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| Sunday, 14 July 2002 |
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Observations by LAKSHMAN GUNASEKERA 'Of the three ends of human life, material gain is, verily, the most important. On material gain depends the realisation of dharma and pleasure," observes Kautilya in his Arthashasthra, that two thousand-year-old treatise devoted entirely to the social-political dimension of the object of 'material gain'. Presuming one is in that mindset and the Buddha, among others, had already proposed an alternative even before Kautilya - one does not need an Adam Smith or Locke or a Bentham, nor a World Bank or IMF policy paper to realise the significance of the economic aspect of political and social order. Chanakya Vishnugupta Kautilya had laid it all out, in fine detail, a long time ago. Unfortunately, the Sinhala-dominated ruling class in post-Independence Sri Lanka took a long time to realise this, such was their loss of tradition, thanks to the colonialism's cultural depredations. That was why they, along with much of their ethnic compatriots of the ruled classes, clung to their fantasy of an exclusively Sinhala post-colonial State encompassing the whole of this island and all of its peoples. I am, at this point, exploring the ideological dimension of the intellectual and political poverty that prevented this society from extricating itself from the morass of ethnic conflict for much of past half-century of recovery from half a millennium of European colonial domination and exploitation. That intellectual poverty is such that about a month ago we had a top Sri Lankan political scientist propounding the idea, at a prestigious seminar in Japan (of all places: the proudly independent Japanese must have wondered at what they were hearing) that Sri Lankans enjoyed greater democracy and freedom during colonial times! There were Sri Lankans not of the ruling class who, quite early on in the emerging ethnic conflict, warned of the potential for total devastation of the country and society if this problem was not resolved. Many hundreds of human rights activists, social activists, scholars and political leaders have, since the 1930s, but more so in the 1950s and sixties and thereon, argued and campaigned for a recognition of the ethnic problem as a problem. That this issue is a problem is disputed even today but fortunately by only a miniscule minority of Sinhalas, of course, and that itself reveals the reality of Sinhala ethno-supremacism. Just as much as it was only the Afrikaaner South Africans who rejected the description of Apartheid as racist and unjust while the rest of the world (including, grudgingly, their White Western political backers) thought so, and just as much as many Israelis (especially their political leaders) refuse to acknowledge that the Zionist State and its territorial expansion is unjust and racist, so have many Sinhalas, for decades, refused to acknowledge what everyone else (or, almost everyone; it is possible that the Afrikaaners, Israelis and few others sympathised) understood from the very beginning. enormity of foolishness But I digress. The fact is that even some Sinhalas, though not of the ruling class, understood the enormity of the foolishness, nay idiocy (the Buddha would call it avijja), of ethno-linguistic exclusivism, such as 'Sinhala Only'. The most famous prophetic pronouncement was by the learned Dr. Colvin R. de Silva who warned of the dangers of linguistic exclusivity during the Parliamentary debate over the State languages issue. His famous saying is now paraphrased simply as "Two languages one nation, one language, two nations". He was, of course, laughed out of Parliament. So were many non-Sinhala parliamentarians in the succeeding epoch. Similar scorn and ostracisation was meted out to many hundreds of Sinhala social justice activists who, over succeeding decades, even as the ethnic conflict worsened before the whole country's very eyes, warned again and again about the dangers of ethnic inequality and called for the introduction of structures of governance and administration that redressed the problem. By the time of the 1970s, this writer was among many Sinhala activists who formed various action groups - the Movement for Inter-Racial Justice and Equality (MIRJE) was the best known - to examine in an organised manner the Sri Lankan phenomenon of ethnic inequality and discriminination in all its aspects (including a study of media bias in 1981-84), to campaign against it and, to formulate alternative structures of governance, law and administration that would resolve the problem. Many of these initiatives were, at that time, subjected to public ridicule at the very least. What was most unjust was the police repression meted out to some of the groups in the 1970s and '80s, such as MIRJE, which was branded as 'pro-Eelamist'. MIRJE was wholly oriented towards some form of moderate, 'federal' type of devolution whereas the very same governing party that meted out that repression is back in power today presiding over a process of far greater devolution than that envisaged in the past. That is precisely because the problem worsened to such a degree that the political forces it unleashed have now totally transformed the country's political outlook. (This retrospection is good...well...for the digestion.) Today, the formulae being happily bandied about, from the highest levels of State to national and elite symposia to local seminar, is not just 'federal' but 'con-federal' if not 'partition'! Except for the miniscule Sinhala extremist factions, everyone is anxious to disburse the 'maximum' devolution of power. In fact the reality of a virtual semi-state entity that is already in existence is politely ignored so as not to upset any sensibilities on both sides of the semi-border. And all this has come about after so many decades of prevarication not so much because of intellectual deliberation but solely because that little matter of 'material gain' has come into the reckoning in the fiercest way, courtesy of Velupillai Prabhakaran's suicide commandos. Even preaching by peace groups about economic wastage due to war and economic 'peace dividends' failed to influence the mind of the Sinhala-dominated ruling class. It took the sheer devastation of the economy and a massive squeeze on the avenues of 'material gain' to propel the ruling class towards serious thought about drastic political action to resolve a problem that had become a war. Mere warnings were not enough to alert people about the dangers to the economy. It took the actual endangering of the economy at a very basic level to propel the ruling class and the State towards serious action. This is because the basis of the hegemony of the ruling class is its control of the means of 'material gain', that is, the means of production. economy under threat By the time of the late 1990s it became very clear that the very foundations of the economy were under threat. No amount of deficit budgeting and deficit economic policy, no amount of state subsidies and credit to various struggling sectors, no amount of deliberate economic contraction was working as a strategy to tide over attempts to resolve the ethnic problem by mere repression and counter-insurgency. That was why by 1997 the UNP, or at least its top leadership, had adopted a clear policy of 'maximum devolution' and party leader Ranil Wickremesinghe quite bravely declared (in Chennai) that even an 'assymetrical' devolution was feasible. That was why, almost simultaneously, powerful business leaders had formed a joint business forum to persuade the two main political parties to collaborate in a political process to resolve the conflict. By then the broad mass of Sinhalas had, themselves, also realised the need to politically resolve the problem. The mass of Sinhalas not only felt the economic pinch earlier but also the physical pinch in terms of injury and death tolls due to military action. This change of attitude was first seen when they voted overwhelmingly for Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga's peace and devolution platform in 1994. It is interesting to note that of the two main political formations, the UNP and SLFP, it is the SLFP, that is, the secondary or alternative party of the ruling class, that has been responsible for all the major formal steps that took the country further and further down the road of ethnic Sinhala State domination. The exclusive language law, the mono-religious First Republican Constitution, and the language-based district quota system for higher education were all enacted by SLFP-led governments. Chandrika Kumaratunga herself participated, although not at a parliamentary level, in the 1970-77 regime whose linguistic discrimination in higher education perhaps propelled a whole generation of Tamil youth into secessionist militancy. The UNP's only major pro-active ethnic discriminatory action was in 1948 in the dis-franchisement of the Hillcountry Tamils. Then, however, the elements which later formed the SLFP were yet within the UNP and the onus for this legislative action could, therefore, be placed on both parties. To the UNP, however, goes the credit for both the most brutal, undemocratic actions to perpetuate the ethno-supremacist regime and also for the all major steps to move away from it by political reform. Chandrika Kumaratunga can claim credit for some of the most significant non-formal actions for reversing the Sinhala supremacist trend - such as her pro-justice political campaigns and pioneering visits to Chennai and Jaffna. So can the SLFP and PA claim credit for other semi-formal actions such as 1994-95 cease-fire exercise and negotiations and the constitutional reform proposals of 1999-2000. But it has been the UNP that has taken the most significant formal steps for a political solution and peace: the negotiating efforts of the 1980s and most importantly the 1987 provincial council system and the 2002 Cease-fire Agreement and the current interim phase of negotiations. Being the quintessential party of the ruling capitalist class, the UNP is so much at the centre of the political-economy that to it has gone the onus of defending The System as well as reforming (not transforming) it according to the exigencies of the situation. attack on Katunayaka It was the LTTE attack on Katunayaka that completely awakened the ruling class to the danger of economic collapse. The attack on Katunayaka threatened the very existence of the new industrial economy which the UNP did so much to establish. If the Colombo port was the entrepot and export point for the colonial economy, Katunayaka was the same for the new economy. Garment exports, agri-product and other commercial food exports, all of which were completely dependent on rapid air-freighting, were instantly hit by the attack on Katunayaka. Prabhakaran, by threatening these key arteries of the economy and benefiting from the reactions of international finance to that threat (the insurance costs) had got at the jugular of the means of 'material gain' of the State. Post-Katunayaka, the country was entertained to spectacle of the big bourgeoisie - or at least its minions - demonstrating on the streets for peace and a political solution. Former MIRJE and other veteran peace activists watched with a sense of irony (if not amusement) as advertising magnates pumped millions into extremely creative, effective pro-peace advertisements. And when the ruling class decides that it is time to change tactics, then change there will be. Cease-fire Agreement The new Government of the UNP, within days of coming to power, put into force the most far-reaching Cease-fire Agreement and negotiating process in the entire history of the ethnic conflict and war. It is far-reaching in that the political ramifications of the provisions of the 2002 Cease-fire Agreement go far beyond those actual provisions. The Agreement has set in motion political, economic and social processes that are rapidly re-configuring not only the country's political-strategic scenario, but if guided and managed in a suitable manner could usher in a reform of the State and a permanent peace although that process may take some years. No more is it merely a case of administrative or governmental devolution. Rather, Sri Lankan nationhood is becoming plural even if, in the short term at least, the State itself remains singular. South Asia is seeing a new form of nationhood or nationhoods emerging as the communities of the North, East and South jockey for position and a fresh sharing of power. The contours of the current process are not only political. True to its nature, the ruling class is busy with a strategy of economic expansion. Delegations of the various business chambers - the top chamber, the venerable Chamber of Commerce taking the lead have pilgrimaged to Jaffna to explore the possibilities of investments and market linkages. A trade exhibition is planned by the chambers in the northern capital (will LTTE representatives be among the distinguished invitees?) and firms are being encouraged to participate. In a kind of backing chorus the aid agencies of the Western governmental underwriters of the peace process are busy laying down an infra-structure for aid flows into LTTE-controlled areas. It is clear that the ruling elite has, at last heard that injunction of Kautilya. Having waited all these decades until the country and society lay in tatters, it has decided to go for broke: in a revised Colvin R formula, the elite has decided that with the basis of their political-economic power - under threat, it would be better to have 'two (or more) nations and one capitalism'. And if things go really radical, then the hope is probably a reversal of the HongKong-China formula: 'two countries, one system'. |
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