By
N Sathiya Moorthy
Media reports have claimed or conveyed that visiting Indian National Security Advisor (NSA) met Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa and other Sri Lankan leaders in Colombo recently, and expressed India’s views on the current islandwide discourse on 13-A and the ethnic issue. A couple of days earlier, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had conveyed such concerns to Sri Lanka’s Economic Development Minister Basil Rajapaksa in New Delhi, personally.
During the week, the Election Commissioner (EC) also announced first-time polls to the Tamil-majority Northern Provincial Council (NPC). When elected, the NPC will be at the centre of 13-A related issues and concerns. It may be worth its while for the Government to wait until after the newly-elected NPC had settled down to work and discussed the issues at their official levels before proceeding substantially with the Parliamentary Select Committee’s (PSC) work. The temptation to do otherwise is even more – but that could hardly produce any results.
In the meantime, should the PSC specifically ask incumbent and former Chief Ministers and Leaders of the Opposition of the Provincial Councils in the country for their opinion on the relevance or otherwise of the scheme, and for improvements of whatever kind thereof? ‘Yes’ should be the objective answer, ‘No’ could be the possible result.
Today, decisions at the PSC are taken mostly by politicians who have not worked in the PCs, and have not understood their relevance and inadequacies. When additional inadequacies, like replacing provincial schools with ‘National Schools’ and provincial hospitals with ‘National Hospitals’ were taken, the PCs were not consulted. The PCs did not contest the unilateral abrogation of their rights and responsibilities under 13-A.
Though some court verdicts had appeared in between, it took the TNA and the Divi Neguma Bill for the issue to be agitated before the Supreme Court, in the contemporary context. The pro-PC verdict was technical in a way. Yet, the political presumption was that the TNA would after all win the Northern PC polls whenever held for the first time – and would ‘exercise’ its 13-A veto-power against Parliament passing laws affecting the PCs without their express consent on an individual basis.
The question is what if in a particular political context, all nine PCs were to clear the current Cabinet proposal on ‘Majority Resolution’ in the matter? Or, what if the reverse happened and some ‘Sinhala-majority’ PCs asserted their now-existing veto-rights? It is not unlikely that in a particular political context, some of the ‘southern PCs’ too could contest the law in the courts on this or other grounds after a predecessor PC had cleared the pending proposal for Parliament.
Political parties in support of a ‘Majority resolution’ in place of the existing ‘veto-power’ of individual Provinces, or those wanting the wholesale abrogation of 13-A should have faith in their own support-base and electoral invincibility and/or chances. The problem is that most parties that cry hoarse over issues and solutions on any front or from any section of the stake-holder community do not have any electoral base at the provincial-level to begin with, where they end up contesting almost all alone, and not in a coalition.
It would imply that they could and should use the Provincial Councils then under their political command to ‘veto’ such other additions and deletions to constitutional provisions on power-devolution, from time to time, rather than look at wholesale solutions. In the past, such solutions had reflected the inherent weakness of such political parties – often reflected in their future electoral performance.
President Rajapaksa had claimed to be aiming at finding a permanent political solution to the ethnic issue, just as he had done with the enjoined LTTE terrorism. Any effort at tweaking 13-A without addressing the existing concerns of all stakeholders would only leave behind a trail of indecisive actions, which when contested before the courts could produce mixed results, at best.
The result would yet again be an ‘unfinished task’ from Independence. Sri Lanka would not disintegrate, after all. But it would not have ‘integrated’ as much as was hoped for at Independence. These hopes were revived and reiterated at the conclusion of ‘Eelam War-IV’. They still remain pious hopes, but with little positive action to go by, not just from the Government but also from the Tamil stakeholders, who too still live in the past – and want to live only in the past.
The year 2013 is not 1987, in the Sri Lankan context and in the global context, too. Issues and perceptions have changed, and so has the understanding. The PSC is an occasion for the Government and the Sinhala polity to express its sincerity, not just the adversity within the Sri Lankan nation. It is more so for the Tamils, who after all have to live with their Sinhala brethren next door, and not with the international community, eternally.
There is no indication thus far that the PSC aimed at delivering a package that will be balanced and unbiased, will be able to do so. Non-participation by the UNP, TNA and the JVP – not necessarily in that order – has reduced it to the level of the much-acclaimed APRC. President Rajapaksa is on record that the APRC Report would be the basis for the PSC. The latter should not approach the Report with a pre-determined view, and demolish both the APRC recommendations and the 13-A together.
In the light of the Indian position, combined with the Northern PC polls that have been notified since, it is unlikely the Government would want to upset the international community ahead of the prestigious Commonwealth Summit. At the same time, the Government has also ordered advanced elections to the North-Western and Central Provincial Councils.
The results, in the company of those for the NPC, would at best be mixed for the ruling combine. It could also be a reflection of the prevailing public mood on the ethnic issue and related constitutional concerns, expressed by the UNP Opposition in particular, in recent weeks. It is likely that more elections could follow the present one, and at all levels.
Elections, the yardstick in a democracy for measuring the popularity of political leaderships and their policies, are also divisive at the same time. If for instance there is the 50-plus per cent victor in elections, there is the 50-minus loser, whose support-base is also no less strong or spread out. They are as inconclusive thus as wars are conclusive. There lies the difference, too.
(The writer is Director, Chennai Chapter of the Observer Research Foundation)