Rubik’s Cube: Why share power 0nly with Tamils and not Sinhalas, Muslims, Malays, Chetties, Veddhas & Burgers?

By Thomas Johnpulle

(June 15, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) The Indian Home Affairs Minister and many others have advised Sri Lanka to share power with Tamils. Why share power only with Tamils in a country of many other communities? What's good for the goose is good for the gander! Why discriminate? This is a puzzle that will never be solved if the simple requirement of equal rights to every individual is not implemented as it is. Sharing power with an ethnic community destroys the whole purpose of equal rights and Sri Lanka will be in square one if this unsolicited advice is taken on board. However, this calls for a deeper analysis of this popular demand which seems to have surpassed all reason and logic.

Is it because of the violence?

Very sad incidents blackened the Sri Lankan history for 68 years from 1915 onwards until 1983. Communal riots broke out in 1915, 1939, 1956, 1958, 1972, 1977 and 1983. While each of the incidents generally pushed people more towards a communal identity, the last and the worst one pushed the whole country into war. It took a further 26 years to end the war. All in all 94 years of misery is behind us. Ideally these should never have happened in a country where all four major religions are practiced and respected by almost 100% of the population. The next best thing would have been a national process of immediate patch-up and punishment which unfortunately never happened properly.

This puts on us a huge burden, a burden of almost 100 years to reconcile and patch-up properly. If we go back to violence and the demands of those who used violence we can never reach-out and embrace our brethren. Instead one group with its own little politics will be embracing another similar group again with its own petty politics. This can hardly unify the people, let alone the country. It will be bargaining between racial groups on racial terms.

Therefore if anyone argues that power should be shared with Tamils because there were thirty odd Tamil rebel/terror groups fighting Sri Lanka, it is not a valid response. It is just a knee-jerk reaction. If that crooked logic to be applied, the reason why power need not be shared with Sinhalas, Muslims, Malays, Chettis, Burgers and Veddhas is because they were not as violent as Tamil militants! This is a hilarious, yet, dangerous logic. It defies the democratic way of life. In other words, just because Tamil militants created trouble, Sri Lanka should not jump to a solution that entails sharing power only with Tamils and not others.

Is it because of international pressure?

If Sri Lanka complied with requests and demands made by the international community to stop the war, we would be still fighting! It must be remembered that the problems of Sri Lanka are not the problems of the international community and the international community is guided by a different set of factors not necessarily favourable to Sri Lanka. At best this free advice is irrelevant and at worst damaging in the long run. As a sovereign country we should be able to sail our ship to where we, as a nation, want to go. Therefore sharing power only with Tamils and not with others is not advisable just because the international community says so. Interestingly none of the countries advising Sri Lanka shares power with their ethnic communities; they have instead granted equal rights to individuals.

Similar schemes hatched by the international community in the Middle East, etc. ended up in disaster plunging the parties to those agreements into deeper chaos.

International pressure has a pressure-driver so to speak. Most countries pressurising Sri Lanka to share power with Tamils are in turn pressured by the large Tamil population in their countries. India, UK, France, Canada, Swiss, Australia and the US have a large number of Tamil activists pressurising their governments to force Sri Lanka to share power with Tamils. However, Sri Lankan Sinhalas, Muslims, Burgers, etc. living in those countries do not exert any such pressure. Does that mean their wishes can be taken for granted? Not at all. It also doesn’t justify sharing power with the most vociferous Sri Lankan community in foreign countries and not others.

Is it because India says so?

India being our closest neighbour and an undeclared superpower has influenced Sri Lanka’s war, peace and truce than any other nation. Sri Lankan leaders have started to talk about India with great indebtedness after the military victory. Behind closed doors, India helped Sri Lanka immensely to win the war. However, that doesn’t allow India any right to dictate what the political solution should be.

To make matters sourer, India has a history of interfering in Sri Lanka. In 1987 under the shadow of an invading army, violence, demonstrations and curfew, a political solution was introduced by way of an amendment to the Constitution. Public anger was at boiling point. Not only the political solution, but also its military enablers and even relations with Sri Lanka and the LTTE were seriously affected by the 1987 intervention. Finally a Tamil woman did in 1991 what a Sinhala man failed to do in 1987!

In India, states are by ethnicity. Each state has a history of its own and no history of being part of India until 1947. However, in India, power is shared not only with Tamils, but also with Malayalees, Orissans, Sikhs, Bengalis, Assamese, etc. Then why India proposes Sri Lanka share power with Tamils only? Even if we follow India’s precept, we cannot brush aside the example of India which is rather contradictory! Example they say is better than precept!

Is it because moderate Tamil leaders in Sri Lanka demand so?

If moderate Tamil leaders demand power sharing with Tamils, they cannot be moderate anymore. A moderate Sri Lankan leader of whatever ethnicity would not ask for power for his ethnic group. In fact a moderate would never ask power for ethnic groups. Instead he would demand equal rights to every Sri Lankan as per the UN Charter.

The concept of equal rights (and responsibilities) contradicts ethnicity based power sharing. If power is shared to ethnic groups and not to each individual, the individual ends up having no power! That takes us back to the LTTE open prison where individuals had no rights or powers whatsoever as all powers were concentrated in LTTE leaders. And they called themselves, quite interestingly, sole representatives.

Moreover, a moderate will not penalise highly integrated ethnic communities by his demands. Some ethnic groups like the Malays, Burgers and Chetties have integrated extremely well into the Sri Lankan society. There is no way power can be shared with these communities as there is no way of demarcation. Should they be penalised for integrating with the rest? No; not at all.

This issue was manifested quite vividly in one APRC (All Party Representative Committee) proposal. It proposed devolving power to village councils (Gram Sabha). Being a small unit, a village council would be able to address highly specific requirements of its populace. However, the proposal was not accepted and was lost in the complicated APRC process. Nevertheless it at least identified a smaller unit of devolution. The right unit of “devolution” is the individual. When power is “devolved” to the individual it is called fundamental rights (and responsibilities). Interestingly the word “individual” means indivisible any further. Shouldn’t this be the case?

The right thing to do about rights

Clearly, sharing power only with Tamils is not going to work. For that matter, power sharing with all the other communities is also not going to help. As in any democratic country, power, rights and responsibilities should be entrusted in each and every individual. Let them use it the way they want.

It is as simple as that. Complexities arise when this equality is tweaked with ulterior motives of entrusting more rights to the individuals of one ethnic group than the individuals of another group. The problems associated with excessive rights to a group of individuals include un-sustainability, lack of transparency, mismatch with responsibilities, nepotism and racism.

Having devised a Constitution with clearly specified rights (and responsibilities) for every Sri Lankan irrespective of race, independent reviews should be carried out by the UN and noisy democratic nations. These reviews should assess the true equality or otherwise of rights awarded to Sri Lankans of different ethnicities against their own standards in their countries. This will convince everyone that Sri Lanka has granted equal rights to all individuals. That will rest the case for suggesting fanciful resolutions to a very simple problem of equal rights.

Still there will be those who fight for unequal rights as with anything. Law and order is the instrument to handle them.

-Sri Lanka Guardian