By Vishwamithra –

“And yet to every bad, there is a worse.” ~Thomas Hardy

Local Tamil leadership doesn’t trust a single Sinhalese political leader. At every juncture and every decisive moment of our history, when their rights and privileges were on line, Tamil leadership insists that they were disenchanted with successive Sinhalese politicians. In a long line of disappointments and abandonment, the maiden culprits were the collective leadership of the then Ceylon National Congress in 1921.

Sir Ponnambalam Arunachalam, in 1875 became the first Ceylonese to enter the Ceylon Civil Service. After a very lucrative career as a Civil Servant, Arunachalam entered politics and was instrumental in the formation of Ceylon National Congress (CNC) and as its founder President, was held in highest esteem by all Ceylonese leaders irrespective of ethnicity, caste or religion. Hailing from the so-called ‘Royal Family’ of Jaffna, Arunachalam and his elder brother Sir Ponnambalam Ramanathan could be credited for many an initiative in then pre-independent Ceylon and her Sinhalese-dominated leadership; they worked with hand-in-glove understanding and cooperation with Sinhalese leaders. The Ponnambalam brothers’ engagement in nationally significant issues has never been matched by the successive generations of Tamil leaders.

However, Arunachalam left the CNC in 1921 following disputes about communal representation in the Legislative Council, which Arunachalam opposed, and the connivance of Sinhalese politicians which resulted in no Tamils being elected from Western Province at the 1921 legislative council election. He founded the Ceylon Tamil League in 1923. 

All those Sinhalese ‘giants’, including FR and DS Senanayake and Sir James Peiris must bear the brunt of responsibility for reneging on the pledges they collectively gave Arunachalam at the time. Yet when Ceylon gained Independence in 1948, Tamil leadership has changed hands and GG Ponnambalam, the leading lawyer at the Hulftsdorp was the leader of Ceylon’s Tamils and he was part of DS Senanayake’s second Cabinet of Ministers. After the introduction of the Ceylon Citizenship Act of 1948 whereby disenfranchisement of Indian Tamils who worked and lived in the Hill Country and other tea plantation areas came into effect, the national political landscape changed. The distrust that occurred in 1921 was unmistakably justified; after two abortive pacts (Bandaranaike-Chelvanayakam Pact and Dudley Senanayake-Chelvanayakam Pact) between the leaderships of the Sinhalese-dominated governments of SWRD Bandaranaike and Dudley Senanayake and SJV Chelvanayakam had rendered much hope for the Tamil community also served to dim the dreams of domination by the Sinhalese community.

A thirty-year war ensued and many lives were lost on both sides. Instead of undertaking serious reconciliation efforts, the Sinhalese majority resumed their indulgence in abject triumphalism. The Rajapaksa brothers displayed infinite tendency to dominate the minority and the then Opposition led by Ranil Wickremesinghe kept aloof of these radical bureaucratic machinations and political intrigues.       

Tamil’s disillusion with the Sinhalese-led Ceylon National Congress after the departure of Arunachalam has continued to date. Even after the cessation of hostilities between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE) led by Velupillai Prabhakaran and Sri Lankan military forces, the distrust and the feel of suspicion between the two communities have not advanced towards reconciliation. The savagery of racial mistrust has taken its murderous toll. Consequently, either within the Halls of Parliament or outside of it, discussion or propensity for propitiation is outright cast-off by both communities as it is portrayed as appeasement. In the context of the National Question of Tamils, no political leader, either of Sinhalese or Tamil origin, would be willing and ready to be called by their respective electorate as an appeaser.

This is the context within which the Himalaya Declaration has been presented as an initiative, a first of so many initiatives to follow the end of the ‘war’ for the electorate to consider and reconsider as a stimulation for the forthcoming Presidential or Parliamentary Elections. In the midst of economic chaos and near-financial collapse, reintroduction of such a polarizing issue could be either destructive or even more meaningful for the eager voter to consider- the issue of reconciliation between the two main communities in the country. It’s such a double-edged knife and its user may cut the fruit in half or injure himself the wounds of which may ultimately cost his life.

The writer has been reliably informed that this initiative, Himalaya Declaration, is a first step towards reconciliation. At the very outset it calls for: “A Sri Lanka where every individual can live peacefully with dignity, trust, and no fear or suspicion, enjoying equal rights.” However, towards the establishment of such a society and such objective conditions, the Declaration spells out in six (6) separate Statements, a basic modus operandi (MO). These Statements may be already embedded in our present Constitution; substitution of some different words with a more non-legal sense may serve a purpose in that legalistic verbiage of a typical Constitution may not be understandable to the ordinary man. Nevertheless, the repetition of what is already existent in our Constitution might be considered redundant at best.

Himalaya Declaration has two distinct aspects, especially if and when it is accepted by a majority of our people. One, it has to be, if final after amendments, additions and subtractions, closely scrutinized by a panel of constitutional, legal and civil experts. Two, it has to be acceptable and endorsed by our leading political parties who will be the ultimate ensurers as well an executives who would put into action and practice when and if they come to power.

I do not belong to the first category of experts on constitutional affairs and gladly leave it to the luminaries of respective subjects. However, when it comes to political interpretations and practicalities of implementations, I might have some cents to add.

In the aftermath of the 30-year War, the aforementioned polarization of the two main communities has deepened and that depth of polarization has caused immense destruction to the harmonious style of living in the first half of the twentieth century. The Ponnambalam brothers, the Senanayake brothers, Jayewardenes and the Bandaranaikes are no more. Nor is the Westminster system of governance where the Prime Minister, the first among equals in a Cabinet-run government, could gain or lose popularity and could be replaced at the next elections. The Executive Presidency has displaced commonly accepted norms and replaced the answerability of the bureaucracy to the Cabinet of Ministers and Parliament to an all-knowing President.

J R Jayewardene, our first President did not depend on a non-elected Presidential Secretariat. He did not have such a massive Secretariat. His advisors were a collection of some smart Ministers of the then Cabinet. R Premadasa who was the Prime Minister, Gamini Dissanayake, Lalith Athulathmudali, Ronnie de Mel and Nissanka Wijeratne were his advisors on governance. Cyril Mathew may have been  one of his close friends and advisors on subjects outside the governance subject, but was not part of his inner Cabinet. Amongst J R’s inner non-political advisors were such giants as NGP Panditharatne, Lal Jayawardene his brother the eminent lawyers HW Jayewardene and JAL Cooray. In fact Professor SJ Wilson, Chelvanayakam’s son-in-law was one of his closest advisors on constitutional affairs.

The advent of the Premadasa-era changed everything for good. Premadasa instituted a massive Presidential Secretariat that included among others a Lawrence Mafia to persecute his political rivals. Chandrika Bandaranaike’s (CBK) thoroughly forgettable government did not do any better and her successors, Mahinda and Gotabaya further expanded on the Presidential powers; we are now totally entrenched in that pit that was first created by JR Jayewardene as ‘Executive Presidency’.

Himalaya Declaration does not spell out a method of doing away with Executive Presidency. In such a circumstance, it is most fundamental and vital that, in order to establish and expand on reconciliation between Tamils and Sinhalese, the trustworthiness of our leaders matters and it matters most profusely. Inclusion of a sub-clause or sub-statement endorsing abolition of Executive President system from our Constitution must precede everything. In the absence of a replacement of Executive President and reintroduction of a Prime Minister-led government might arrest the attention of the masses and it was evidenced during the Aragalaya-22 period.

At every level, whether President, Prime Minister, Minster, Provincial Councilor or a Pradesheeya Sabha member and the general bureaucracy, the one who exercises executive power is at the core of all our issues. Breakdown of discipline, non-pursuit of financial and administrative goals, lethargy,  rampant tardiness, rearing and uncontrolled corruption and nepotism can all be sourced to the basic prowess or powers of the Executive.

Hence, my submission is that the Himalaya Declaration’s main thrust should be to society as a whole. Introduction of Acts, laws, legislations and various Bills need to empower and buttress the foundation of society at large. Such a society might have the chance to create conditions from which shall emerge real leaders, if not dozens at least one or two who will take the baton and run to the finish-line.

Then we will have those great sculptors and poets, those pioneering engineers and architects and above all simple men and women at whose feet one can fall without shame or fear.                           

*The writer can be contacted at vishwamithra1984@gmail.com