{"id":80952,"date":"2023-01-21T00:27:07","date_gmt":"2023-01-21T04:27:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=80952"},"modified":"2023-01-21T21:17:27","modified_gmt":"2023-01-22T01:17:27","slug":"sri-lankas-failure-to-fully-implement-the-13th-constitutional-amendment-is-a-reminder-of-the-sinhalese-establishments-apparent-insecurity-over-sharing-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=80952","title":{"rendered":"Sri Lanka\u2019s failure to fully implement the 13th Constitutional amendment is a reminder of the Sinhalese establishment\u2019s apparent insecurity over sharing power"},"content":{"rendered":"


\nBy<\/p>\n

Meera Srinivasan<\/strong><\/p>\n

If an Indian leader or top official makes a statement on Sri Lanka, it would invariably mention one piece of legislation in Sri Lanka\u2019s Constitution \u2014 the 13th Amendment. External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, who was in Colombo earlier this week, said he shared India\u2019s \u201cconsidered view\u201d with President Ranil Wickremesinghe that the full implementation of the 13th Amendment was \u201ccritical\u201d for power devolution.<\/p>\n

Sri Lanka\u2019s current Constitution, adopted in 1978, has had 21 amendments to date, but arguably, none as controversial as this. Passed in November 1987, months after Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and Sri Lankan President J.R. Jayewardene signed the Indo-Lanka Accord, the 13th Amendment is the only legislative guarantee of a measure of power devolution to the island\u2019s provinces. It provided for setting up provincial governments across the country \u2014 there are nine provincial councils \u2014 and made Tamil, too, an official language, and English, a link language.<\/p>\n

It was, in some measure, an antidote to the \u2018Sinhala Only Act\u2019 of 1956, one of the most discriminatory laws passed targeting the island\u2019s Tamil minorities, after the Ceylon Citizenship Act of 1948 that rendered Sri Lanka\u2019s Malaiyaha Tamils of Indian origin stateless. It also sought to address the Tamils\u2019 right to self-determination which, by the 1980s, had become ing a raging political call. With the 1983 anti-Tamil pogrom laying bare violent Sinhala majoritarianism and racism, it was hard for the world and India not to appreciate a legitimate demand.<\/p>\n

However, for successive governments, devolving power to the provinces as per the 13th Amendment, including in the Tamil-majority north and east, was hardly on their \u2018must do\u2019 list. Despite public promises, leaders from the Sinhala-majority south failed to implement in letter and spirit what was already in the Constitution. Detractors construe the 13th Amendment as an \u201cIndian imposition\u201d, despite it being an outcome of a bilateral Accord signed by J. R. Jayewardene, one of the island\u2019s most powerful Presidents.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The provincial councils function, but nominally. The rule book gave provinces legislative power over agriculture, education, health, housing, local government, planning, road transport and social services. But an ambiguous concurrent list and overriding clauses in the Constitution allow the Centre to remain all-powerful. The executive President still wields enormous power and the provincial Governors, representing the country\u2019s highest office, possess similar power at the regional level. The last three decades are rife with attempts by the Centre to take back power, Tamils point out.<\/p>\n

Grip on power<\/strong><\/p>\n

Colombo is especially wary of sharing land and police powers, and resolutely controls the subjects. In the absence of a sound argument, legal or political, to justify this centralised grip on power, it can only imply that the island\u2019s southern leaders are reluctant to share power with the Tamil minorities, as well as their own people governing the provinces. For 36 years since its passage, the failure to fully implement the 13th Amendment is an enduring reminder of the Sinhalese establishment\u2019s apparent insecurity over sharing power, or as many Tamils would argue, intrinsic racism. To those opposed to Tamils holding any power, the 13th Amendment embodies \u201ctoo much power\u201d to part with.<\/p>\n

For the Tamils, on the other hand, the 13th Amendment is too little. The LTTE rejected it. Among the current Tamil polity, almost all see it as inadequate. Regardless, it is all that they have at the moment, after demanding political rights for over half a century, mounting an armed struggle, and engaging in talks with successive leaders. A constitutional provision that they consider inadequate, and the Sinhala nationalists view as excessive.<\/p>\n

The problem, though, is not just to do with the Amendment, but Sri Lanka\u2019s unitary Constitution, Tamils argue. In a letter to Mr. Jaishankar, Jaffna legislator and leader of the Tamil National People\u2019s Front, Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam, said that ever since the 13th Amendment to the Constitution of Sri Lanka was introduced, the Tamils have rejected it on the grounds that for as long as the structure of the State remains Unitary, no meaningful autonomy and self-government can be achieved. <\/p>\n

\u201cThirty-six years after the introduction of the 13th Amendment, the situation is far worse than at the time it was introduced. There are over 30 judicial judgements from the highest courts of the country that have held that for as long as the State structure remains Unitary the Government in Colombo will be the sole repository of all powers and have specifically held against devolution.\u201d<\/p>\n

Courtesy: The Hindu<\/em><\/p>\n

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By Meera Srinivasan If an Indian leader or top official makes a statement on Sri Lanka, it would invariably mention one piece of legislation in Sri Lanka\u2019s Constitution \u2014 the 13th Amendment. External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, who was in Colombo earlier this week, said he shared India\u2019s \u201cconsidered view\u201d with President Ranil Wickremesinghe that …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘Sri Lanka\u2019s failure to fully implement the 13th Constitutional amendment is a reminder of the Sinhalese establishment\u2019s apparent insecurity over sharing power’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80952"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=80952"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80952\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80953,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80952\/revisions\/80953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=80952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=80952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=80952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}