Road to reconciliation is no ‘Sinhala only’ one way street
Why Chandrika is wrong: Federalism no answer but a stepping stone to Eelam
Can the same formula, a federal system that may not only have been desirable to have but necessary to adopt to give stability to India, be transplanted here to Lanka to handle a situation where the numbers are different, the conditions volatile, the aspirations disguised?
Former President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga lost her right eye in a Tiger suicide bomb blast while she, in her role as commander in chief of Lanka’s armed forces, was conducting the war against the LTTE’s terror mission to set up a separate state of Tamil Eelam on Lankan soil; and thus to realise militant Tamil aspirations for a homeland to call their own.
But that close encounter with death and the permanent loss it left, did not blind her to social injustice; nor make her turn a blind unsympathetic eye to the perceived discriminations that Tamils long claimed they suffered at Sinhala hands in the wake of Lanka gaining independence from Britain’s colonial yoke.
It is to her credit that she has been able to rise from the painful quagmire of her own traumatic ordeal and not lay the blame and pin her hatred on the pottued forehead of every Tamil. It is indeed commendable that despite suffering such a personal blow, she has not lost her enlightened vision of a Lanka with justice to all on her soil, no matter their race, whatever their religion.
But yet, when she declared last Saturday, that what this country needs now is a federal constitution, preferably one that is semi secular as well, isn’t it time to pause and ask whether her disjointed sense of timing has outstepped reality’s dance and missed a beat or two of the nation’s pulse?
In other words, isn’t it time to ask whether she has become deaf, dumb and blind to the natural stirrings of this island race who have paid with blood, sweat and tears to maintain its unitary status; and to ask her further, whether or no she is out of step, out of tune and out of mind to give public expression to such thoughts unwarranted and unsolicited which are but honey dewed pouring on Eelamists ears? And salt and chilli ‘pon Sinhala sores?
Addressing a seminar organised by the national secretariat for national reconciliation in Colombo last week, she declared “Why are we so afraid to even think of federalism? South Africa resolved its conflict through a new federal constitution. Nigeria resolved its Biafra conflict by the same means. So did Kenya.
But did they? First of all South Africa is not a federal state as Chandrika makes it out to be. And can the victory of the black majority over the apartheid ridden regime of Afrikaners, the small white ethnic group of Dutch origins which form only 5 per cent of the population, can be equated to the situation in Lanka? Here in this small 25,000 square mile island a majority race of Sinhalese comprising almost 75 per out of the populace emerged triumphant to maintain the territorial unity of this island after an atrocious war with Tamil terrorists who demanded one third of the island mass as a separate state for the ten percent minority Tamils.
And what, indeed, of Nigeria? Biafra, an area 30,000 square miles in extent, existed as a separate territory in the east peopled by those of the Igbo tribe long before Britain granted Nigeria independence in 1960. The boundaries of Nigeria had been arbitrarily defined by the British and Biafra was included as being part of Nigeria, under a federal constitution comprising three regions of which Biafra was one. But after two military coups which had resulted in mass bloodshed; with reconciliation talks proposing a confederated Nigeria to ensure peaceful co existence failing , Nigeria’s eastern region voted to secede from Nigeria,
In 1967, it chose to break away from the union and unilaterally declared her independence as a free state as the Republic of Biafra. The Federal Military Government announced measures to annex the oil rich province and launched a massive military offensive. After a bloody battle which lasted for 3 years and cost 3 million lives, an exhausted and impoverished Biafra threw down the towel and surrendered to the advancing Nigerian Army and became part of Nigeria again.
Can this be compared to the situation in Lanka where the north-east land claimed to be the base for Eelam has never existed as a separate entity in the course of Lanka’s history? And if, Biafra’s return to federal Nigeria, has brought peace to that southern eastern part of Africa, one should consider the renewed calls presently being made for Biafra to breakaway again from the mother state and go her own way. Federalism in Nigeria is set in a different historical context in a different backdrop; whereas for Lanka, it’s a whole new ball game with none knowing how it will be played or to what goal posts it will lead to.
And as for Kenya, Chandrika says, “There were many massive problems for Kenya. Every two months, every two years there were changes in governments. Many were killed in election violence. Not one or two like here, but in hundreds, in thousands. This problem was also solved by bringing a new constitution in 2010 in this manner.” But the constitution did not establish a federal state. Instead it changed the structure from a federal system to a unitary system and established two levels of devolution, namely, Government and 47 administrative divisions called counties to which more powers were accorded.
And then Chandrika refers to India as a prime example of a country whose con- tinued existence is dependent upon it being a federal union of states.
According to Chandrika, India has 36 or 40 odd languages and dialects and a great number of religions than the four we have here and many smaller religions that broke away from the main ones, like Jain Buddhism from Buddhism and Sikhism from the Hinduism. India was never one country. Before the British conquered the India we know today as India, the land, Bharatha comprised many princedoms and sub kingdoms. The British unified the lot to make it easier for administrative purposes. In 1947 just before Britain granted independence to India, the people who lived in those different kingdoms were people of different races, who followed different religions, who spoke different languages, who had different cultural traditions and different practices, there was a great diversity. Some thought that with the British leaving, they could once again have their petty kingdoms and follow their own religions, traditions and speak their own languages. But Nehru and Gandhi having realised the dangers this would cause lobbied successfully for a federal India; and having accepted the diversity of India were able to take the country forward. They also gave no foremost place to the majority religion Hinduism but instead declared India to be a secular state. I believe that India has been able to exist today because of its federal and secular constitution. “
But though it may hold true for India, does it hold true for Lanka too?
True, India, with its great diversity, with its great population of 1,293 million people amounting to one sixth of the world’s total population living in a land area 1,270,000 square miles in extent; with 24 officially recognized languages and another 27 native dialects having more than a million speakers each; may not have been able to maintain the oneness of India the British created and left behind if not for a federal and secular constitution.
But can those same impulses which spurred India’s national leaders in 1947 to think a federal secular India is best if it is to last the week after the British leave, validly drive leaders of Lanka today in 2016, when a little late in the day, they believe the India federal trick - because it worked for India - would do the trick for Lanka, too, to conjure lasting peace, and harmony. Merely because a tree bears fruit in another clime and place, it does not mean it would produce fruit when planted on a different soil and in a different climate.
First take the timing. Forget, for a moment, India adopting feudalism as their new political religion to add to their vast collection of creeds in 1947 but ponder over the far greater sacrifice she made.
Following the great struggle for independence, India was too impatient to get rid of the British that they even willingly conceded Britain’s condition to create a Pakistan out of India flanking both her east and west. As Gandhi said, India’s first and foremost priority was to get the British out of India; and if it meant sacrificing part of her territory before India’s could keep her tryst with destiny, so be it.
But had the partitioning of India not happened then, would Hindu India tolerate today the prospect of the country being drawn and quartered to sate Muslim demands for a separate state? The Sinhalese, too, in 1948 would have meekly acquiesced had the British demanded the north and east to be turned to federal states as a prerequisite for the grant of independence.
But in 2016, in the aftermath of a terrible terrorist war, when thousands of Lanka’s brave sons have died in glorious honour to thwart the militant attempt to turn the north and east into an Eelam, would Sinhala Lanka be so composed to hand over the self same provinces forming one third of the island’s land mass on a platter to the minority Tamils, in the name of some promised peace and on Chandrika’s solemn word?
Especially when that new entity, euphemistically called a federal state today, contains all the ingredients necessary to become the stepping stone to an Eelam tomorrow?
In the name of reconciliation, is it fair to expect the Sinhalese to surrender what was won on the killing fields of war, namely, sovereign Lanka’s territorial integrity, to those still intent on making Prabhakaran’s dreamland a reality in peacetimes?
Second, take the facts. India with a total land mass of 1,269,000 square miles to Lanka’s 25,000 square miles is 50 times bigger than Lanka. India has 930,000,000 Hindus and 183,000,000 Muslims; 930million descend from Indo Aryan races (74.2%) and 323 million from Dravidian (25%) and more than 2000 ethnic groups. Lanka, on the other hand, has out of a population of 20,277,000 people at the last count, 15.1 million Sinhalese (74.8%) 2.2 million Tamils (11.2%) and 1.8 million Muslims (9.2%).
Can the same formula, a federal system that may not only have been desirable to have but necessary to adopt to give stability to India, be transplanted here to Lanka to handle a situation where the numbers are different, the conditions volatile, the aspirations disguised?
The danger of creating a federal state in the north and east is that a demarcated area of land is born in the map of Lanka, with legal status and provisions for considerable self determination provided in the constitution.
Today even without such a demarcated area existing either in the map or constitution, Australia and Denmark have, nevertheless, both recognized a Tamil Eelam even as a concept and directed its staff to take cognizance of it and take it as referring to Lanka, the successful result, no doubt, of the campaign of Tamil Eelamists the world over to labour birth to its conceptual creation.
If it can be so recognised by these two countries even when it does not exist physically but only as an airy fairy concept, as a utopian dream of Eelamists, for which much blood has been shed, how much easier would the task be for the Eelamist diasporas to convince the international community that since a physically demarcated area of land now exists, similar in shape and size to the one dreamt of by Prabhakaran as his Eelam, it deserves due recognition as the homeland of the Tamils, the Democratic and Socialist Republic of Tamil Eelam. Eelam would thus be only a hop, step and jump away from a federal state that is now canvassed as the answer to Lanka’s ethnic issue.
Last Friday, Opposition and TNA leader R. Sampanthan told a women’s organisation meeting in Tincomalee that the “the new Constitution should guarantee justice, peace and prosperity for all citizens of the country regardless of their ethnic, religious or social differences.” That is to be welcomed. No nation can exist for long if one race claims superiority of numbers to demand special privileges. Or another race claims special treatment, or even a separate state, for the lack of it.
Addressing the United Nations on Thursday in New York, President Sirisena declared that his mission was to make Lankans one of the happiest people in the world. “The ongoing reconciliation process”, he said, “would guarantee that Sri Lanka wouldn’t have to face war and terrorism again.” He did not refer to federalism to be the answer.
But the long hard road of reconciliation is no one way street for only the Sinhalese to tread, dispossessing themselves of their earthly possessions and giving it away to anyone who asks for it.
It is not a road of give and give alone to overburden the taker with the load nor a road of take, take and take even if it strips naked the giver.
But it’s a road of give and take. Of live and let live. Of fulfilling one’s duties. Of respecting another’s rights.
A road where the Sinhalese, the Tamils and the Muslims along with the other communities comprising the sovereign people of Lanka, walk hand in hand towards a new bright dawn: sharing together the magic of friendship on equal terms and partaking together, in equal amounts, each according to his needs, the fruits that fall from of the evergreen ‘ kapruk’ trees flanking either side of the reconciliation road.