The secretary to the TULF R. Sambanthan had expressed his views briefly to a Sunday newspaper about the four proposed independent commissions. He had said that democracy could not be safeguarded by the appointment of these four commissions alone and that, in addition to it, the constitution too had to be changed.
What is apparent from the ideas expressed by Mr. Sambanthan is that he considers the problem of democracy and the ethnic problem as two separate problems and not as two aspects of the same problem. That may be the common Tamil view too.
However, the demands for democracy that are arising in the south and the demands relating to the rights of the minorities that have arisen in the north are not two sets of different problems but are only two aspects of the same problem. This has affected the Sinhala people of the south in a particular way and the Tamil people of the north in a different and a more oppressive way. An effective solution to this problem may be found not through an approach that treats two issues as two different problems but through one that considers them to be two aspects of the same problem. It is only such an approach that can help integrate these two ethnic groups.
Sri Lanka’s transition from a feudalist monarchy to a capitalist democratic political system did not take place as a natural outcome of historical development or as a result of socio-political enlightenment. The democratic political system was a gift bequeathed to us by the British who also introduced capitalism to Sri Lanka. Although the society had adopted the new political system in the context of the new bourgeois system that was building up. There was no transition from feudalist attitudes to democratic attitudes in the process.
Although it would be essential to build a United Nation for the survival of the new political system, we as a country have been unable so far to fulfil that condition. At the time of independence the ethnic divisions in the country were more complex than they are today. The Sinhalese were divided into the low country Sinhalese and the Kandyan Sinhalese. The Tamils were divided into Ceylon Tamils and the Indian Tamils and the Muslims were divided into Eastern Muslims and non Eastern Muslims. Each of these groups had its own identity and none of them considered any outsiders as a close or fractured group. The Kandyan Sinhalese considered the low country Sinhalese, rather than the Tamils as their main threat. They were the first group who stood for federal system as a means of protecting their separate identity.
The non-democratic parochial attitudes of the Sinhala leaders as well as of the Tamil and Muslim leaders contributed to Sri Lanka’s failure to build a united Sri Lankan nation within a framework that protected the separate identities of the Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim ethnic groups. The absence of a powerful freedom movement that bound together all the ethnic groups for the purpose of winning independence also influenced the parochialism of these leaders. Due to the absence of a group of leaders nominated by a powerful freedom movement, all these leaders were competing with each other to carry tales to the British for the purpose of showing the fruits of freedom on an ethnic basis.
The only group that suffered from this rule and acted with a broad vision in this period was the Jaffna Youth Congress. Although there was no such movement among the Sinhalese of the south, there were two leaders who had such a vision. They were H. Sri Nissanka and Wilmot A. Perera. Although the practice of the left leaders was different from that of the traditional Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim leaders, they had curtailed the possibilities of their own triumphs. The Jaffna Youth Congress had a broad democratic outlook. Their view was that independence must be won through non-violent mass action launched after bringing together the people of all ethnic communities. They should get the credit for being the first to rise against the customs in Jaffna. They launched an extremely effective boycott in the north at the election held in 1931 under the Donoughmore Commission. Although they made a fervent appeal to the south too to join it there was no positive response. It was the Jaffna Youth Congress which first introduced to Dr. Gunapala Malalasekera the national dress which later became the next popular costume among the Sinhala leaders. The educated traditional leaders got together and suppressed the Jaffna Youth Congress. If not for that action, the Sinhala-Tamil relationship might even have taken a different turn. It was a very similar ideology that was expressed by personalities like Mr. Nissanka and Mr. Perera. Although they both had a close relationship with the Sinhala spirit they were never anti-Tamil or anti-Muslim. Both of them disapproved the citizenship bills which deprived the plantation Tamils of their citizenship rights. Mr. Nissanka said that he was opposed to these bills because they were against national justice. Although Sri Nissanka was a founder member of the SLFP he was not among the living when that party embraced the Sinhala only policy. However, Mr. Perera who was in Parliament until 1956 refrained from contesting the election of 1956 because he did not agree with Mr. Bandaranaike’s Sinhala only policy. It is said that he had told his friends that it would destroy Mr. Bandaranaike as well as the whole country.
Subsequently, the country had to bleed endlessly because of the failure to create a united and democratic society and a system of national policies suited to it, that were required to sustain the independence that had been acquired with no bloodshed and with no great effort and the political system that were in relation to it. It may be called a vision of a distorted system of democracy and the ethnic crisis may be considered a product of it.
The challenge before the country today is how to overcome this crisis. For the purpose it will be necessary to bring about a democratisation of the whole country and will do away with the massive distortion that prevails. The programme of action for that purpose has to be of a major scale, and must incorporate a powerful social activity. Theoretically such an action may be called a political attempt to complete the freedom struggle that could not be completed. The initial dynamism for such an effort can be achieved only if the demands that are conveying the Sinhalese in the south for democratic rights are properly combined with the demands in the north for minority rights. For such a combination the enlightened Sinhala society must be sensitive to the demands for reasonable rights of the minorities and the enlightened Tamil and Muslim society must be sensitive to the desire arising in the Sinhala society for democracy. In that sense the Tamil and Muslim society must not be detached from the demand for four independent Commissions for the purpose of democratising the political system. That demand should be supported, nourished and strengthened. It is a system of government that gives more and more weight to democracy rather than one that gives weight to authoritarianism that will give the minorities a good background to win their demands. Although there is no solution to the ethnic problem in the demand for the four independent commissions, any attempts to strengthen democracy will strengthen the possibility of solving the minority problem too. For instance, an independent judiciary is vital not only to the major Sinhala community but also to the minority communities.
The enlightened Tamil and Muslim society must not forget that whatever measures the Sinhala leaders may have taken to oppress the minorities the present calamity might not have taken place if there had been an independent judiciary and a judiciary devoted to the defence of democratic freedom and rights. The Soulbury Constitution contained provisions that did not permit legislation discriminatory of the minorities. With regard to those provisions in the Soulbury Constitution D. S. Senanayake introduced legislation to deprive the Tamil estate workers of their citizenship rights in order to weaken the left movement, and later Mr. Bandaranaike introduced legislation to make Sinhala the only official language for the purpose of pleasing the pro-Sinhala forces.
Any attempt to lengthen the recognised period of office by a legislature must not be permitted is a recognised principle. However, the move by J. R. Jayewardene for lengthening by six years the term of office of the Parliament through a referendum in such a way that distorted the entire political system against that recognised principle was given approval by the Supreme Court, not because that move accorded with the law but because the judiciary was not independent.
Even if a solution is found to the ethnic crisis it will be necessary to go before the court for the final resolution of any disparity that might arise in relation to that solution. In that sense an independent judiciary is vital not only to the Sinhala community but also to the Tamil and Muslim minorities.