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The turn of the screw and Indian intentions — Part I by Gunadasa Amarasekara
The Elephant Pass disaster has had its positive side. Its local fall-out has confronted the UNP, the SLFP, the TULF and the SLMC with the disastrous national, regional and international consequences of their opportunistic manipulation of the majority Sinhalese and the minority Tamils and Muslims. It has also given us an opportunity to surmise some aspects of India’s hidden agenda for the South Asian region.The strange behaviour of the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, M. Karunanidhi, has made me re- examine some of the views I expressed in my article (The Island, 31.6.2000) regarding the difficulties faced by the Indian Prime Minister Vajpayee. It was my conclusion that, being the mature and wise politician that he is, Mr. Vajpayee had persuaded Mr. Karunanidhi to reject LTTE extremism, which he did, contradicting his earlier position. The question that troubles me now is whether Karunanidhi’s subsequent demand for territorial separation of the North and East of Sri Lanka as a Tamil state, in gross violation of Sri Lanka’s sovereignty, was just a reckless remark, or one inspired by the hidden agenda of the Indian bureaucrats of what has been called the South Block, who were responsible for initiating and implementing the mechanisms of Tamil terrorism in Sri Lanka during the stewardship of Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi (Rohan Guneratne, in ‘Indian intervention in Sri Lanka).
Therefore, before discussing the local fall-out and effects of the fall of Elephant Pass, I will present a somewhat unorthodox interpretation of the ambiguity of the responses of both the Indian government and of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Karunanidhi to the recent upsurge of LTTE terrorism in Sri Lanka. In the light of this interpretation, the new constitutional package and the Interim Council for the North and East, proposed by the leaders of the SLFP, UNP, TULF and SLMC could have disastrous long term regional consequences, apart from the adverse effects to the economic, political, social and administrative well-being of the country that are well known. The secrecy surrounding the discussions and the unseemly haste to present it to the Sri Lankan Legislature are in gross violation of the democratic rights of the Sri Lankan people, in particular those of the Sinhalese people.
Long term Indian objectives in the North and East of Sri Lanka
The aftermath of the Elephant Pass debacle should make us realise the substantial difference between high expectations of benevolence on the one hand and the realities on the other, where our relations with India are concerned. Our expectations of benevolence have been conditioned by history: India is the land of the Buddha and Dharmasoka. The recent appeal for Indian intervention by leading members of the Buddhist Sangha was prompted by this conditioning. It is true that one of the great politicians of the 20th century, Jawaharlal Nehru, did acknowledge Asoka’s role in Indian history by adopting Asokan symbols in the national emblems of modern India. However, contemporary Indian polities is not inspired by Upagupta, who as Emperor Asoka’s teacher, made a great contribution to the political philosophy that created the greatness of Asoka and India’s Golden Age. India has changed much since then. Sanjay Gandhi’s off-the-record conversation with Kuldip Nayar (Island, 19.6.2000) is evidence of the extent to which Indian political philosophy of that time had adopted Kautalya’s ‘science of punishment’, which is the aphorism used by Kautalya himself to characterise his treatise on politics, the ‘Arthashastra’. Not even Machiavelli could better Kautalya as the source of inspiration for designing amoral and ruthless political strategies. The history of Indian intervention in Sri Lanka from the 1980’s leaves little room for doubt that the inheritors of the Kautalyan tradition were behind Indian policy vis-a-vis Sri Lanka at that time. Even Vajpayee appears to have given in to them.
India is the only South Asian super-power, politically, militarily and economically, and it is recognised as such by the super powers of other regions. We have to acknowledge that the consolidation of that status is a major objective of Indian governance within India, as well as within and outside the South Asian region. Indira Gandhi sought to further that consolidation by introducing an imperialist dimension into Indian regional politics. Perhaps she saw India as the inheritor of the South Asian part of the British Empire. J. N. Dixit’s outrageous behaviour as the Indian High Commissioner, as well as his later writings leave little doubt that the Indian foreign policy makers of that time wanted him to play the role of Viceroy. But regional quasi-colonial hegemonism of this kind has become an impracticable anachronism with globalisation of the capitalist economy, which has overtaken not only India and the South Asian region, but even the former Soviet Union and China. In the aftermath of Indian quasi-imperialist strategies initiated by Indira Gandhi and her advisers, the borders of India has become ringed by countries suspicious of India’s intentions. The Vajpayee government appears to have realised that the image of the quasi-imperialist bully, the Ugly Indian (Kuldip Nayar, The Island, 15.5.2000) has been counter-productive for both regional and international relations in the context of economic globalisation. The question that is of importance not only to us but the entire region, is what the Kautalyan bureaucrats have come up with, in place of the quasi-imperialist road, for consolidating India’s super power status in South Asia. India’s response to the Sri Lankan crisis precipitated by the Tamil terrorist led by the LTTE offers an opportunity to find some answers to this.
India’s concern over LTTE terrorism in Sri Lanka is thought by most people to be due to several special circumstances that give India reasons for apprehension.
The first is that the very large Tamil community in Tamil Nadu, who are naturally in sympathy with the Tamil community in Sri Lanka, is an important factor in Indian regional politics, which could determine the fate of coalition national governments of India. This has been made very obvious by the instability of the several coalition governments that have ruled India in recent years. In this, the Indian situation is a mirror image of the situation in Sri Lanka, in that the parliamentary system based on the Westminster model has resulted in the undermining of electoral majoritarian democracy by minority authoritarianism. This problem is a result of accommodating minorities at the expense of the majority in a democratic system, to gain and hold power with no regard to the destabilising consequences. What one sees in both India and Sri Lanka is the national interest and the interests of the majority being sacrificed by a coalition of political parties, in order to remain in power. In these circumstances, it is completely cynical of the Indian government to manipulate the Sri Lankan political leaders to keep Karunanidhi happy. Just as the people of India would find it intolerable to let the LTTE interfere in India on behalf the Tamil people of India, the people of Sri Lanka would find it equally intolerable to let Tamil extremist politicians of Tamil Nadu interfere in Sri Lanka on behalf of the Tamil people of Sri Lanka.
The second argument offered for Indian concern is that an independent Tamil State in the North and East of Sri Lanka ruled by Pirubakaran would lead to a struggle for an independent Great Tamil Eelam that includes Tamil Nadu, and thereby destabilize the whole of India. This is extremely far-fetched at the moment. The possibilities that the people of Tamil Nadu, or its major political leadership would ever want to secede and become an independent state is very remote. Karunanidhi the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, has ridiculed the idea of a Great Eelam and castigated Pirubakaran and the LTTE, whilst the other major political force in Tamil Nadu, Jayalalitha, is on Pirubakaran’s hit list!
Some may argue that Pirubakaran’s terrorist movement could engineer such a process with the help of radical racist politicians in Tamil Nadu. This is a propagandist fantasy invented by the Tamil expatriate population living in the West, and by Indian Kautalyan strategists, to justify Indian intervention in the internal affairs of Sri Lanka. India is a great military power in the Asian context. Despite having an enormously long border to defend, the Indian armed forces have proved itself equal to the extremely difficult task of securing this long border in difficult terrain against neighbours who are not well disposed to India.
The Indian military machine has crushed the several attempts to secede by linguistic, religious, or radical political groups within its own borders in the past. Crushing the LTTE and its fifth column within its own borders will be just another such task. The fact is that even Sri Lanka could have eliminated the LTTE a long time ago if not for intervention of Kautalyan strategists of the South Block who chose to play the role of Dr. Frankenstein, and create a situation to prevent that. However, the contention that the monster they have created could bring about the secession of Tamil Nadu, and destabilize the whole of India is a ludicrous fantasy, being perpetuated to justify Indian interference in Sri Lanka’s internal affairs.
There is also the suggestion that Western neo-colonial forces would like to surreptitiously support Pirubakaran to create a spring-board for destabilizing India via Tamil Nadu. This is arrant nonsense. Today, the West uses its interventionist military strategies in the grand imperialist manner only when they feel threatened by terrorists inspired by racist, religious and political ideologies. The collapse of communism has enabled the globalization of capitalism, a globalisation that includes not only the whole of the South Asian region but the entire communist world, not excluding the last bastion Cuba. Neo-colonialism is an economic and cultural force. Destabilisation is anathema to modern market forces. The last thing that Western capitalism wants is the loss of the huge South Asian market by destabilisation of the region. The key to stability in this region is the stability of India. The idea that the West would want to use Pirubakaran to destabilize India is laughable. The developed Western world of today will do their utmost to stabilise, not spread instability in effectively functioning liberal democracies such as India.
It is not the Sri Lankan government that is creating problems for India, it is the LTTE who are destroying the democratic rights not only of Sinhalese and Muslim people, but even of many of the Tamil people of Sri Lanka. Surely, if India feels threatened by the LTTE for any of the above reasons, the Elephant Pass debacle was an opportunity to destabilize the LTTE by responding positively to Sri Lanka’s request for arms. The logical priority for India should be to help Sri Lanka to get rid of LTTE terrorism. The negative Indian response is proof that India does not take the threat of destabilisation by the LTTE aided and abetted by the West seriously. Instead, the Indian government has made a priority of twisting the arm of the Sri Lankan government to make her change the constitution of Sri Lanka and create a confederation of states in this tiny island. India has used this same divide to rule strategy of British imperialism in other independent countries on its borders, and sought to manipulate neighbouring countries in order to further Indian regional hegemony. Sri Lanka is probably unique in having an elected legislature that is seeking to commit, not genocide, but to nationocide, the destruction of a nation.
Both Karunanidhi and Jayalalitha have made it clear that they want to see a confederate state of Tamil Eelam sans Pirubakaran and the LTTE. However it would be foolish to believe that the Kautalyans of the South Block are doing this just to safeguard the interests of the Sri Lankan Tamils. The long term Indian objective is to pave the way for the political leadership of the TULF to ask for union of the North and East, of Sri Lanka, inclusive of Trincomalee and nearly two-thirds of the Sri Lankan coast line to the present Indian state of Tamil Nadu, and become a single federal state within the Indian Union. The Indian Kautalyans of the South Block have transformed Pirubakaran’s dream of annexing Tamil Nadu into a Greater Eelam outside India, into a plot to annex the North and East of Sri Lanka into the Greater Tamil Nadu within India.
Like the TULF, the Indian strategists would like to keep the LTTE going until they achieve the objective of a confederated Tamil state, even accepting the semantic sleight of hand, such as ‘Union of Regions’ introduced to hoodwink the Sinhalese majority. The Kautalyans of the South Block have deliberately encouraged Karunanidhi to let the cat out of the bag, to give a signal to the Sri Lankan government. The primary Indian objective is not to restore stability to Sri Lanka by helping to eliminate LTTE terrorism, but to use the situation created by LTTE terrorism to help the Sri Lankan Tamils to achieve a confederacy or a status close to confederacy, and so pave the road to union with Tamil Nadu. It is interesting to note that during his recent visit, to Sri Lanka, the Indian Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh completely ignored the Sri Lankan Buddhist priests as well as other anti-LTTE terrorist groups who had been invited by the Indian High Commissioner to present their views several weeks earlier. On the other hand, Jaswant Singh had extensive talks with the Tamil leadership, and the major political parties who are vendors of a constitutional confederacy package which is opposed by a majority of the citizens of this country. Jaswant Singh has substituted the crude arrogance of J. Dixit with arrogance of a more subtle kind.
For India, Pirubakaran has always been a pawn, to be sacrificed or bribed later. At present he is useful to weaken the Sri Lankan position vis-a-vis negotiations over the extent of autonomy to be granted to the Sri Lankan Tamil community. Initially, it may be straight forward federal status for a combined North and East. Later, LTTE demands and terrorist mayhem, coupled with manipulation by India, will be used to pressurise the incumbent Sri Lankan government to agree to confederated status for the North and East, with the promise of eliminating LTTE terrorism. In exchange for confederation, India will offer to rid the Sri Lankan government and people of Pirubakaran and his lieutenants by either killing them off, or arrange for a comfortable life for them in Norway, free of prosecution for their heinous crimes. Of course the Tamil propaganda machine will continue to work for the ultimate Indian objective vis-a-vis Sri Lanka namely annexation of the North and East into India as the Indian state of Greater Tamil Nadu.
In this background, expectations of Indian benevolence in the context of our present predicament is naive. Any change in the constitution of Sri Lanka that introduces a federal status for the North and East will inevitably, with Indian manipulation, evolve into a confederation, and ultimately union with India. A future Indian central government would of course state that they are helpless if Tamil Nadu agrees to accept the North-Eastern state of the Sri Lankan confederation into its fold. The UN, the Western powers and many other countries will probably have no choice but to go along with that.
These possible long term consequences of any form of regional autonomy that leaves a loop-hole for the North and East to federate with India at some future date should be clear to even our opportunistic denationalised political leaders. So what steps can the people of this small ancient nation of Sihala take to foil this long term Kautalyan plot? Very simply, the rejection of any form of federalism in the Sri Lankan constitution will forestall any attempt to unilaterally opt for union with India.
We have done very little to convince the people of India outside Tamil Nadu, and even the reasonable people of Tamil Nadu, the gross injustice of accusing the majority Sinhalese of any form of discrimination on racial or linguistic grounds. As Mrs. Sirima Bandaranaike said once, the Tamils of Sri Lanka are one of the most privileged minorities in the world, more so than even the Tamils of Tamil Nadu. It is unfortunate that the political leaders of the Sinhalese have pandered to the lies spread by the TULF, LTTE and other Tamil political groups regarding their grievances, just to win minority support to remain in power. The lies spread by the political leaders of the Sinhalese have misled even the Indian public and provided the excuse for destabilising interference by Indian governments in this sovereign nation state over the past twenty years. Let us hope that even if their Kautalyan bureaucrats choose not to, the people of India recognize with the rest of the world, that the people of Sihala have vibrant political, social, cultural, linguistic, economic and religious institutions that they have defended successfully for over two millennia. It is to the credit of the people of this country that they have remained a civilised democratic society despite all these provocative activities, local and foreign, to denigrate the Sinhalese people. The disastrous consequences of such interference in Bosnia and Kosovo are well known. It is not the LTTE that can Balkanize the South Asian region, but the cynical course of amoral Kautalyan manipulation now being practised by India. It is a shortsighted policy of which India will be the biggest loser. Indian intervention was largely responsible for the events between 1983 and 1989, which resulted in the dearth of over 100,000 young Sri Lankans, Sinhalese and Tamil. The destabilisation of Sri Lanka will inevitably produce a widespread suspicion in the other border states of India, and encourage other military powers in Asia such as China and Pakistan, to intervene to safeguard their own regional interests and influence in the South Asian region. All this will lead widespread destabilisation of the South Asian region. The biggest loser will be India. Let us hope that the mature wisdom of Vajpayee will prevail over the intrigues of his Kautalyan advisers.
The internal power struggles in Sri Lanka that have encouraged the Indian Kautalyans to intervene in Sri Lanka will be discussed in Part Two of this article, which will deal with the National implications of the aftermath of the Elephant Pass debacle.
CAT’S EYE
Retiring womenRecently, the Ministry of Women’s Affairs made public its plans to put together a bill that would reduce women’s retirement age to fifty in both the public and private sectors. Intrigued, Cat’s Eye gave the ministry a call and asked whatever for.
"Now what is your problem?"
"My problem? I’d like to know more about this."
"The Honourable Minister is of the view, that women should be able to retire at fifty if they want to take care of their families."
"Why?"
"That is her view."
The boundless charm of this encounter aside, though Cat’s Eye feels Minister Hema Ratnayake’s intentions in this regard are golden, her efforts are misguided. For men and women to be truly free, they must have power. The ability to freely organize, to write freely, these give us power against dictatorship. Libraries, newspapers, the Internet, these give us power against ignorance. However, empowerment in these spheres is secondary: true empowerment for men and women depends on one’s relationship to that which society values most, and that’s money.
Retirement leads directly to disempowerment. Last year, Cat’s Eye saw a meeting on helping the elderly, organized by HelpAge and the UNDP, and one core concern was why our elders get treated so shabbily. One reason put forward was that they’re not making money anymore. Our capitalist society has all sorts of words that illustrate how we feel about such people; lazy; unproductive; worthless; burdensome.
Old people are terrified of becoming burdens not only because they’ll value themselves less when they retire, but so will their children. The consensus that emerged, contrary to the view of the Minister, was that the retirement age should be raised: people should be able to keep working for as long as they choose.
Aging Population
Sri Lanka’s population is aging. The State of Human Rights 2000 (still in the process of compilation) reports on this, "Sri Lanka will experience an unprecedented growth of its aging population in the next three decades. With these demographic changes, Sri Lanka will have the third oldest population in Asia. Currently the percentage of the population above 60 years of age is 8%. This will increase to 20% by 2025. Simultaneous decline in the birth rate (1.2%) and the death rate (6 per 1000 population) has resulted in a rise in life expectancy."
Given this, there is a need to protect people’s ability to stay in employment longer, not shorter. To allow a lower retirement age for women is to invite the development of a large corps of unemployed and thereby disempowered women.
However, the deeper problem here is not the impending roving Bands of Bitter Biddies, but the differentiation employers make between men and women. Though they are willing to work harder for more pay, whereas men are more satisfied to work towards a target income (a less obvious fact), women are considered less productive because they get pregnant sometimes (a very obvious fact). Employers must ask themselves before they hire a woman, whether they are willing to deal with the unproductive period of her pregnancy and maternity leave. Beyond this possibility, what if she were to leave the firm to look after her young children? Even worse, what if she were to do so several years in the future, after rising to an indispensable senior position?
Nothing hurts a career like child-bearing, and the challenge of governments, employers, unions and feminists, has been to accommodate the economic costs of child-bearing into the zombie-robot system of modern labour. Some would argue that employers should be able to discriminate against women because of pregnancy, while others point out that the economic cost is something that society should bear and that men are less productive overall than women are in any case.
Feminist Policy
The objective of Sri Lankan feminist policy towards the workplace, should be to make the employment of women just as attractive to employers as men. Sri Lanka’s labour laws must go beyond paid maternity leave, and mandate paid paternity leave as well. Women would not feel compelled to leave work to look after young children: their workplaces should provide children’s creches so that parents can be close to their children.
Minister Hema Ratnayake’s early-retirement scheme, also presents various dangers. Rather than equalizing women with men in the eyes of employers, an early retirement privilege would encourage them to regard women as less productive than men, and they’d be correct in this regard, and correct in rejecting a woman applicant because of this.
A second danger is that the measure reinforces sexism. To allow women to retire earlier, so that they can look after their families, is utter bilge. Why can’t men contribute towards doing that? Frankly, it should hardly be the function of the Women’s Affairs Ministry to protect and nurture gender roles that weaken women.
A third danger is compulsion to take early retirement. At present, in the government sector, once a worker reaches retirement age they work only at the discretion of their superior and may be laid off. The Women’s Affairs Ministry assured us that this would not be the case: that women would not be compelled thus to take early retirement. However, given the realities of job competition, this assurance cannot be given with confidence.
If you’re a worried female or concerned feminist, Cat’s Eye suggests you give the Women’s Affairs Ministry a call. Indeed, it has asked the public for feedback on the matter. If the persons defending the minister feel your call is as unimportant as they felt ours was, you should call Mr. Suganadasa, the new Secretary of the Ministry.
A New Study
The Institute of Policy Studies has put out a research study Designing Retirement - Income - Security Arrangements by Nishan de Mel. This book actually recommends increasing the statutory age of retirement for both men and women. The reason is that there is a declining labour force and in ten years time, there will be a very serious shortage of man and woman power in Sri Lanka, even leading to the need to import labour.
The Ministry of Women’s Affairs has erred again - and far from helping women of Sri Lanka to improve their status it seems to be working against women, promoting early retirement and outdated concepts of family and motherhood. The Minister and her officials are clearly out of touch with Sri Lankan realities and with modern attitudes to gender equity, Madame President - what are you going to do about this?
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Reply to Dr. Swaris
Nalin Swaris has got it wrong. In his article last week, Cat’s Eye, Sex and LTTE Fascism, Swaris proves that he has totally missed the point of the Cat’s Eye review of Visakesa Chandrasekeren’s play, "Forbidden Area". It is pure absurdity to suggest that Cat’s Eye condones the actions of the LTTE.
Nowhere in the review does Cat’s Eye suggest that the actions of suicide bombers can be justified. Nowhere in the review does Cat’s Eye condone the actions of suicide bombers. Anyone who reads Cat’s Eye regularly would have no doubts about the Cat’s Eye position on extremism and fascism. Cat’s Eye has made its position very clear in respect to all extreme nationalist groups, organizations and sentiments. Hey Comrade Nalin, we thought you were our friend!
Reply to Eymard de S. Wijeyeratne
Everyday ethics of capitalismby R. M. B Senanayake
I refer to Mr. Eymard de S Wijeratne’s reply to the comments I made about criticism of capitalism by Dr. Mervyn de Silva from the standpoint of Liberation Theology. E.W does a similar criticism but instead of defending Liberation Theology, he launches into a castigation of the Catholic Church and its hierarchy of bishops. He seems to have a fixation. I am reminded of what G. K. Chesterton wrote about arguing with a madman; "that his mind moves in a perfect but narrow circle". Chesterton pointed out the futility of arguing with a madman. EW seems to avail of every opportunity to vent his venom against the official Church, which ignores his ranting, and ravings. It is the Church that provides the individual Christian the sacraments - the Eucharist, Penance etc. through which he becomes virtuous. EW seeks to separate Jesus Christ from the institutional Church. But Our Lord Himself said that He would be with His Church until the end of time, a promise that He has fulfilled up to now. No other human institution has lasted so far; although like all human institutions it too has suffered from corruption and abuse and exercised power to impose the will of the group on the individual He says the RC Church is a compendium of dogma. It was historically necessary to integrate classical Greek & Roman philosophy to the Christian teachings, which Jesus Himself delivered only in parables, images, sermons, prophecies of the Kingdom, and calls to a new life (Ninian Smart)EW values his Sinhalese pedigree and does not want to sell it for a mess of pottage. But what he calls a mess of pottage is in fact the fundamental rights of the Tamil minority, including their right to a degree of autonomy in governance in areas predominantly inhabited by them, a right recognized by the international community. EW seems prepared to concede even the fundamental rights of the Christians. What we know of what is happening in the North & East is only what is told us by the Government. The Churches are aware of the ground situation — the sufferings of the civilian refugees, the bombings that invariably, cause death & destruction to civilians in the north and the displacement of people. EW will agree that it is the Christian duty of the Churches to look after them and care for them. Why then fault the bishops who seek peace. EW talks about sin drawing a distinction between personal sin and social sin. But isn’t all sin alienation from God?
Capitalism blamed for faulty economic policies
I will confine myself to the other issues raised by him, which is more relevant to the original essay by Dr. Mervyn de Silva and my comments there on. Liberation Theology is not for reform of the capitalist system but for its abolition and my contention was that those who say so, must put forward a feasible alternative system to the Communist system, which collapsed so suddenly in 1989. Everybody agrees that capitalism should be reformed. The Church is rightly against the class struggle since it encourages violence and envisages a bloody revolution. EW finds the statement of the Bishops of America, and of England & Wales satisfactory, and faults the local Bishops Conference for not coming out with a similar statement. But the ground situation here is different. What we have here is a servile and dependent society where everybody looks up to the state to provide them with everything. They do not value work, particularly manual work and prefer to be lotus-eaters rather than working for their livelihood. St. Paul said that he who will not work should not eat. Social justice requires that idlers and malingerers should not be rewarded. There is another biblical saying about social justice - "from each according to his ability to each according to his need." In our country we do not find what James Tobin referred to, as quoted by EW, that, "individuals are responsible for their own economic fates’. Ours is a culture of dependency on the state where people don’t take responsibility for their economic fates. The exact opposite prevails here where begging is acceptable socially and everyone expects a free lunch although it is impossibility in economic theory. The developing countries like our own have only themselves to blame for not achieving economic progress by following policies which sacrificed growth for equity, statism for private enterprise, faulty economic planning for market forces. Capitalism has created economic dynamism, encouraged creativity & invention by rewarding the successful risk takers. Capitalism also generates democratic habits, promotes liberty, a moral value which is the foundation of all other virtues. There is no moral value in an action, which is forced on the individual.
Self-interest not selfishness
EW repeats the common misconception among non-economists that Adam Smith justified self-interest. He saw no moral virtue in selfishness and foresaw its dangers. He was not a defender of Capital over Labour and talked of the capitalist’s "mean rapacity". His famous statement about "people of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public or in some contrivance to raise prices". What Smith did was to observe that self interest was a driving force in human behaviour and used the concept of the "invisible hand" to explain how this common human impulse was harnessed for the social good. The invisible hand was the competitive market system, which prevents producers from jacking up their prices to a point where customers can afford to pay no more. Competition sees to it that the prices they charge are much less than such a level.
Man operates at several levels and not only at the economic level. There are the ethical and cultural dimensions to his behaviour. Adam Smith assumed that man’s behaviour in the economic sphere would be moderated by moral and ethical values. Economic science separates economics from ethics. But this is primarily for analysis based on the assumption that human beings are rational in their behaviour. It is a mistake to confuse what economists mean by rationality with ruthless money making. When economists refer to rationality they refer to the pursuit of self-interest. That need not imply selfishness; if somebody finds fulfilment in helping the poor, charity is the way that person pursues his self-interest. Many economists separate economics and ethics and see no reason why an economic system should conform to some pre-existing system of ethics. Throughout the Middle Ages usury was considered a sin and usury included any payment of interest, not just excessive interest as now. Islam follows this doctrine of usury (interest) as sinful (haram) even today. But economists argue that interest is a socially necessary payment - a payment to savers to induce them to postpone consumption and also a payment to lenders to cover the risk of losing the capital.
Heroic morals versus everyday morals
Moral action is often understood as the following of ethical principles to the neglect of self-interest. This type of morality is emphasized in religions and Jesus Christ said no man could serve both God and Mammon (wealth). Kenneth Boulding the Economist calls this "heroic morality" and refers to St. Francis of Assisi ("To give and not count the cost, to labour and not to ask for any reward") He makes the point that such morality cannot be the basis of everyday action. It would place too great a demand on us. Ethical normal behaviour has to weigh up the costs and benefits in the broad sense.
The individual may be of immense worth as stated in Christianity but the preservation of a single life can cost too much and a family that spends everything it has to save the life of a single child might put the welfare of all others in the family in jeopardy. This cost/benefit calculation has to be applied still more rigorously when the question at issue is the quality of life as in several environmental issues or in issues involving peace or security or prosperity. It may be good to alleviate poverty but the cost of doing so in terms of alternatives foregone must be weighed against. Free education is a good thing but its cost must be weighed against the alternatives foregone. So, the ethics which economists are concerned with involve counting the cost of action and asking for a reward for labour unlike the advice of St. Francis of Assisi. A rational weighing up of costs is helped if each individual is required to pay the costs and has an incentive to minimize such costs the greater the share of costs that an individual economic actor has to bear, the greater the incentive to minimize his share. It cannot be immoral to want to minimize his share. The opposite is the maximization of profit. Here too the more the benefit of action accrues to him, the more interested he will be in pursuing an ethically desirable aim. Having an interest in profit does not call for condemnation in terms of economic morality. But maximizing profit in a market situation of monopoly does. Condemning the person pursuing profit maximization in a competitive situation, is to insist on heroic morality, the yardstick for an exceptional morality like that of St. Francis of Assisi.
Checks on pursuit of self interest
As mentioned earlier, man operates at several levels, not only the economic but also the ethical religious and the cultural. There are other forms of social motivation than the pursuit of self-interest. There is a sense of loyalty to one’s race, nation, religion and even caste. But there are limits to such motivation, particularly if others try to take advantage of it and one feels exploited because some want to be free riders. Michael Novak the scholar of religion who wrote "The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism" argues that capitalism as a social system is of inherently greater moral power than socialism. But many criticisms of capitalism are possible.
Contrary to EW, Smith’s model of capitalism has not been thrown out of the window. In fact Francis Fukuyama argues that history as a dialectic process of ideologies has ended with the triumph of democratic capitalism after the collapse of Communism, and the emergence of capitalism in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Novak distinguishes three spheres, the economic, the political and the moral-cultural, the last being made up of diverse elements like the Churches, the Press. The capitalist as an individual is bound by a code of morality and the other two spheres regulate the capitalist system as a whole. Totalitarian systems insist on merging the three spheres into one under the central direction of a one party state. Capitalism is tolerant of democracy and indeed makes democracy possible. Smith expected the capitalist to pursue his self- interest subject to the norms of Judeo-Christian morality. Pursuit of self-interest is not the same thing as selfishness. A selfish individual is one who not only serves his own interest but one who does so in such a way as to abuse or grossly neglect the interest of others.
Private Vices versus Public Benefit
Does the pursuit of self-interest lead to the public good? Prior to Smith it was thought that competition involved one man gaining at the expense of another. There was no view that there was a harmony of interest between the private individual and the community. As pointed out by EW, Mandeville in his The Fable of the Bees contested this view that there was such a harmony. He argued that what were private virtues like modesty did not lead to any public benefit. Rather, private vices like the pursuit of luxury and excess did contribute to general prosperity — "Private Vices. Public benefits". Adam Smith too held that private interests did not benefit the public as stated in his famous statement that "men of the same trade seldom meet even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public or in some contrivance to raise prices".
He agreed with Mandeville that the private vices of self indulgence and luxury promote the general welfare. "In the pursuit of their vain and insatiable desires, they divide with the poor the produce of all their improvements." The result is, without intending it, without knowing it (to) advance the interest of the society." Smith explained the concordance of private vice and public benefit by a divine invisible hand as the Economist magazine commenting on "Ethics and Economics" by Amartya Sen the Nobel prize winning Economist noted, the popular quotation that "we expect our dinner not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer or the baker but from regard to their own self interest", does an injustice to Smith. He was well aware that markets fail in ways that create a role for public policy. He also had a broader view of why people behave as they do than most of his modern followers".
Yasmin Tambiah and Hinduism: A final rejoinder
by D. Kandiah
I refer to Yasmin Tambiah’s second letter to the editor ("Reply to D. Kandiah on Hindutva") that appeared in the Island Newspaper on May 24, 2000. I find it odd that she lives in Australia, writes to a Sri Lankan newspaper but largely confines her discussion to India. I am amazed at her obsession with Hindutva in the context of the uncertain political situation here in Sri Lanka. The Jaffna peninsula is once again a zone of war with several thousands displaced. The civilians face a precarious future there. The lives of several thousand combatants are also at stake. The number of female-headed households dependent on relief handouts has increased while the rural economy has come to a standstill in much of the North. Many have lived in welfare camps in the Vanni for the past 15 years and children have grown up not knowing life outside these camps. The country is on a war footing.She dismisses Hindutva as an "exclusivist religious nationalism". I disagree. Hindus constitute 85% of India’s population. I feel that it would not be wrong if India were to concede a significant role to Hinduism on condition that it also protects religious freedom, guarantees equal opportunities to all its citizens and upholds social justice. Hinduism is not a monolithic religion. Its internal heterogeneity will ensure tolerance and respect for diversity. The United Kingdom, Norway, Thailand, Malaysia and the Philippines remain liberal polities despite having an official religion.
This said, the constitution of the BJP upholds secularism and supports equal rights for all religions. The BJP proposed a uniform civil code to replace the different religion-based codes that govern marriage, divorce and inheritance in India today. This would have transformed the legal system into a secular institution. However, the Congress endeavoured to communalize the debate in its attempts to garner minority votes. India’s Prime Minister, Minister of Finance and Minister of External Affairs are liberals. The founding Vice President of the BJP is a Muslim. The party flag of saffron and green epitomizes the recognition of both Hinduism and Islam. The BJP is akin to Europe’s mainstream Christian Democrats in that it is a centrist party with a conservative faction. The BJP also widened the scope of affirmative action for India’s scheduled castes. It supports the unity and territorial integrity of Sri Lanka unlike Congress-led governments that prevaricated on the issue. It is not the rabid fundamentalist party intent on turning India into a theocracy as alleged by the Indian left.
The Nehruvian order entailed a denunciation of Hindu ethos as irrelevant, backward and anti-minority. Hindu activists condemned this depreciation of Hindu norms, values and institutions in the post-independence secular framework. The Indian version of secularism had an implicit bias. The leftist academics used state funds to publish works that singularly vilified Hindu traditions. Hindu refugees from Kashmir were uncared for while illegal Muslim immigrants from Bangladesh obtained welfare coupons and citizenship papers overnight. The government imposed administrative restrictions on private Hindu schools but exempted minority religious schools from these restrictions. It revised the Hindu legal code (and rightly so) but left the Shariah intact. The allegedly secular government supported Christian missionary welfare outfits but did not extend the same concessions to Hindu social service institutions. It subsidized the Hadj but failed to support Hindu and Sikh pilgrims travelling to Pakistan.
The English language press gave wide publicity to recent attacks on Christian missionaries in India. These unfortunate incidents took place in the context of a massive foreign-financed campaign to convert the impoverished and destitute in India. The means used to evangelize were often fraudulent. Moreover, sections of the media had exaggerated the attacks on missionaries. The rape of nuns in Jhabua, Madhya Pradesh two years ago was one such instance. High-level police investigations subsequently revealed that the rapists were in fact recently converted Christian tribal youth. Likewise, sections of the media described the armed robbery of Catholic schools and a subsequent road accident involving nuns in Mathura in April this year as a communal hate crime. The independent Minorities Commission of India investigated the issue in depth and concluded that the incident was one of ordinary theft and a motor accident, rather than an act of calculated religious violence. These are just two of the several instances of intentional media exaggeration.
The recent wave of Christian-Muslim riots in Indonesia and Nigeria led to thousands of deaths. These events, however, elicited less international press attention when compared to the murder of Graham Staines in Orissa in 1998. The attacks on Christian missionaries were no different to recent attacks on immigrants in the United States. The international media largely ignored the incidents in the United States.
Yasmin Tambiah is wrong to condemn Buddhists as responsible for the 1983 ethnic riots in Sri Lanka. The Catholic-dominated areas of Negombo, Wattala, Ja-Ela and Kotahena were the worst affected riot zones. Muslim youth in Colombo indulged in looting and theft after the initial wave of arson and destruction of Tamil property in July 1983. It is unfair to blame Buddhists alone for the 1983 riots. I reiterate that the Hindu-Buddhist inheritance is the best guarantor of religious tolerance and accommodation. Ms. Tambiah implies that Hindu activism is a phenomenon next door. She is unaware that it has had a long history in Sri Lanka as well. The Hindu school system in the North in the 1860s is a case in point.
Ms. Tambiah’s description of events in Kanpur is a deliberate distortion based on inaccurate media sources. She relies on partisan newspapers that leave no room for dissent or alternative points of view. The Hindu Newspaper, unlike ‘The Island’, does not provide a forum for lively debate. The elite "Times of India" is pro-Congress. She needs to broaden her newspaper references to include other English and local language newspapers in India. But then again, she might not be able to read an Asian language!
She has the temerity to equate white racism with South Asian immigrant indifference against the Australian Aborigine. The colonizers in Australia initiated a blatant policy of racial genocide and the indigenous peoples continue to face a bleak future there. The South Asian immigrant had no role whatsoever in the predicament of the Aborigine. I refuse to continue this discussion with Ms. Tambiah any longer since she, believe, is not conversant of recent events in India and Sri Lanka. Ms. Tambiah is a fitting ally to India’s secular Marxists in their knee jerk depreciation of all things Hindu.
by Nalin de Silva
(Continued from last Wednesday)
There were two stumbling blocks that the Tamil racists came across on their way. One was the fact that the Sinhalas constituted more than 75 percent of the population. The chairman of the Soulbury commission himself had to point out to the Tamil leaders that it was not possible to make the majority a minority by constitutional means, when the latter demanded that the Sinhala representatives in the envisaged parliament should not form a majority. The other obstacle to the Tamil racists was the history of the country with so many archaeological facts establishing the history of the country is a Sinhala history. Prof. Indrapalan in his thesis presented to the University of London is very specific on this matter when he says that the history of Sri Lanka up to the thirteenth century was Sinhala.The Mahavansaya that has been corroborated with the archaeological findings not only in Sri Lanka but also in India became a source of hatred for the Tamil racists. It has to be pointed out that the Sinhala Bhikkus with the aid of Mahavansaya were able to identify the king Devanapiya Piyadassi mentioned in the Indian inscriptions, as the king Asoka. There was nothing that the Tamil racists could do except to create a Mahavansa phobia and start a campaign to discredit that chronicle. Unfortunately for the Tamil racists Mahavansaya appears to be very conservative with respect to the introduction of an Aryan culture in the country. The author of Mahavansaya who had to rely on the texts available to him has given a date about three hundred years late to this important event in the history of Sri Lanka as revealed by the excavations carried out by Dr. Shiran Deraniyagala and his group in Anuradhapura.
However much the Tamil racists try they cannot construct a bogus history out of nothing. It is futile to attempt to interpret the Non Aryan culture that existed in Bharat when the Aryan civilisation was introduced, as Dravidian. The Aryan culture mixed with the non Aryan culture to form the Vedic culture. Even the early Pandya and Chera kingdoms belonged to the Vedic culture. The Dravidians have come to the South of India very late and probably after the Vedic culture was introduced to Sri Lanka in the 9th century BC. If Vijaya brought a princess from Pandya kingdom she would have belonged to the Vedic (Aryan) culture and not to the Dravidian culture. These kingdoms became Dravidian most probably around the sixth century BC. One has only to read Dr. Neelakhanta Shasthri and the other respected historians to come to the above conclusions.
Tamil racism, however has been helped by the western social scientists and "historians" and some of our own in propagating the Mahavansa phobia. The west has only one project, which is in its third phase at present. From the fifteenth century they have been trying to establish their hegemony over the entire world in the political, cultural and economic fields. These fields are not mutually exclusive, but interdependent and cannot be studied in isolation. The first phase of the western project has been identified as colonialism. The second phase was imperialism. Now we have the third phase in the form of globalisation. In the third phase the cultural component plays a more dominant role than in the previous phases, especially through the media and the concepts and theories created in the west. Tamil racism has been used by the British and the western European countries to undermine the Sinhalathva especially in the last two phases. The global village that is talked about is a hyper village ( not in the sense of hyper reality of the western social scientists but in the sense of hyper space of the western mathematicians and physicists. There is no harm in using western concepts provided that we Sinhalise, Tamilise or Asianise them and use those concepts in an Asian cultural context.) with the American president as the village headman. In this third phase the western politicians apply pressure, sometimes very diplomatically, especially on the weak leaders in the so-called third world.
Unfortunately the Sinhalas have had a set of weak "leaders", with the exception of a few like Puran Appu, Gongalegoda Banda and Anagarika Dharmapala, in the past one hundred and seventy five years or so. The 1817-18 independence struggle by the Sinhalas was crushed brutally by the British. There were no fundamental or human rights then and the western culture started talking about these only after they had created a network to establish their cultural hegemony over the whole world through their education. There is nothing fundamental about these fundamental rights and they have been formulated in the context of a western civilisation that had conquered the whole world in the twentieth century. The British in 1818 either killed the traditional leaders of the Sinhalas or bought them over to their side with land, privileges and education. Keppitipola Dissawa was the last traditional leader that the Sinhalas had. Puran Appu, Gongalegoda Banda and the others of the second independence struggle in 1848 were temporary leaders that the Sinhalas had to rely on due to the absence of the traditional leaders. Towards the end of the nineteenth century the Sinhalas found a leader of their own in the person of Anagarika Dharmapala.
Since then the Sinhalas have been provided with their leaders by the British except perhaps in the case of Mr. Premadasa and Mr. Wijetunga who did not last long. Mrs. Bandaranaike, who was almost ordered by the Sinhala Bhikkus to assume the leadership, could have become a Sinhala leader of the people, if not for her advisors who had been trained by the British. The so-called Sinhala leaders have not been the leaders of the people but those who have been made leaders by the Dutch and the British giving them privileges over the common man. They were produced by the Dutch and especially by the British for the Sinhala people. Most of them belong to the "elite" families that came into prominence under the Europeans. They are no better than Don Juan Dharmapala, the puppet king crowned by the Portuguese. Though we "elect" our "leaders" at the elections once every six years or so, the leaders are supplied by the westerners. Our "leaders" wanted to be more British than the British themselves and took pride in the "fact" that they spoke English with a so-called Oxford or Cambridge accent. Unlike in India our "leaders" did not struggle for independence. Their method was to show to the British that they were more British than the British themselves and hence qualified to govern the country. The British had faith in the "leaders" and gave universal franchise to the "King’s subjects" living in their model colony not long after the women were given franchise in England. The English educated Sinhala "leaders" who had lost their backbones through the education and the privileges that they received would not have felt it as an injustice to the Sinhalas, when their British masters appointed only one member, instead of at least six, to represent the Sinhalas in the legislative assembly. It is not only among the politicians that we find this imitative slavish mind. As Dr. Gunadasa Amarasekera has pointed out these imitators can be found in our Universities, Administrative service, Foreign office and in the professions. No wonder that we find ourselves in this mess today. We have failed miserably to formulate our policies from a national perspective.
In any event, the west finds it easy to apply pressure on our so-called leaders. India is not far behind the west in this exercise. They cannot do so in most of the other countries from Myanmar to Zimbabwe. The west and India want the "Sinhala leaders" to introduce the package to the parliament as soon as possible. As far as the west is concerned it is not merely a case of arriving at a "political solution" so that they could send back the Tamil "refugees" in those countries, as some imitative minds love to "think". (They think that they are thinking!) The west tries to persuade our politicians as well as the administrators that the "Sinhalas" have done something terribly wrong to the Tamils, and a "political solution" is needed to do justice to the Tamils.
The spineless "leaders" and the academics and the administrators who are the "brilliant" products of the western education turn a blind eye to the role played by the British in particular and the west in general to undermine the Sinhalathva in this country. They are unable to see that the Tamil racism was created by the British. They try to convince the west that the LTTE is fascist murderous and inhuman as if the west did not know that. The Canadian finance minister would have known very well that the Federation of the Associations of the Canadian Tamils (FACT) was a front organisation of the LTTE when he attended that dinner. If he was not aware, what is the use of their intelligence agencies? The western countries like Norway know exactly what they are doing and India is not simply responding to the statements by Karunanidhi. It is a case of supporting Tamil racism that was created, baptised and nurtured by the British. If and when Sinhalthva is undermined the west will turn the guns towards the Tamil Hindu culture in Sri Lanka. The Tamils should realise that the Tamil Hindu culture will flourish in a future Sri Lanka only if Sinhalathva is given its due place.
Today Sri Lanka has become a playground of the powerful countries thanks to our spineless leaders, imitating intellectuals and the administrators. Tamil racism that has evolved through three phases asdescribed in "An introduction to Tamil racism in Sri Lanka" is a threat to the sovereignty of the country. Prabhakaran is only the political nephew of Chelvanayakam and Naganathan and the political grand nephew of the Ponnambalam brothers. However all is not lost. Elephant Pass should be considered as a blessing in disguise. We have now passed the Elephant Pass. Even if the "leaders" supplied by the British were to succumb to foreign pressure, the army and the Sinhala people would not do so. The Sinhalas would not resort to federalism as predicted by the former Federal Party (Lanka Tamil State Party) leader quoted by Mr. E. A. V. Naganathan in his letter to the editor.
There is only one "mantharaya" that the west will listen to. That is the "mantharaya" of the leaders of the countries such as Myanmar and Zimbabwe. The west should be told that we do not tolerate this nonsense anymore and not to preach us human values and strong pluralism while practising weak pluralism and discrimination at home. Tamil racism has to be defeated politically and militarily and that is the only way to end the so-called war.
Rev./Mr./Mrs./Miss/Ms. Sotto Voce writing to the editor on the 22nd of June, has referred to this column under the heading how to end the war. The writer says: "If he is an ardent Buddhist and probably an admirer of Emperor Asoka who sent Buddhism to Sri Lanka, he should be averse to war and killing and think of other ways to win the hearts and minds of the LTTE". I am a Buddhist just as much most of the westerners are Christians.
Though the Christians are supposed to turn the other cheek when they are slapped on one, the Christian west did not practise that policy in the middle east. Nobody tried to preach Christian ethics to the west then. The Sinhalas are admirers of king Dutugemunu, who taught them that they could fight wars in defence of their country as Buddhists, more than of king Asoka who became a Buddhist after fighting wars. Rev./Mr./Mrs./Miss/Ms. S Voce should not confuse religion with the culture. Just as much western Christian culture is not the same as Christianity, Sinhala Buddhist culture is not the same as Buddhism. People nowhere practise Christianity as such. They are members of certain cultures based on Christianity. So are the Sinhala Buddhists. Why is Rev./Mr./Mrs./Miss/Ms. Voce denying the Sinhala Buddhists the "right" (is it fundamental or human?) to distinguish between the religion as given in the texts and the culture, that the Christian westerners are entitled to?
Rev./Mr./Mrs./Miss/Ms. Voce who mentions the status of Tamil in India has forgotten about the Act on the use of Tamil language. In any event Tamil is an official language of Sri Lanka now though it is not so in India. On the other hand Rev./Mr./Mrs./Miss/Ms. Voce appears to be unaware of the fact that there are many Sinhalas born in Jaffna and now living elsewhere due to ethnic cleansing (the western politicians and the academics are silent on the ethnic cleansing in Sri Lanka), who are neither considered as refugees nor displaced citizens but probably as people without faces, whose birth certificates are in Tamil. If Tamils living in Colombo consider themselves to be second class citizens one does not know what to call these faceless people. The trouble with people of the ilk of Rev./Mr./Mrs./Miss/Ms. Voce is that they are hell bent on denying the rightful place to Sinhalathva. The problem in Sri Lanka is not the "injustices" to the Tamils but the attempt by Tamil racism to deny the rightful place to Sinhalathva. The solution to that problem is to defeat Tamil racism politically and militarily. It is futile to try to win the hearts and minds of the LTTE for the simple reason that they do not act as people with hearts and minds.
It is not good enough to defeat the LTTE militarily. LTTE is only the armed wing of Tamil racism. Tamil racism has to be defeated politically as well. One cannot be separated from the other. LTTE is only the final product of the evolution of Tamil racism, that was created in 1833 with the appointment of one member each to represent the Sinhalas and the Tamils in the legislative assembly. If Tamil racism is not defeated politically (it has now been defeated ideologically), even after the LTTE is defeated there is a possibility that another LTTE would emerge. Once the problem is identified it is not difficult to find the solution. It may not be to the liking of the western politicians and the academics. But then the world is not western Europe and North America even if the western academics and their imitators in our countries, who only follow them and do not create any new concepts or theories, imagine it to be so.
Government’s mixed signals on including LTTE
by Jehan Perera
The past week was one of confused messages, but also of progress, in the deliberations between the government and other political parties, in particular the UNP, regarding the constitutional reform proposals. Progress came in the form of the government’s acceding to the UNP demand for independent police, elections and public services commissions, which would be crucial for free and fair elections. With general elections in the offing, and the government’s somewhat poor record in that respect, the opposition would be keen to ensure the speedy implementation of these commissions. This may turn out to be a crucial factor in expediting passage of the constitutional reform proposals through Parliament.But whether or not the next elections take place under an independent election commissioner, the government and UNP ought to be congratulated on their joint willngnesss to put the basic nuts and bolts of a system of good governance into place. This is the type of joint problem-solving spirit that needs to evolve between the rival political parties if the national interest is to begin to be properly served.
Obtaining the government’s concurrence for the three independent commissions would also do much to boost the stock of UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe as a skilled negotiator and a politician who can drive a hard bargain. It was clear that the government was not at all keen on the three independent commissions and was stubbornly wedded to its own notion of ensuring the independence and integrity of the three institutions. Besides, the government was determined that the issue of the devolution proposals to end the ethnic conflict should be accorded the first priority over all other matters.
Apart from the UNP leader’s ability to strike a hard bargain, the other observation that may be made about the government- UNP agreement is the determination of President Chandrika Kumaratunga to push through with the constitutional reform proposals. The government’s willingness to compromise on the issue of the three commissions was undoubtedly to prevent the UNP from making this issue an excuse not to cooperate on the rest of the constitutional reform proposals
. On numerous occasions, the President has stated her conviction that the devolution proposals contained therein are the key to the resolution of the ethnic conflict. While they may not be the solution itself, they are indeed the key because the devolution proposals are political and embody a willingness to accept fundamental change in the manner of governance of the country.
Contradictory
Last week the government also took contradictory postures about sending the devolution proposals to the LTTE prior to presenting them in Parliament, and in including the LTTE in an interim council prior to the implementation of the constitutional reforms. It appears that the government is determined not to permit the UNP any excuses to opt out of supporting it on the constitional reform proposals.
The UNP has been calling on the government to include the LTTE in the reform process. But it has been doing so without committing itself to moving beyond the basic structures of the 13th Amendment, on which all Tamil parties are adamantly agreed. This is hardly a viable position for conflict resolution, though it may be a shrewd way to avoid taking a stand on the substance of devolution. The government’s initial agreement to go along with the UNP and accommodate the LTTE may have been a political response to prevent the UNP from stealing a march on it with Tamil voters and the international community.
On the other hand, President Kumaratunga has been open about her conviction that it is of no use to talk to the LTTE about peace at this time. She has said that the government has no time to send the devolution proposals to the LTTE prior to putting them before Parliament. She has also said that the LTTE can only join the interim council upon agreeing to join the political mainstream and giving up the use of violence. The President’s view appears to have prevailed within the government.
There is little reason to doubt that the LTTE is not interested in peace talks with the government right now when its forces are within a stone’s throw of Jaffna. There is nothing tangible on the table in terms of political reforms for it to consider. So long as the unitary constitutional principle remains embodied in either the devolution proposals or interim council, the minimal Tamil aspiration will not be met. There is no question that the LTTE, which wants much more than what is on offer would spurn both, which in any event reportedly do not amount to anything very substantial from their perspective.
The fact is that when it comes to a negotiated settlement, whoever holds Jaffna, the northern capital, will be at an advantage at peace talks. With both sides desiring that crucial advantage, and the fighting forces so closely situated to one another, it is inevitable that the battle for Jaffna must first be settled before there can be mutual agreement for peace talks.
Political engagement
With general elections around the corner, it will also not be a part of the government’s strategy to to appear to be soft on the LTTE. This is a label that the government would rather pin on the UNP, as it did with considerable success at the Presidential Elections held last December.
However, the government should not be making its plans based primarily on short term political and military considerations. . Any government that intends to preserve the unity of Sri Lanka will have to deal with the LTTE politically.
The government has the duty to utilise every means at its disposal, including its military, to protect the territorial integrity of the country. But at the same time, it needs to politically engage with the LTTE at every level it can. It is true that the LTTE has engaged in atrocious behaviour towards its political opponents. It is also true that the LTTE desires an independent state of Tamil Eelam above all other things. There is no question that the LTTE has to change, and pressure has to be brought upon it to change in a positive direction conducive to a sustainable and democratic peace for all citizens of the country. However, the vast majority of Tamil citizens, even those who would not wish to be ruled by the LTTE, would want the government to find the ways and means to politically engage with the LTTE. This is also what the international community wants, having the advantage of a larger perspective, and not being immersed in the realities and emotions of ethnic conflict. Perhaps it is these contending pressures that explains the mixed signals the government gave regarding the LTTE last week.
by Dr. J. G. Hattotuwe
Strange enough, politics is one area of human behaviour that is bereft of any tangible philosophy. Philosophy is "Scientia Scientiorum" - "Wisdom of Knowledge". Science and technology developed the "Atom Bomb". Its abuse killed millions of innocents. Ironically this evil wisdom of the merciful God, hopefully may be his last horrendous cataclysm or else might as well give way and revert to barbarism.This conduct is nothing new, of course. The Assyrians have done it. The Inquisition did it; Hitler devised his own solution. History books are littered with more evil than the good of the body politic.
Party politics began with the Caveman, perhaps forty million years ago. Internecine feuds for supremacy made the primitive man wander far afield in search of fresh pastures. One tribal war followed another without a political solution. Conglomeration of forces enveloped to form kingdoms; being not satisfied with limited territories and exploitation ‘Empire builders’ ventured forth to cross the seas far and further to conquer the civilised people subjugating them to submission and servitude.
By about the middle of the last Century - territorial acquisition gave way to a more avaricious mammonish desire to build a ‘Dollar Empire’, where 20% of the people own 80% of the wealth.
Party politics in the English speaking world began with the stupid "Wars of the Roses" between the "House of Lancaster" and the "House of York", that lasted for thirty years - the main objective being as to who should choose the king. The king once chosen was vested with "Divine Rights" to lead the subjects in war and guide them in peace.
In the Anglo-Saxon times a Tribal Assembly called the ‘Folkmoot’ conducted matters pertaining to human welfare, until William the Conqueror, the Duke of Normandy in 1066 had his own way. He built the Tower and ruled from Winchester. He instituted the 1st Book on Census for Taxation. It is called the "Doomsday" book. It is on display at the "Great Hall" in Winchester where I had the privilege of seeing it.
One major breakthrough or landmark in the political history of the world appears to be that of King John yielding to sign the "Magna Carta" in 1215 at Runnymede. No ruling king has ever abrogated any of his powers even up to date.
The Charter gave the rights to:
(1) Writ of "Habeas Corpus"
(2) Control of the Exchequer. Taxation with representation (3) Punitary Justice only after a fair trial
It is stated that King John bit the carpet after his submission.
The first appearance of a rudimentary Parliament was in the 13th Century by the formation of the "Supreme Legislature of the Great Council of Plantagenet Kings". The Westminster model came to function in 1275 to lay down laws both spiritual and temporal by their Lordships, Bishops and a few privileged commoners.
A more meaningful move in the ambit for administration of Justice by promulgation of Laws came only after Cromwell. It is said that he strode into Parliament and dismissed it uttering, "What shall we do with this bauble (the Mace)? There, take it away".
The Ironsides defeated the Royalist army at ‘Nasby’ in 1645 and captured the king. The Puritans fought with courage and fortitude, - determined with Cromwell’s motto "Trust in God but keep the powder dry" to redress grievances caused by Barons, Lords and lairds of the manor.
Cromwell refused to be crowned. His humility of station as a Tax Collector living in a small house in the picturesque town of Ely that I have seen never abated in his service to God and man. It is of interest that even the ancient Inn and Tavern near Warrington where he and Fairfax discussed war strategies, still remains as a national heritage.
But this democratic process was short-lived. The people brought in Bonnie Prince Charlie as their king.
The sad story is that Cromwell could not rest his bones in peace for long. The ungrateful people exhumed his cadaver from the Abbey shamefully, ridiculed him and took revenge by hanging it by the neck.
"O tempora! O mores!"
Nevertheless Cromwell hadn’t battled in vain. His pioneering struggle for freedom culminated in the Promulgation of the ‘Bill of Rights‘ in 1689. Ipso jure - It was only after 1832 with the ‘Reform Bill’ for wider representation and franchisement true democracy and party politics came to effect.
Far away from England, in the East, South of Suez, there was a fairy tale serendip island called Lanka. In this bountiful isle that nature has blessed, lived a tribe of ‘Lotus eaters’ called Sinhalayo. They remain quite content by lumbering from dawn to noon and slumbering from noon to dusk.
In 1795 to this island people the British brought sad tidings - The dismal and dismayful news that the British fleet had taken over Trincomalee. By the turn of the Century, in 1815 D’Oyley by cunning and deceit, without firing a shot, promising everything but giving nothing - took over the entire land mass.
Nevertheless, the British were a very generous and liberal people, superior in manner and means than the cruel king Rajasinha. They gave free education in the vernacular. They did not interfere with the religion and the customs and traditions. They even shared their ‘Honours’ bestowed by Her Gracious Majesty Queen of England and Scotland Empress of India and Keeper of the colonies. Their motto; "Britania rules the waves - and waives the rule to divide and rule."
In 1834 they instituted a Legislative and an Executive Council to oversee the affairs. Of course the locals could breathe fire and spit venom but the Chief Secretary, the Legal Secretary and the Finance Secretary carried on regardless of the native hue and cry - the ado falling into deaf ears only to be met with a whimsical smile and a tight upper lip.
People in general felt the life better than under the cruel king Rajasinha and his Malabar henchmen.
The liberty of expression and the freedom was evident and by 1920 the Citizens formed a ’Reform League’ which later became the ‘National Congress’ which in 1948, with independence, dissolved to form the U.N.P.
Reflecting over the past and the present, the days of yore are no more. Party politics has been a failure because there is no foundation of a basic philosophy. In the past the Aryan qualities of moral virtue and character rather than expedience were the governing force that inspired the masses. We got universal franchise long before the British. A general election was held between June 13th to 20th in 1931 under the Donoughmore Constitution. It was fun and frolic at election time as opposed to gun culture and thuggery that prevail today. The State Council had no parties. The basic tenet was National Interest. Two members received the boot for bribery and corruption. As Macaulay wrote -
"Then none was for a party
Then all were for the state
Then the great man helped the poor;
and the poor man loved the great"
For good governance a benevolent dictator would be the ideal. This of course is a far fetched utopian idea. Vested interest would quit unwittingly creep and crawl and history would repeat itself. The fate of Bandaranaike shall befall on the contenders.
Although I stated that there is no philosophy to guide politics Karl Marx, capitalised on Hegel’s theory. Every Thesis has an Antithesis. The Thesis and Antithesis combine to develop into a Synthesis. This synthesis now becomes or evolves to form a new thesis.
This is what Sage Gothama said - never ending, ever becoming forces progress into a continum of modification, amelioration, sublimation - the doctrine of Anatta.
According to the Communist manifesto the motivating force emerges from without to within - out to core. Capitalist exploitation is the cause of suffering. Destruction and dissolution of the capitalist acquisition liberate the individual from want. Revolutionary means justify the end to achieve a commensurate, commensal Commune of sharing the wealth - to all according to their needs from all according to their means. Thereby the ‘Dictatorship of the Proletariat’ shall wither away to give way to a free and civilised state when clinging and craving which are the root causes of suffering shall disintegrate. The cessation of suffering shall relieve the mind of this mundane mure of frenzied fetter.
Both in Communism and Buddhism the end result is the same. The psychic energy in Buddhism is spent by welling out from within through a process of mind culture. Whilst in Communism it is imbibed from without by revolutionary methods through gun culture.
One has to be cautious of the end result. It is yet to be experienced. The goal to achieve absolute peace of mind and perception without delusional conceptions, leaves many reservations and doubts - to satiate the body with the materialistic needs and at the same time settle the mind to be in a state of tranquility; may be in a pragmatic sense as serving God and Mammon at the same time. Very similar to entering the Great Halls of "Valhalla + Nirvana" through two different gates - "Armed struggle" and "Renunciation".
In conclusion I would like to state, now that we are in the process of searching for a new Constitution, from past experiences it is crystal clear that the present "party system" is tarnished with vice and ineptitude - akin to sleeping with a "gigantic Chimera". It has caused division, dissension, sorrow and suffering to the peace loving people. It may have benefited a few political predators. We should endeavour to go back and adopt the Donoughmore Constitution with modifications.
In this connection the discerning reader is advised to read the Memorandum submitted by late Mr. S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike in January, 1959 on the revision of the Soulbury Constitution (vide Speeches and Writings published in 1963). With his profound erudition and keen, penetrating foresight the Father of Local Government and Founder of the S.L.F.P. has exposed the defects, deficiencies and disadvantages of the Party System. Even in the Mother of Parliaments Ramsay McDonald in the 1920’s having a Labour majority could not form a stable government. Although he joined hands with the Liberal Asquith their tenure of office was short-lived.
