For over 2000 years, Sri Lanka had been a Unitary State. Except during the times of invasions and rebellions, it had been under the rule of one king, who had deputies in the three or four regions of the country. The entire country had a single law, a single law enforcement authority, a single monetary and land policy, a single currency. The power of the King was not devolved to the deputies, but delegated to be carried out on behalf of the King.
Historically, Sri Lanka had three administrative regions, namely, Ruhunu, Pihiti, and Maya. A fourth region, Malaya, which consisted of the central highlands, was added during the latter part of the history.
Once the Western invasions started in the 16th century, this peaceful administrative structure was disrupted. During the colonial era, the country’s original administrative divisions (which were based on natural boundaries and natural resources available) were totally disregarded, and new, arbitrary divisions were created for the ease of tax collection and governance. The number of such divisions gradually increased to nine (instead of the original three) and paved the way to the present Provinces of Sri Lanka.
Even after 1948, when we became semi-independent, and after 1972, when we became fully independent, the leaders of the country totally disregarded the need to go back to the original governing structure of the country. Foolhardily sticking to the arbitrary divisions created by the Western rulers proved to be disastrous, as evident by the call for a separate Tamil homeland.
Nevertheless, Sri Lanka remained a unitary state right throughout, and this was specifically mentioned in the Constitution. The provinces were neither given political powers nor considered as a proper administrative division. The administrative divisions were Districts, and the political powers were with the Urban, Town, and Village councils. There were few modifications recently, but all these essentially remained the arms of the Central government.
However, with the Indian invasion of Sri Lanka in 1987 in order to save the LTTE terrorists from total destruction in the hands of Sri Lankan armed forces, and subsequent political interventions, what is widely known as the 13th Amendment to the Constitution of Sri Lanka was forced upon the Sri Lankans by India. This paved way to create a political structure in the provinces known as the Provincial Councils.
The political powers thus far enjoyed solely by the Government of Sri Lanka were split between it and the Provincial Councils, while some were shared between both. This led to a total chaos in many areas, and the Provincial Councils became simple breeding grounds for the next generation of politicians without serving any other purpose.
On the other hand, although the Provincial Councils were forced on Sri Lanka by India as a mean to solve the Tamil extremism, it did not function in the two provinces where it was originally intended, the Northern and Eastern provinces. In the other Provinces it simply led to more corruption and disruption of the developmental activities.
With the total annihilation of the Tamil terrorists in 2009 by the Sri Lankan armed forces, there is growing international pressure as well as the pressure from the local Tamil political parties to fully implement the 13th Amendment and to give wider powers (including the rights of land allocation and police powers) to the Provincial councils, especially the Northern and Eastern Provincial Councils.
For years Sri Lanka has been infested with the proponents of either Devolution or Federalism. Both these foreign systems are in fact quite unsuitable for Sri Lanka and its situation.
Devolution is generally used to settle a power vacuum by either external properties of a nation or presence of indigenous people. Such systems were applied in dealing with Scotland and Northern Ireland by the British Government after annexing these to the England and Wales. On the other hand, Federalism is used to amalgamate different nations and kingdoms etc to form a single country or nation. An example of this is India, where many smaller states, governed independently by numerous rulers including Maharajas and Sultans, where put together to form a single entity. Another good example is Germany, where many Germanic tribes where united to create Federal Germany.
Devolution is the statutory granting of powers from the central government of a country to a government at a sub-national level, such as at regional or provincial level. It differs from federalism in that the powers devolved may be TEMPORARY and ultimately reside with the central government, thus the state remains, de jure, UNITARY.
Federalism is a political philosophy in which a group of members are bound together (Latin: foedus = covenant), with a governing representative head. The term federalism is also used to describe a system of the government in which sovereignty is constitutionally DIVIDED between a central governing authority and constituent political units (such as states, regions, or provinces). Federalism is a system in which the POWER to GOVERN is SHARED between Central and the sub-national state/regional/provincial governments, creating what is often called a federation.
Unfortunately the ‘Devolution’ that the so called liberals promote is no different from federalism in its functions. They propose to fully implement the 13th amendment (with wider powers given to the Provincial governments) as a first step of devolution. With wider powers including the Police powers granted, these provinces will be able to take legal actions to remove military bases from the lands under their governance and use the police to obtain their political ends. One does not need to be overly intelligent to understand what such a situation can do to a country infested with lunatic racist Politicians – the Northern and Eastern provinces will once again be a breeding ground for another group of terrorists.
It is difficult to understand why Sri Lanka needs any form of power devolution. This expected power devolution is suggested as a mean to solve the so called “grievances” of the Tamil people in Sri Lanka (although no one can specifically point to a single grievance that is peculiar to the Tamil people - and strangely enough, the Muslim community in Sri Lanka, who also speak Tamil, has never claimed themselves to suffer from any grievances, indicating that this is only a propaganda by the Tamil extremists to create an independent Tamil State). However, The Tamils in Sri Lanka (both local and Indian) make up less than 18% of the population, and all Indian Tamils and 55% of the local Tamils live in the areas outside the above two provinces - which means that the Tamils living in those two provinces amount to less then 6% of the country’s population. On the other hand, all other provinces in the country are rather congested and environmentally sensitive, and as a result, all the lands that can be safely allocated for further human settlements, agriculture, and developmental activities are in the Northern and Eastern provinces, which contain 1/3 of the country’s land area and 2/3 of the coast.
Those who propose this wider power devolution to the above provinces cannot answer the simple mathematical question – How can power devolution to North and East solve the so called “Tamil grievances”, when only 30% of the all Tamils live in those two provinces. How could this relieve the grievances of the other 70% of the Tamils living in other areas of the country?
Therefore, it is obvious that such power devolution will not only fail to solve any problems the Tamils have, if any, but also be a hindrance to the development of the country as with wider powers the provinces can block any developmental activity proposed by the Central Government. On the other hand it is also not fair at all to solely allocate 40% of the country’s land area and 65% of the coast to less than 6% of the population. Further, such power devolution will also endanger the national security of the country.
We believe that the Tamils have no special grievances as mentioned (and will be very happy if someone can enlighten us in this regard), and if they do have any special issues, such cannot be solved by devolving political powers to the provinces. If there are any issues relating to the language etc, it is an administrative issue of the Civil Service and has nothing to do with political powers. All that has to be done in that case is to streamline the civil administration.
As a nation, we have learned many bitter lessons in the hard way. And we very well know the important role Sri Lanka plays in the changing geo-political scenarios of the world. We also know that the many Western countries as well as the neighbouring India have their own political and defence agenda and Sri Lanka is a critical issue in those. In that light we have no doubt about the long-term motives of these countries that pressurise us to devolve political power.
After the decades of terrorism, and centuries of foreign interferences, we do not need any more Trojan Horses.
Simply in a nutshell, what Lanka needs now is 'Development' NOT 'Devolution'...!!
Protect Sri Lanka – Say “No” to Power Devolution...!!
