certainly there will be considerable savings in administration costs, and with fewer chiefs to get in each other way, honest work that needs to be done may well be done faster.

With a language handicap, and accompanying frustrations over job-prospects looming darkly over the Tamil people, they have gone to extreme measures — like a self-defeating, suicidal war. We — all of us, Sinhalese, Tamil and Muslim should work together, shoulder to shoulder to make the Eastern province a second Singapore — perhaps surpass it in years to come. We need a common language to make this possible, and English should be retained as official language, in this province. There is no need to fear the Sinhala language will die through neglect, it is firmly rooted in the South, and it will flourish. Similarly Tamil will have pride of place in the North. Let us build the Eastern province for Unity’s sake; however we cannot do this by retaining Sinhala or Tamils as ‘vehicle’ for that necessary concord — which must obtain. English will enable us to make a rapid take-off into the 21st Century for a journey towards Prosperity, and an enduring Peace.

(The writer is a Graduate of Air Command and Staff College Maxwell Air University, Ala U.S.A. Retired in 1981 as Senior Technical Staff Officer, Air Force Head-quarters — after 28 years’ service with the Sri Lanka Air Force)