By Rajan Hoole –
Rajan
Sri Lanka: A Haunted Nation – The Social Underpinnings Of Communal Violence– Part 6
“D.S. Senanayake was extremely concerned about ethnic and religious harmony [having the example of the terrible happenings that were going on in India before him].
“Senanayake distrusted India and it was he who took the initiative in having a defence agreement with Britain, a decision which the Left was going to go on sniping at alleging that it showed Ceylon was not totally independent of Britain. He successfully took the Indian plantation workers who kept mi- grating between South India and Ceylon off the voters’ register and was able to get G.G. Ponnambalam [and several other Ceylon Tamils] to vote for this measure…”
He then goes on to add that the plantation labour voted Left and distorted the electoral bal- ance, and that after their disenfranchisement, “The Kandyan Sinhalese rural voter for the first time had a voice in the country’s affairs.”
There is again a simple assumption in the writer’s mind that the rural Kandyan Sinhalese voter was better served by representatives ap- pealing to the nationalist doctrine of the low country Sinhalese elite, rather than to class in- terest. One could also see the place of the Indian bogey in the nationalist doctrine of the ruling interests. If India was the cause for the defence pact with Britain, it points to a flight from real- ity on the part of the local leadership (see Sect. 5.4). Even long after the pact had lost all signifi- cance, Prime Minister Premadasa thought of in- voking it in the 1980s rather than mend fences with India.
It may however come as a surprise to many that, it was D.S. Senanayake himself who had on earlier occasions floated favourably the idea of federation with India. This was recalled by Darem, the Times of India political correspondent (6th May 1952 – Saturday Review 9.8.86). Darem had been told this by D.S. Senanayake in 1942, when, at the height of the Second World War, Ceylon would have been totally isolated but for the Royal (British) Navy and India. Ceylon’s economy was in the doldrums and India’s role was crucial in keeping Ceylon supplied with several essential food items. Senanayake also perceived that it was on India that Ceylon’s long term security interests would depend. What Senanayake sought were certain guarantees of autonomy. The problem was evidently, accord- ing to Darem, that the Indian leaders already had enough on their hands regarding India’s future. After the war, there was a boom in tea and rub- ber prices and it became a different story with a prosperous Ceylon.
The Legacy of the Citizenship Act
We will take a brief look at how inhuman and irrational the citizenship laws of 1948/49 are. We have mentioned that the passage of these laws just about co-incided with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 10th December 1948, Article 15 of which reads: 1.Everyone has the right to a nationality.
2. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality.
The first must necessarily mean that a per- son has the right to nationality in the country in which he is born. To make it conditional on other factors would make it impractical and throw the Law into ridicule as would be seen below.
The Citizenship Act of 1948 stipulates that a person born in Ceylon before 15.11.48 is a citi- zen of Ceylon by descent if the father was born in Ceylon. A person born after 15.11.48 is a citizen by descent if at the time of birth the father was a citizen of Ceylon. These conditions covered a period when the practice of registering births and marriages had not taken root. If the law were to be strictly applied, the majority of the people in this country would have lost their citizenship, including as it was pointed out in Court, the Prime Minister, D.S. Senanayake. Administratively, however, it was the estate population who were targeted, although most rural folk at that time would not have been able to produce a marriage certificate or the father’s birth certificate.
Even more tricky was Article 7 of the Act:- viz. “Every person first found in Ceylon as a newly- born deserted infant of unknown and unascertain- able parentage shall, until the contrary is proved, be deemed to have the status of a Citizen by Descent.”
It was as though the Law made it a privilege to be born a bastard rather than a child of estate parents. Then what of a child born out of wed- lock to a stateless woman through a father who is a citizen by descent? The Law that obliges policemen to snoop around and determine the paternity of a child before confering citizenship makes itself, surely, an ass!
It is thus clear that the right to citizenship in the country in which one is born is a practi- cal necessity that needs to be unconditional. To think otherwise is to lay the foundations for racism, totalitarianism and everything irratio- nal. It was again a practical necessity for newly independent countries to accept as citizens all those living there at the time of independence. Thus from about the time of independence Sri Lanka had abrogated Article 15 of the UDHR. Even more, the UDHR will not countenance a law that creates an absurd category of inhabit- ants called ‘Stateless.’ In passing the Citizen- ship Laws soon after Independence, the ruling class of Sri Lanka created a political culture that was founded on irrationalism and was intel- lectually stunted to begin with. Such were the founding fathers and the foundations of Inde- pendent Ceylon.
For the most part the ruling elite continued to treat Plantation Tamils of recent Indian ori- gin as aliens, and the impetus to give them what was their due, stemmed mainly from the civil war which commenced in the mid-80s. A sum- mary of developments is given in Appendix V.
To be continued..
*From Rajan Hoole‘s “Sri Lanka: Arrogance of Power – Myth, Decadence and Murder”. Thanks to Rajan for giving us permission to republish. To read earlier parts click here
Fathima Fukushima / November 5, 2013
Haunted for Tamils only.
So Tamils should get out before the next 1983.
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Vibhushana / November 5, 2013
Wow! citizenship act so “haunting” isn’t it?
Until 1963 non-Vellalar Tamil could not even enter a Hindu Temple in Jaffna. Indian Tamils could not go past Vavuniya on train towards Jaffna. They would have been simply kicked out of the train. Instead they had to walk for miles carrying their luggage and children through snake infested jungle trek.
Non-Vellalar schools gutted in caste violence. Their children beaten, They were forbidden even to send kids to shcool until Sinhala govt abolished caste discrimination. Even after, the these kids forced to sit on the floor.
These constanly whinning vulgar Vellar frauds commit the worse forms of discrimination don;t they really?
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Razeen / November 5, 2013
Like the BBS and JHU, Vibushanas communalistic emotions seemed to have been stirred by this article. I Cant see what this has to do with vellalar-non-vellalar relationships. This piece clearly refers to the undemocratic and inhumane repercussions resulting from the disenfanchisement of a hapless class of people who happened to be mere victims of circumstance. It also refers to the failure of politicians of the time to find a humane solution to a political problem without materially affecting the lives of thousands of innocent families who were literally thrown into the jaws of the wolf. After all, isnt it the responsibility of the state to safeguard and protect human lives, immaterial of whether they happened to be listed as registered citizens or otherwise?
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Peacelover / November 5, 2013
vibushana apart from the 1st bit where the so called lower caste people could not enter some Hindu temples till the 1960’s the rest of what you say is UTTER BULLSHIT!
How can you even say that people of indian origin were not allowed to go on the train past Vavuniya? do you really think CT readers are modayas to believe that crap
the thing about students not allowed to study is also utter crap from the twisted mind of vibushana!
Please disprove me otherwise mate
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Vibhushana / November 6, 2013
Peace lovaar,
Its all here buddy.
http://www.srilankaguardian.org/2011/07/keeping-tamil-culture-and-uprooting.html
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Peacelover / November 6, 2013
pls dont make me laugh quoting sri lanka guardian is like quoting tamilnet for facts vibushana,thats downright lies and never ever was there issues like low caste people being thrown from moving trains! (pls quote or refer to Sri Law reports old archive Daily News from lakehuse or Police log files to prove otherwise)
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ela kolla / November 5, 2013
This comment was removed by a moderator because it didn’t abide by our Comment policy.For more detail see our Comment policy
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mike / November 5, 2013
Moda kolla, why are you wasting your time, IDIOT?
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ela kolla / November 6, 2013
[Edited out]
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Uthungan / November 6, 2013
It is my believe that the Citizenship Act of 15/11/1948 1948 and the later Indian & Pakistan Citizen Act was a consequence of the results of the elections that took place the previous year when both the left and the CWC combined to obtain a good number of seats to almost equal the majority obtained by the UNP and it’s supporters who consisted mainly of appointed MP’s to look after the interests of the departing British.
The British feared the consequence of economic demands by plantation workers with the workers and peasants in the rest of the country for better wages and living conditions and could have persuaded D.S.Senanayake who was PM at that time to table and pass those anti people Citizenship laws to blunt the edge of Article 15 UDHR of 10th December 1948 by the UN.
The decision of the Privy council in the case of Kodakan Pillai Vs Madanayake is a good example of that.
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