For an equitable solution

A demarcation of viable political territories can be a possible solution to the ethnic problem - a germ of an idea from one who cares about Sri Lanka.

FOR over 70 years now, I've straddled the Palk Straits, one foot in each country, but both home. During the first half and more of that period, I had one foot firmly planted in Ceylon that was to become Sri Lanka. More recently it has been better rooted in Madras that's become Chennai. But my affection and concern for Colombo and Sri Lanka remain as strong as they are for Madras and Tamil Nadu.

It's been many years since I've written on matters political. From the early 1970s, I did only the occasional political piece and during the last decade trying to make Madras a better place to live in has become a greater priority. But from the 1950s to the 1970s I wrote with as much concern as I now show for Madras about the impending tragedy that would engulf Ceylon before long. And always I'd hark back to Education Minister C.W.W. Kannangara's 'Pearl of Great Price', free education for all in the mother tongue, so necessary yet so lethally loaded with the potential to divide tragically a country that was one, even though it was segmented just the way the Census insisted on classifying its inhabitants. He never foresaw that frightening possibility, nor did others; after all, hadn't Ceylonese of all ethnic backgrounds seen the common threat in the first half of the 20th century as the Coast Moors (from Keelakkarai and Kayalpattinam), the Indian traders and financiers, and the skilled Malayalee workers? Who'd think the Ceylonese dividing up as 'Sinhala stream' versus 'Tamil stream' for cricket matches in schools would, in time, carry these labels, born though they may have been with them, into the workplace and beyond? But just as economic challenges turned the early 20th century Ceylonese workers against the Indian workers - except those who were in the mountain fastness and were seen as illiterate, docile coolies who could pose no threat in their virtual bondage - post Independence Ceylon saw the resurgent Sinhalese viewing those already different in school as being not only different in the workplace but also a threat in their increasing numbers there. Politicians only kept the pot on the boil and the lumpen votebanks bestirred.

From the early 1950s I watched fears grow and violence threaten, as though preordained. I saw exhortations to violence lead to the traumatic explosion of 1958, from which there would be no retreat. It still remained an island "where every prospect pleases", but, as Bishop Heber felt, "where man alone is vile." I'd never found man vile on the island until the bloodbath of 1958 that's continued ever since. Isn't it time to prove the venerable Bishop wrong?

As these lines are written, there's hope in the air again. A truce has held, the Norwegians think they can play a role that will have everyone listening, and talks are likely to begin in May. But is lasting peace likely? I fervently wish it was, but am far from confident about it. Mainly because any kind of settlement hammered out will be between the Velupillai Prabakaran-led Tamils and the Colombo government. In an island where there are several other schisms, particularly glaring economic divides and significant social differences, I don't see such a two-'party' settlement being acceptable in the long run to the rabble-rousers in the Sinhala Provinces, no matter how much the people may want peace. Too many in southern Sri Lanka want economic security more than peace and most of them are not confident that that will follow, given the track records of successive 'old school tie' Colombo governments from the days of Independence. The southern heartland can indeed be roused into opposing any peace settlement.

As I said earlier, I've for nearly three decades been out of touch with Sri Lankan politics. But as a person who has travelled in every part of the country (in search of heritage and nature's splendid offerings), who still visits the island almost every year and who, more important, keeps in touch regularly with former colleagues and a host of friends of varying political and social hues, I've never been really out of touch with the economic and social realities of the island. And it is in the light of these realities that I think a solution has to be sought and not in the politics of either the South or the North. It is in this context that I offer a suggestion that may need a lot of working on if the slightest merit is seen in it as a way out of a two-homeland solution, but which, as stated here, is a starting point.

It is a suggestion based on the reality that there are many people in several parts of the island much more deprived than those in the Northern and Eastern Provinces. Out of this deprivation, out of the lack of opportunities, was born the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), whose stronghold was one of the most deprived parts of the island, the Southern Province. President Ranasinghe Premadasa had promised to open up the province to economic opportunity. That has still not happened - and the JVP thrives. In the central highlands, the virtually forgotten Indian Tamils, a significant million strong, are even today not very much better off than they were at the time of Independence, although the seeming element of bondage remains only because of a lack of confidence and opportunity. Their neighbours, the Kandyan Sinhalese peasantry who have long seen themselves as distinct from the Low-Country Sinhalese, who quickly succumbed to foreign powers who came to trade but stayed to rule, remain a part of the country less developed than elsewhere. The peasants of the North Central Province, once the granary of the island, now struggle to eke out a living. Sri Lankan prosperity is very much Western and North-Western Province-centred.

And unless that changes radically, there are large Sinhala provincial groups that will not be willing to accept anything given to the Tamil North and East, seeing in such a settlement an opportunity for the once better-developed North and East to develop again, while deprived Sinhala districts remain where they are. The answer to that could well lie in 'Sinhala' provinces being given the same status that is arrived at for the North and the East.

The provincial councils - with little power at the provincial level - are no answer. Nor is an Indian-type of statehood an answer, with a review of our Constitution itself a necessity so that the whole question of States' rights is looked at again in the context of a State having a government of a different political hue from that at the Centre. What is needed - call it what you will: Confederation, Union of Sri Lanka, United States of Sri Lanka - is a set-up that will give each constituent unit the right to build itself up economically and provide greater opportunities to those who live within its bounds.

Broadly speaking, what I am suggesting against this background is:

1) A Central government with its focus on external affairs, defence of the country against external forces, the highest appellate court and a sharing of powers on finance and infrastructure.

2) Three national territorial districts, Colombo and Trincomalee as the two commercial capitals and Jayawardenepura as the national capital.

3) The demarcation of provincial boundaries to get larger, more viable political territories (or States), keeping in mind the commonality of the concerns of the people from one area being merged with another.

A suggested re-demarcation would be:Western Territory

The present Western and North-Western Provinces minus the area north of the Kala Oya.

Southern Territory

The Southern Province, the Ratnapura district of Sabaragamuwa and the Monararagala district of Uva as well as parts of the southern reaches of the Amparai district of the Eastern Province, namely the area between the Senanayake Samudra and Ampara down to Lahugala and the Yala East National Parks.

The Central Territory

The Central Province, the Kegalla district of Sabaragamuwa, the Badulla district of Uva and the little bit of the Eastern Province west of the Maduru Oya reservoir.

The Northeast Territory

The present Northern and Eastern Provinces, minus the National Territory of Trincomalee and the parts of the Amparai and Batticaloa districts added to the Southern Province, but with the Wilpattu National Park, from Tantrimale down to the Kala Oya, and the Trikonamadu to Welikanda area east of the Mahaweli Ganga added on from the NCP and the area north of the Kala Oya from the NWP.

The North Central Territory

As it exists today, minus a bit east of the Mahaweli Ganga, taking in Trikonamadu and Welikanda, and the Wilpattu National Park and the area from Tantrimale down to the Kala Oya.

THE Uva and Sabaragamuwa Provinces are completely done away with in this suggestion. And, of course, several pockets could well be up for negotiation, particularly those mentioned above. A ground social survey in the suggested border areas would lead to a more accurate demarcation of boundaries, but, broadly speaking, I'm talking of three national territories, each with a Mayor and a Council, and five Territories, each with a Chief Minister and elected representatives.

What the electorates are, how elections should be held, and so on are details for negotiation and are to be drawn up finally by constitutional law experts. But the crux of my suggestion is that each Chief Minister of a territory must be more powerful than the Chief Minister of an Indian State when it comes to fiscal, developmental and infrastructural matters. In other words, he must be in the position of being the master of the fate of his territory, with the Centre relieved of that role.

Such a proposal will, I feel, weaken the position of diehard opponents of any kind of North-South settlement who may feel they will not be getting the benefits the North and East might be drawing from any settlement. Given equal status and a chance to enjoy fiscal power and plan their own territory's growth, most of those opposing the present concepts of devolution (which certainly do not go far enough in granting local power and which still ties many of the deprived Sinhala parts of the country to Colombo's apron strings) are likely to find attractive the opportunity to occupy seats of power and make things different in their territories.

Of course, such a far-reaching proposal needs a completely new Constitution, and the Constitution-makers should be representative of not only this territorial regrouping but also of areas with special interests within each territory - the Catholics of the northwest coast, the Muslims of the Eastern Province, the Indian Tamils of the Central Province, for example. There will also no doubt be hard bargaining over boundaries, and particularly in any straightening out exercises that could lead to some villages being moved from one province to a new territory. And there could be, in later years, differences within territories that might lead to a further demarcation and re-designation of a couple of areas as new territories, but if the present suggestion proves economically successful, there might be no cause for even such social concerns to arise.

Possible social concerns are the Mukkuvar-dominated and less developed Eastern Province, with its mixed population wanting to exit from a territory in which the purely Tamil northern districts, dominated by better-educated Vellalas, may be more powerful. Similarly, the people of Indian origin in the Nuwara Eliya district and the southern parts of Badulla district, Uva, though not at odds with the Kandyan peasantry for generations, might want 'out' if ever they begin to look beyond the plantations in larger numbers than at present.

But these are issues that might arise in the future. What the present calls for is a solution that creates territorial units, each of which has considerable opportunity to develop freely and offer its 'citizens' greater opportunities to become economically stronger than they are at present. The constitutional niceties of such a suggestion can be worked out, but to offer such a suggestion not only at the shortly-to-convene negotiating table but to the country at large might be a way of knocking a bit of the wind out of the opponents gathering to voice their disagreement to any solution that leaves a smaller north with greater opportunities in many ways than a larger south with large areas of it having fewer opportunities to grow.

This is no final or lasting suggestion. It's just the germ of an idea from one who cares for Sri Lanka and who feels such an idea has a greater chance of succeeding than provincial councils, President Chandrika Kumaratunga's proposals on devolution, and other suggestions which, while stressing the unity of the island, think only in terms of a Tamil territory and a Sinhala territory that encompasses the rest.

A former senior journalist in Ceylon, S. Muthiah is now more focussed on Madras heritage and environment.