Provincial flags via Wikipedia
The 13th amendment is viewed as part of political reconciliation in Sri Lanka. It (devolution of power to the provinces) has been ignored since day one. In that sense it just hasn’t worked, and isn’t working. I’m also beginning to think it’s not even a good idea. What changed my mind was the words of a Tamil politician, Arun Tambimuttu:
What is the core issue in Sri Lanka? The core issue will give us an understanding of the 13th Amendment. The core issue was what should, or do all, communities in Sri Lanka require to ensure a society in which they feel in harmony with each other. To achieve that all you require is a belief among Sri Lankans that they are equal and they are treated equally and they feel they are part of the national fabric and they have the opportunity to improve their lives and play a part according to their own merit. That should be the fundamental. Now, does the 13th Amendment to the Constitution enable us to have that? I think it doesn’t because the 13th Amendment even though it does not refer to it in terms is creating divisions and homelands. (Arun Tambimuttu: Back To Batti)
Basically, trying to solve an ethnic problem with provinces may be like dividing water with a knife. We have different ethnicities in every province. Equal rights is a national problem that needs a national solution.
The Core Issue
What’s the core issue in Sri Lanka? It’s equal rights for all citizens. That is the problem. Does breaking up the problem into provinces solve it? Not really. Because this problem doesn’t stop at provincial lines. Nor is the problem just racial. Many Sri Lankans are denied equal rights – Tamils, Muslims, Sinhalese, women, gays, etc. We need equal rights for all, and that has to come from the center.
If you look at civil rights struggles or even ongoing revolutions, what they’re demanding isn’t something special or something separate, it’s something equal. Just to be treated the same as everybody else and given the same opportunities. In Sri Lanka, Tamil people were denied those opportunities. They’ve only slowly been getting their rights back. It’s not fast enough. At the same time, other communities have been systematically shafted however you want to slice it (class, religion, gender). Equality hasn’t been fast enough for them either.
Solving The Problem
This isn’t a provincial issue, because so many Tamils live in the south. It’s not even a Tamil issue, because other people are denied equality as well. It’s fundamentally an issue of civil rights, ie, our rights as citizens of Sri Lanka.
As such, equality has to come from the center, and anyways, that’s from whence all power flows. This is not something we can punt to the provinces like the US tried to punt slavery down to the state level (state’s rights). It’s a national problem which needs a national solution. In practice, that solution is effectively time (which does work wonders), but some intelligent policy could make that time go faster. Devolution just isn’t the right policy.
Status Quo
The status quo argument, of course, is that the 13th and 17th amendments solve our problem, we just need to implement them. The 17th (breaking up power at the center) is largely repealed, and the 13th is largely a dead letter. I think it’s time to recognize that they didn’t solve the problem and try something else.
We have a government with dominion over the entire island, for the first time in my life. That’s a damn good thing. Now we just need a government with equality for all, and we needn’t limit ourselves to race. We all deserve equal protection under the law, decent opportunities, and a chance for our children to prosper without being hindered by stuff they can’t control.
This not a provincial issue, it’s national, moral and something that concerns us all.
The dumbest idea is to hand control of 60% of Sri Lanka’s coastline and 30% of its land area to less than 12% of the population. I mean what. the. fuck. How is that remotely justifiable in anyway? Especially into the hands of those who were in bed with the LTTE?
sigh
TNA shouldn’t be meeting that pro-LTTE organization in South Africa if they are even mildly interested in ‘devolution’ or solving the ethnic problem.
The only solution is a broad based change of attitude of the citizenry towards it’s fellow citizen. This is the only way forward. Governments and politicians, current and future, will do nothing towards this and if we keep expecting the governments and the politicians to do it, then we as a nation, as a population and as a country will fail! Change of attitude has to start in every generation across every race. My generation, my parents’ and grand parents’ generations, my sisters’ and brothers’ generation and my sons’ & daughters’ generation. We, the citizens of this country, have to be pro-active to achieve this. There is no other way. We have to work hard for our living, we have to teach our children to work hard and we have to teach ourselves to be compassionate towards our fellow citizens, our fellow human beings.
How is devolution to the provinces compatible with the global trend of centralising government (EU etc)?
That said, I wonder how the government could get away with not abiding by the 13th amendment. Yes, it’s not at all popular and is a non-issue for most Sri Lankans, but it is in the constitution.
By re-demarcating the provinces?
http://malindawords.blogspot.com/2012/01/time-to-go-beyond-13th.html
Unfortunately, devolution won’t work in Sri Lanka as long as the current executive presidency continues to exists.
(exist.. I mean”
Indi, I think the probably deliberate attempts by “Tamil” political parties to blur the line between “ethnic Tamil” people and “Tamil speaking” people should be highlighted more.
The “Tamil speaking” population, which also includes Muslims and others do have language issues for their lack of Sinhala knowledge. These problems are also shaed by “English-Speaking-Elites”. This is pretty much a non-problem for most Tamil speaking people, because most of them do speak Sinhala as well. It’s just a practical thing for them to do, and I don’t think ordinary citizens are worried about this “second class citizen” crap. In areas dominated by people speaking Tamil as the main language, others also more often than not can speak good Tamil. Either way, it’s a language problem if at all,and not an ethnic problem.
But I am not sure if there is any specific problem faced by “ethnic Tamil” people, except for the whole homeland, dignity, second-class and other problems made up by the politicians. Like you have clearly pointed out, such problems are there for all types of “minorities”, be it ethnic, cultural, economic, sexual orientation etc.
Devolution, in principle, brings governance closer to the hands of the people living on the ground, and puts them more in control of what they want for their area. There will never be absolute equality anywhere on earth, but this tries to get close to it.
One should argue from principle.
The core principle is subsidiarity: who is best positioned to do a particular activity?
Who is best positioned to collect garbage? Central government or local government? The answer is the latter. So give that function to local government.
Who is best positioned to handle the disposal of garbage in sanitary landfills? Not local government; not central government. Something in the middle, possibly smaller than the current Province, but something that has authority over, say 2-3 million people. Give it to that. And so on.
What will be left for the central government will be national defense, long-distance transport, telecommunications, foreign relations, inter-provincial trade, and few other subjects.
Without blinking an eyelid we have given revenue-raising powers to local government. Why not to units that are larger? What is wrong with giving police powers to provinces, or even smaller units? The Municipal Councils Ordinance that is in force today permits municipalities having authority over police. Does sending a Sinhala speaker from Matara to Jaffna actually result in better policing? Isn’t it more effective to have a Jaffna woman or man engage in police duties in Jaffna?
This is what the devolution debate should be about. Even in the days of the kings, power was devolved to the feudal lords. Why not now?
Frankly, I find these conversations about devolution in the abstract to be rather tiresome. Let’s get down to the details, cos that’s where the devils lurk.
Perhaps the most fraught issue about devolution in Sri Lanka is the unit of devolution. The TNA clings to a long-standing demand for a merged North and East province as the unit. I would strongly oppose this, since I have not encountered any worthwhile historical, demographic, social or practical reason for it. To insist on this, particularly if it’s to be done without the consent of the people of the Eastern Province, is to give credence to the theory that devolution is nothing but Eeelam by stealth.
I personally believe that IF there is to be devolution, then the district is as good a unit as any. It seems more natural, more organic to me. Very rarely do I find people saying they’re from Uva, or the East, or the North-Central – they say they’re from Moneragala, or Batticaloa or Anuradhapura. I think this psychology is important. Furthermore, I think that if the district was to be the unit, then a lot of the paranoia about devolving land and police powers might be eased.
And let’s talk a bit about those powers. There was a lot of talk a few years back about ‘asymmetric devolution’, meaning that some units (i.e. the proposed N-E Province) would get an extra measure of autonomy. I think there’s some merit to this proposal as some parts of the country are clearly not as keen on devolved powers as others might be.
But I would propose that there should be a mechanism by which all the units can choose the powers they want locally and those that they would rather leave to the centre. For example, Hambantota may not want its own water utility whereas Jaffna might. As I understand it, in Canada certain provinces choose to have their own police forces, while others contract the job to the Mounties (the Federal Police).
I think this flexibility is admirable, because it partly addresses another concern about devolution – that local bodies are frequently run by thugs and dimwits, and so are nothing but a huge waste of money and time. This is a valid point, and one that is not unique to Sri Lanka.
Even in the advanced Western democracies, there seems to be a higher incidence of corruption and malpractice at the local level than at the national level. This is despite the theory that local politicos are ‘closer’ to their constituents and should therefore be more responsive and accountable. Anyone who has seen ‘The Untouchables’ would know that federal agents had to be sent in to uphold the law in Chicago, because the local authorities were in Al Capone’s pocket.
But Sri Lanka has even more issues to reckon with. For example, managerial and technical expertise is still extremely scarce is in this country, even in Colombo. So the devolved units might find it very challenging to meet their obligations even if the will was there.
But perhaps most importantly, there is no culture of devolution in the mainstream political parties. People become Chief Ministers and Councillors not because they have any vision for their localities, but because they are just apparatchiks marking time before climbing the political ladder. Their ascent is largely determined by party dynamics, not by their legislative or administrative record in the PC. This will surely take time to change.
Which leads me to two further proposals.
First, tt might be wise to start by handing over the devolved responsibilities to unelected, technocratic governors for a limited time, in order to properly establish and develop the local insitutions to a certain level of maturity. I believe that there was a similar process in the early US, by which the frontier territories became full-fledged states.
Second, when there are elections, if the voter turnout is below a certain threshold (say 35%), then the unit should be returned to governor’s rule until the next cycle. This way, the people can decide not just who gets into their local body, but whether they need to have a local body at all.
All of this is well thought out , but devolution will never happen. The south will not allow this to happen
Because the South doesn’t understand what devolution means, and the politicians who advocate it cannot articulate it in a meaningful manner. It has been couched in ethnicity for so long that that is all that devolution means to the Southerner. Even supposedly English-educated people like Omr cannot understand what it is, as evidenced by his comment above.
http://groundviews.org/2012/01/18/is-power-sharing-in-land-administration-practical-in-sri-lanka/ is worth a read.
i agree with you 100% on this. The knowledge of what devolution means is very small among the majority sinhala people ( i dont think southerners is the right term). Even the educated ones who hold high positions do not have any idea about it. Once i argued with a gal, an engineer ! on why we need power devolution. She aregues power devolution is the same as seperating the country. sigh !
i as a sinhalese is pro devolution. i like to see a sri lankan tami culture developes from the N & E with Jaffna as the bastion. Especially the deafening silence about the ethnic conflict and power develution in the sinhala media is a big problem. The government could have take initial steps for a power develution some time back. it’s been three yrs now after the war ended…:( i dont have much hopes for my country.