{"id":5452,"date":"2012-03-09T00:19:43","date_gmt":"2012-03-09T00:19:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/colombotelegraph.com\/?p=5452"},"modified":"2012-04-04T12:58:42","modified_gmt":"2012-04-04T12:58:42","slug":"four-blind-men-and-the-devolution-elephant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/four-blind-men-and-the-devolution-elephant\/","title":{"rendered":"Four Blind Men And The Devolution Elephant"},"content":{"rendered":"

By C. Wijeyawickrema<\/strong>\u00a0–<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cAll human progress has depended on \u2018new questions\u2019 rather than on \u2018new answers\u2019 to the old\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>questions.”<\/strong>\u00a0<\/em>Alfred North White \u2014 Science and the Modern World, 1925<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em>The reactions to the LLRC report, on the subject of institutional, administrative and legislative measures need to be taken to promote national unity, remind the parable of the four blind men and the elephant. \u00a0For example, the section on the subject of \u201cthe need for devolution of power\u201d (8.212-8.226) generated different interpretations depending on the hidden or open agenda of the respective writer\/speaker. \u00a0Those who once took the position that \u201cthis war is not winnable\u201d or \u201cSri Lanka will soon be a failed state\u201d are now solidly behind the LLRC report because they think that what LLRC meant by \u201cdevolution\u201d was the same type of \u201cdevolution\u201d that they then agitated for. On the other hand, those who remember the word \u201cdevolution\u201d of the Package Deals and the APRC-majority report phase, are so frightened and blinded by it to not see that LLRC\u2019s term of devolution speaks of \u201cempowerment\u201d of people by \u201cpeople-centric devolution\u201d (9.231) and by \u201cmaximum possible devolution to the periphery especially at the grass roots level\u201d (8.225).<\/p>\n

Additionally, there are local and international agents who see a separatist loophole if LLRC devolution begins with land and police powers given to the white elephant called the Provincial Councils. Thus, there is a need to examine the Chapter 8 of LLRC report on \u201cReconciliation\u201d with an open mind. There are three interrelated paths and approaches that can be taken to examine, understand and justify empowerment of people via devolution as suggested by LLRC.\u00a0 The three merging paths are (1) the Buddhist Middle Path, (2) the Bio-regional Path (geography-ecology) and (3) the Reasonableness (Doctrine) Path in western jurisprudence.<\/p>\n

LLRC\u2019s historic role<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

LLRC had a historical mission to fulfill. Only two other commissions come closer to LLRC in its landmark role: the Colebrooke-Cameron Report in 1832 and the Donoughmore Report in 1931.<\/p><\/div>\n

LLRC had a historical mission to fulfill. \u00a0Only two other commissions come closer to LLRC in its landmark role: the Colebrooke-Cameron Report in 1832 and the Donoughmore Report in 1931. The first introduced constitutional communalism and the colonial policy of divide-and-rule. It created an administrative unit system based on artificial boundaries, a case of \u201clegislating against geography.\u201d\u00a0 The purpose then was to \u201cdiffuse\u201d the influence of the Kandyan chiefs who rebelled against the British crown in 1818, and to give easy access to the white master to control and exploit remoter, undeveloped areas. \u00a0The second, tried to \u201cun-do\u201d one hundred years of communal representation by introducing territorial representation based on the principle of adult universal suffrage. This was an experiment that USA and UK implement in their own countries only a few years ago, after much agitation by women\u2019s organizations.<\/p>\n

In \u201cCeylon,\u201d local \u201csomebodies and nobodies\u201d opposed universal voting right stating it was like giving razor blades to monkeys.\u00a0 Some minority leaders opposed it and the new electoral system as it made the majority community the majority in the legislative body.\u00a0 In reality, members of the former Legislative Council and members of local aristocratic families in the \u201cvillage Ceylon\u201d contested seats of the State Council.\u00a0 Except in few cases, these prominent (feudal?) families \u201crepresented\u201d people in the Parliament until the new district-based proportional selection system was introduced in the 1980s.\u00a0 With this, the representation vehicle hitherto known as the electorate \/ward lost its democratic value and purpose. \u00a0It is now known as \u201cthe dog fight for preferential votes,\u201d a system promoting undesirable characters to contest via the party candidates\u2019 list. \u00a0This is a fundamental flaw in democracy and governance of Sri Lanka, an issue of basic human rights of all communities that LLRC could have wrestled with in greater detail.<\/p>\n

The representative parliamentary democracy is facing a crisis, world-wide, some branding it as myth of democracy. \u00a0The Youth Commission Report of 1999, that LLRC cites in its report was an admission of the dismal failure of the representative system in operation in Sri Lanka since 1931. \u00a0LLRC missed a historical opportunity to examine these issues in a new light by asking new questions such as why there is spatial inequality (inequity) in Sri Lanka that respects no language or ethnic boundaries and how it could be mitigated. <\/strong>\u00a0Spatially, one has to go beyond such metaphors like \u201cmilk to Colombo, forage to villages\u201d (JVP in 1971) or \u201cGive us what Colombo gets\u201d (Col. Karuna in 2006) to GSN (village) level to understand lack of opportunities and environmental degradation prevalent in the country. \u00a0Reports of faster economic growth at country level hide spatial inequities that exist at local scale. Rapid economic growth itself can cause spatial disparities in human happiness, if not carefully planned. \u00a0However, spatial injustice in Sri Lanka is not race-based unlike in the USA where for example, environmental racism exists.<\/p>\n

Dancing to new Eurocentric tunes\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n

Most of the witnesses who appeared before LLRC displayed an ingrained Eurocentric bias (Europe provides superior solutions) in their thinking. \u00a0In the 1840s Macaulay said, \u201c[in India] we must at present do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern; a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect\u201d (<\/em>Macaulay: The Shaping of the Historian by John Clive, Random House, 1973, p.376). \u00a0He also asked, \u201c\u2026Who could deny that a single<\/em> shelf of a good European library was worth the whole literature of India and Arabia <\/em>(p. 372)?\u00a0 With this superiority complex, despite dismal performance of their own representative capitalist democracies, European and American politicians continue to interfere in the affairs of former colonies devastated by the colonial policy of divide and rule. Their new tune directly relevant in the Sri Lankan context is the strategy called \u201cmeaningful devolution\u201d by way of \u201cunmajoritarian institutions<\/em>.\u201d \u00a0This method promoted by white Eurocentric writers like Donald Horowitz creates regional ethnic minority elites and slowly weakens the central governments in former colonies (it may take a decade or two or more), until a new Kosovo or South Sudan (or even a separate country of Scotland) is established splitting countries. Thus, the new policy of creating \u201cunmajoritarian institutions\u201d<\/em> is a \u201csanitized\u201d version of the old divide and rule policy, providing ladders to separatist monkeys to carve out separate countries at each other\u2019s throat. \u00a0Already, South Sudan started an internal war.<\/p>\n

The real democracy of empowering people (not separatist party politicians) locally is not in this new Eurocentric formula. This formula stops at regional ethnic politicians\u2019 level and it failed in Nigeria and Lebanon, two cases that Horowitz used to cite as success stories. \u00a0It is also interesting to note that in his writings Horowitz did not mention even once the concept of Panchayathi Raj Institutes in India based on consensus politics (God speaks in five, if five people agree, god is with them) not western party politics of throat-cutting competition. \u00a0Sri Lankan villagers are today divided so hopelessly due to green, blue and red party politics.\u00a0 Fortunately, LLRC did not buy the \u201cHorowitz path\u201d of devolution which would \u201cempower\u201d Tamil separatist TNA politicians.\u00a0 Instead, LLRC promotes meaningful empowerment of people at the village level to deal with social, economic and spatial inequities prevalent in the island.<\/p>\n

Spatial inequality<\/strong><\/p>\n

The colonial strategy of portraying natives as savages (ref. \u201catrocity literature\u201d in Breaking India: Western Interventions in Dravidian and Dalit Faultlines <\/em>by R. Malhotra, 2011, p. 5) as part of the general design of humiliation of natives (psychological versus military subjugation) is currently presented as gross violators of international human rights needing R2P. \u00a0Under the new remote-controlled colonialism it is projected with a new twist as group rights and aspirations.\u00a0 Thus we know via the Wiki leaks that the American Embassy in Colombo was worried about Tamils losing interest in group rights or aspirations, (secret cable sent from Colombo embassy on 1\/15\/2010). \u00a0Eurocentric thinking requires \u201cusing\u201d the individual to get to the group to plant the seeds of dissension within countries. Western university professors and think-tanks spend decades formulating theories and implementing strategies such as the R2P.<\/p>\n

Instead of asking \u201cHow can we help Tamils and Muslims to achieve their aspirations,\u201d LLRC could have asked, \u201cWhy most spatial units (districts, electorates, natural regions, villages or GSN units) in Sri Lanka are not developed?\u201d because poverty is not just a Tamil or Muslim problem. \u00a0In that case it could have led LLRC to ask further questions such as \u201cWhat actions are needed to help the Mahinda Chinthanaya Program (MCP) I & II to fight Sri Lanka\u2019s second war, the war against poverty and spatial inequity?\u201d \u00a0Or, rather than language rights or international human rights, LLRC could have focused on the issue of \u201cspatial rights\u201d or \u201cspatial justice.\u201d Tamils in villages are not asking \u201cgroup rights.\u201d They want water, roads, schools, more busses, railway line, radios, bridges, TVs, bicycles and hospitals. That was what I saw recently in Vavuniya, Ampara and Passara when I visited Tamil areas. When they have these basic human needs, they will copy Maslow\u2019s hierarchy of needs and intelligently think on their own if an aspiration to have a separate Tamil country in Sri Lanka is viable, possible or desirable. Otherwise, what can happen (happening) is Tamil and non-Tamil selfish separatist politicians, local and foreign, trying to manipulate innocent Tamils and Muslims villagers to satisfy their ulterior aims.<\/p>\n

What LLRC cannot do<\/strong><\/p>\n

Promoting group aspirations is a fluid (controversial) issue world-wide, for an agency like LLRC to get involved with.\u00a0 Group aspirations of different communities often clash with each other such as Turkey wanting to join the Christian EU which France vehemently opposes.\u00a0 Group aspiration is a matter secondary to individual aspirations.\u00a0 It is a duty to one\u2019s community that individuals try to fulfill after the individual\u2019s private rights are satisfied. Having a hygienic, clean toilet at home is different from building one in a public place for group-use. One can have a shrine room at home adjoining a Muslim neighbor but a group aspiration to build a Hindu temple next to a Mosque can clash with Muslim aspirations. Simply stated, LLRC could have suggested better things for a better future for the country.<\/p>\n

No amount of paragraphs in the LLRC report on human rights and white flags can satisfy the international crowd asking the flesh of pound from Sri Lanka for humiliating the politicians of the white west in April 2009.\u00a0 Foreign ministers David Miliband and Bernard Kushner heard from Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa words that can be described as the end of humiliation paradigm used till then by white colonial masters to mentally subjugate Asians and Africans. \u00a0Yet, their long term plan to derail Sri Lanka cannot be stopped by any number of LLRC reports.\u00a0 Thinking this was possible LLRC tried to bend over backwards and made several unwanted mistakes.<\/p>\n

Tamil separatism in Sri Lanka began in the 1920s and in 1949 and not in 1956, 1976 or 1983. \u00a0Mentioning later years omitting former years is like not telling the whole truth. Tamil expats from Sri Lanka are not diaspora like the Jews who lost a homeland.\u00a0 The first thing done by those who went as asylum seekers when they got a new passport was to make a pleasure trip to Sri Lanka!\u00a0 Making any statements on the 13th<\/sup> Amendment is like eating curd using a razor knife. It is unfortunate that LLRC members did not know that 13-A was an imposition on Sri Lanka, the communal concept implemented in India by the 1935 Government of India Act. 13-A accepts that in the island there is a traditional Tamil homeland. \u00a0How did LLRC lawyers miss this?\u00a0 To suggest solutions to current socio-economic, moral and ethical issues in Sri Lanka 13-A path is not needed. In fact 13-A is now part of the problem.<\/p>\n

The tragedy of the commons<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong>LLRC was given a mandate to recommend ways and means to prevent language and race-related violence and to promote unity and peace in the country. \u00a0If it directed its attention on the spatial justice needs of Sri Lankan people, not the human rights laws and group aspiration-agitations of the foreign separatist crowd, it would not have missed the \u201cmoment of unprecedented opportunity Sri Lanka Faces.\u201d\u00a0 Citing \u201ctriumphalism\u201d is like looking for scapegoats to please the separatist lobby.<\/p>\n

After May 19, 2009, Sri Lanka\u2019s burning issues are not of language, race or religious nature.\u00a0 Yes, people in the Colombo City and others urban areas are suffering from the fear psychosis that they went through for 30 years. Parents split the family into two in travelling so that at least 50% will survive if a bomb in a bus kills the other 50%.\u00a0 The parent at home was listening to the radio wondering if a bomb blast took place near her child\u2019s school. Some thought of erecting a wall around the house, not knowing that they only created their own little prisons.\u00a0 Coming back to Sri Lanka after 33 years I see these \u201cprisoners\u201d daily on the road, in the bus, inside three wheelers and cars. There is the temporary pleasure of being secure inside a car or was able to get a seat in the bus after a momentous struggle! \u00a0In Maharagama, Wattala, Panadura, Kiribathgoda or Dehiwala dust, smoke and noise pollution is unbelievable. People throw garbage bags on to the road in front of the house \u201cprotected\u201d by the wall and stray dogs spread them all over.\u00a0 A kind of Darwinian survival of the fittest exists and people may not know that they still suffer from a hidden, sub-conscious fear of death. \u00a0A tragedy of the commons phenomenon is visible everywhere.<\/p>\n

Sri Lanka is America <\/strong><\/p>\n

Creating a new Senate or having more Tamil policemen or other such things will not bring peace and prosperity to Sri Lanka. The urgent and hopeless issues in Sri Lanka are not different from the problems the average American faces in the USA.\u00a0 Public education, health care, child care, elderly care, industrial pollution, air and water pollution, gridlock on highways, lack of public transportation, overcrowded prisons, cancer-causing chemicals in food supply, obesity, teenage pregnancy, corruption in the legal system and lawyers, exploitation of patients by medical doctors are some from a short list. What are ground level daily issues in Sri Lanka?\u00a0 It is definitely not ethnic rivalry. School education, higher education, private tuition mania, exploitation of patients by medical doctors, health care, village and city roads, garbage disposal, bribe culture in government, provincial and local government offices and crime and corruption are some examples.\u00a0 Schools without water or at least one toilet cannot impart free education. The tragedy of the commons, selfish-personal gain by private individuals or public corporations at the expense of public goods and the corresponding societal moral decay is what LLRC should have spent time. \u00a0This has taken place over a period of sixty years. No government can handle this mess on its own.<\/p>\n

LLRC cannot expect any reasonable outcomes unless the electoral system is changed and the public service is overhauled with performance evaluation and merit promotion installed.\u00a0 Ordinary citizens have no place to go for normal\/usual services.\u00a0 They have to either know somebody in an office or give a bribe to somebody in an office. Increasing numbers in the government service or increase in expenditure on government projects cannot erase the frustration people have about the moral and ethical decay taken place in the country.\u00a0 If the head of unit is out shopping can we expect the clerks of that unit to be at the desk or not on cell phone for hours?\u00a0 Despite preaching by ministers this is reality what I saw and heard.\u00a0 How can we provide incentives to the public servants to serve better and how can we remove corrupt behavior with disincentives (carrot and stick) should be the number one priority.\u00a0 This is a key issue that LLRC should have handled. \u00a0The introduction of mandatory income\/assets declaration by public servants, open to citizen scrutiny; community service method of punishment for crimes against society such as bribery and corruption; removal of illegal weapons in the hands of people and the <\/em>utilization of military for civilian construction purposes are matters that need attention for any serious progress.<\/p>\n

All kinds of development work have been taking place in Sri Lanka today.\u00a0 But similar work of national magnitude was attempted in the past by Mrs. B, Dudley S, and R. Premadasa respectively. How efficient and effective were they? \u00a0Did officers act as \u201cyes\u201d men and women and deceive politicians? \u00a0Or were there systemic defects that even dedicated officers cannot succeed? \u00a0Development work cannot be successful unless it improves the living standards of the local people impacted by it. That is the yardstick of progress.<\/p>\n

Empowerment of people<\/strong><\/p>\n

There is one quick action the government can take to implement LLRC recommendations on devolution if it understands that spatial inequality, not racial inequality as the problem in Sri Lanka\u00a0 (Teaching Tamil and Sinhala to school children will remove within ten years any opportunity Tamil or Muslim politicians now have in trying to manipulate Tamil-speaking \u00a0people). This depends on how free the government is from Eurocentric thinking. The government needs to reconsider implementing the Jana Sabah concept based on polling station or GSN unit-level data. \u00a0Reminiscent of the Road Development Committees or Sanitary Boards during the early colonial times what Sri Lanka needs today is grass roots level non-political party entities elected to handle basic needs of people such as garbage disposal, road building and maintenance closer to home dwellings, basic health services, quality improvements in schools, prevention of soil erosion and environmental conservation and cooperative efforts to protect local farmers and producers from exploitation. Election of ten members per each entity and then one from such entity making an electorate level unit\u00a0 proceeding further up to the national level with whom the President of the country can have direct communication. This plan can be implemented by creating an office reporting directly to the president. \u00a0A separate ministry or a department not needed.<\/p>\n

This idea is not new (Maga Naguma<\/em> and Divi Naguma<\/em> are two programs on these lines). Several witnesses presented similar concepts for consideration by LLRC. This is the simplest and most effective way to monitor how big projects impact on local communities and to give people an opportunity to decide and control their day to day affairs. Each unit will prepare a land use map (plan) for their locality and monitor how government and NGO projects are implemented in their area. If a contractor is corrupt and doing sub-standard work local committee can prevent it. If school teachers are not teaching and promoting private tuition the local committee can interfere via parent-teacher associations or old school boys\/girls association. \u00a0Education ministers cannot solve these problems. \u00a0If people are dumping garbage on to the road, local committee can take action against them.\u00a0 There is no doubt that politicians of all shapes would not like this idea, but Sri Lanka cannot become a Singapore in economic development and cleanliness if local people are not linked with the governance structure. \u00a0At present there are no checks and balances to prevent political and official corruption rampant at the local (local government and GSN) level.\u00a0 A citizen affected by inefficiency of a local government, district, provincial or central government officer must be able to go to the local non-political party committee for redress.<\/p>\n

Get people behind the government<\/strong><\/p>\n

The empowerment of people at the grass roots level needs to be done not because LLRC recommended it but because it is a political strategy available to this government to prevent international attempts to derail it using local agents.\u00a0 All kinds of misinformation campaigns, SMS with half-truths, networks capitalizing on government defects are seeping down to people spoiling their minds. Some are even dreaming of an Arab Spring, because what they see around them is local politicians making money! People are helpless and they have nowhere to go.\u00a0 Even a good pot of milk can tolerate only a few drops of dung such as Mervin Silva and his council members or Duminda Silva and the murder of a fellow politician.\u00a0 In this context the Subharathi<\/em> national radio program is like trying to empty a lake with a table spoon. <\/strong><\/p>\n

The need to empower people at the grass root level is not just a political strategy to meet the external threat backed by local separatist agents. \u00a0It is a necessity to protect people\u2019s democracy while promoting sustainable development.\u00a0 In the West, local level administration was done by counties and parishes for generations which are more recently supplemented by groundwater management districts, river basin management districts and more specific functional districts such as solid waste management districts. \u00a0In New Zealand, a smaller country like Sri Lanka, all local administrative units are demarcated using river basins as boundaries. \u00a0Long before think globally, act locally became a popular concept Sri Lankan society was guided since antiquity by a sustainable development-related trinity of village, water tank and the temple. \u00a0Ironically, what western professors are now prescribing to Sri Lanka and other countries are so similar to the principles enshrined in the concept of trinity of ancient Sri Lankan society. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Sustainable development via three merging paths<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Jana Sabha or Gam Sabha (or GSN unit level peoples\u2019 committees) system can be justified utilizing three interrelated approaches. The Horowitz path (the infamous 13-A is an example of Horowitz path) can be easily dismissed as unwanted burdens (inviting to home snakes crawling yonder) placed on this tiny island nation by any one of these approaches. \u00a0Presented as a model the three approaches (paths) are like the three sides of a triangle. \u00a0The base of it is the moral and ethical foundation of a society. \u00a0In the West, it is the Judo-Christian norms and values. In Sri Lanka this base has been Buddhism. \u00a0In Figure 1 below the three sides of the triangle are listed as three columns. \u00a0The sides of a smaller triangle inside the larger triangle indicate action, perception and location. Location is also described as space or place.\u00a0 Inside this triangle at the center is the triangle of spatial inequality, a result of not following or abusing the three paths.\u00a0 By following them inequality and inequity could be erased allowing Sustainable development to take root. The close affinity that exists between law and geography on the one hand and between law and Buddhism on the other in their applied interface generating socio-economic processes creating spatial (geographical) patterns deserves careful scrutiny by all who genuinely wish for a prosperous Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n

Figure 1: Three merging approaches (paths) to mitigate spatial inequality<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
\n

LAW<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

GEOGRAPHY<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

BUDDHISM<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

Doctrine of Reasonableness<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Bioregionalism<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

The Middle Path<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

Doctrine of Separation of Powers<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Ecology<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Mind\/Matter<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

Rights\/Duties<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Human Scale<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Individual<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

Group Rights<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Social Capital<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Family\/Society<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

Action<\/em><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

location (space\/place)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

perception<\/em><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n

>Spatial Inequality<<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

<Sustainable Development><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Law, geography and Buddhism<\/strong><\/p>\n

The reasonableness doctrine in law and the Middle Path in Buddhism are like the two sides of a coin. What is reasonable has a geographical context\u2014in some places people eat dog meat, in some other places stray dogs are not eliminated\u2014and the kinds and types of some \u00a0activities of the Eight Fold Path are also influenced by the human and physical geography of an area.<\/p>\n

Whether it is reasonable to think of separate homelands\u00a0 or demarcate language-based or religion-based spatial units considering the population geography of Tamils and Muslims in Sri Lanka becomes a legal as wells as a geographical issue that goes beyond separatist politics by non-Buddhists.\u00a0 When ethnic distribution is like a scrambled egg is it not better to have smaller spatial units so that ethnicity pockets have an opportunity to have full local representation?\u00a0 For example, in the Panadura electorate there are at least three Muslim pockets: Totawatta, Sarikkammulla and Eluwila.\u00a0 A GSN unit-based division will allow Muslim majority units, which the Sinhala people in proximity will not consider as an ethnic threat, unless Islam extremists from overseas try to spoil them.\u00a0 Muslims will have to be reasonable in developing their group aspirations. Unlike India, Canada or Belgium, geography does not support language-based spatial divisions in Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n

Discrimination with reason<\/strong><\/p>\n

Devanesan Nesiah\u2019s doctoral dissertation comparing discrimination introduced by law in India, Malaysia and the USA (Discrimination with reason: the policy of reservations in the U.S., India and Malaysia, 1997) is a relevant example in this context. \u00a0Nesiah could not disagree with epithets such as, \u201cYou cannot legislate against geography,\u201d or \u201cOne law for the lion and the ox is oppression (William Blake (1793)<\/em>.\u201d In India discrimination is used for the benefit of over 40% of its population! \u00a0A minority could enjoy powers and privileges over a majority community due to historical reasons such as, the divide and rule policies of colonial masters, communist party members in Marxist societies or under the Apartheid policy in South Africa.<\/p>\n

The lost rights and dignity of the Sinhala Buddhists in the Colonial Ceylon, and after 1948, also falls under this category. In this context the 1956 Sinhala only language act with reasonable use of Tamil added to it (1958) was discrimination with reason.\u00a0 LSSP member Colvin R. de Silva supported it in 1968 and 1972. \u00a0Professor James W. Gair, in his book, (Studies in South Asian Linguistics: Sinhala and other South Asian languages, 1998, Chapter 14: How Dravidanized was Sinhala phonology? Pages 185\u2010199) states, \u201cSinhala [language]\u2019s survival as a clearly Indo<\/em>\u2010<\/em>Aryan language can be considered a minor miracle of linguistic and cultural history.\u201d <\/em>The language of 70% of people has <\/em>suffered 500 years of discrimination.<\/p>\n

Montesquieu standing on his head<\/strong><\/p>\n

Western representative democracies love the doctrine of separation of powers to death as seen from the constitutional crisis in the USA today. However, it is now uncovered that Montesquieu did not suggest a strict separation of powers among the three branches of government, In fact now there are about five such branches. What he wanted was to distribute the sum total of governmental power (including even some judicial power) to as many spatial\/political units as possible. It was as if Montesquieu thought about our Gamsabha system or the sovereignty enjoyed by the village-level Buddhist temple monk, who is free from central control unlike the local Christian church. The Buddhist Republics in ancient India were similar to the Tribal Councils Native Americans later had in North America, which Benjamin Franklin wanted the fighting 13 states to follow. These ideas later influenced the western political science theories of governance. \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong>Bioregional vision<\/strong><\/p>\n

Empowerment of people means giving people governmental power at the lowest possible spatial unit level. The American, Kirkpatrick Sale described this as “human scale” in his book, Human<\/em> Scale <\/em>(1980). He says everything works best if it is at a scale (size) manageable by local people. This is akin to what we generally identify as “grassroots “politics. In a global village one thinks globally, but acts locally. Or, as the former U.S House Speaker Tip O\u2019Neil once said “all politics is local.” Empowerment works best at the “Small Is Beautiful<\/em>” scale. With global warming and local floods, droughts and landslides, massive development projects and environmental degradation, sustainable development at local level becomes a top priority.<\/p>\n

A paradigm shift has taken place in (physical-economic) development from things to people as reflected in the increasing use of Participatory Rural Appraisals and people-centered methods of \u201cendogenous development.\u201d\u00a0 Local knowledge (local farmers and villagers) is more valuable than an agriculture or civil engineering graduate can learn from books. The value of this \u201csocial capital\u201d is now recognized by the World Bank and other UN development-oriented agencies.\u00a0 After fifty years of technocratic misadventure, in Sri Lanka these methods are now employed in irrigation settlements in the dry zone.<\/p>\n

The Middle Path<\/strong><\/p>\n

Two Indian presidents, Dr. Abdul Kalam and Ms. Pratibha Patil, both non-Buddhists, stated that the solution to world\u2019s problem could be found via Buddhism.\u00a0 In a Buddhist society, human actions and perceptions, rights and duties, individual and the community (group rights) are all weighed and measured through Buddhist concepts such as the Middle Path, impermanence, cause and effect principle and the cyclical nature of all phenomena. It is because of this flexibility that one can find 20-30% of the sacred space of a Buddhist temple devoted to Hindu gods and goddesses.\u00a0 No Buddhist will engage in discriminatory acts against another human being based on race or religion. Historically, Tamil and Sinhala politicians living in Colombo, for selfish reasons created conflicts due to which especially the innocent Tamils in villages ended up as victims suffering for 30 to 50 years.\u00a0 After May 19, 2009 a change is taking place in Tamil areas revealing to Tamil villagers that they can live amicably with Sinhala people when both groups learn Sinhala and Tamil. In the past any Tamil who said this was branded as a Tamil traitor but that poisoned mindset is rapidly eroding compelling separatist Tamil politicians fighting for survival. An empowerment plan aimed at local Tamil villagers will end separatist politics in Sri Lanka for good. Just like an oil lamp becomes brighter when it is about to end, separatist Tamil politicians are making lot of noise knowing that the end is nearer than they expected.<\/p>\n

Spatial justice atlas<\/strong><\/p>\n

Empowerment of people at the local level is not just a political affair. It is a scientific endeavor. Each locally elected non-political party independents committee will base their work on a locally-developed land use map. Each unit will have a graduate research assistant. \u00a0Ironically, in the Vavuniya District such maps are already in use as a research tool. Tamil tigers had an elaborate land use planning system developed after CFA 2002.\u00a0 Tamil officers are ahead of Sinhala officers in this regard. Most districts in the South now have data tables displayed at GSN unit level.\u00a0 Volunteer students from local high schools and their geography\/biology teachers will no doubt take part in updating such maps available at the survey department.\u00a0 This will help in identifying natural boundaries for the local unit. For example, such action could help to reduce 15,000 GSN units to a more reasonable number (it was only 4,000 in the late 1980s).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>An ecologically demarcated local unit maps will lead to an ecologically demarcated electorate similar to the pre 1980 era. By converting land use data to data tables an atlas of spatial justice could be developed at the national level using local natural-ecological unit as the lowest spatial unit. An atlas of spatial justice will be the quarterly or annual report card of this monitoring process. It will be an ongoing system with feedback loops. In the 1940s, in the United Kingdom, the late geographer Dudley Stamp undertook a national land utilization survey with the help of public school students. It was continued in the 1970s and 1990s. The proposed spatial atlas of Sri Lanka will be an improvement of Dudley Stamp\u2019s original idea interpreting the data from land use planning with issues of spatial injustice. It may be identified as the Mahinda Chinthanaya Atlas.<\/p>\n

Since local level watersheds\/basins have a hierarchical order of progressively increasing in area\/size they can become a large River Basin Region at macro level. Seven such River Basin Regions could advantageously replace the present arbitrary nine Provincial units; each with an ocean front and each with more or less equal land area (see the map ).<\/p>\n

Source: Map by Professor C. M. Madduma Bandara: Seven river basins 1. Yalpanam, 2. Rajarata, 3. Dambadeni, 4. Mahaveli, 5. Deegavaapi, 6. Kelani, 7. Ruhunu (published in Chapter 4, in Fifty years of Sri Lanka\u2019s Independence: a socio economic review, edited by A.V. de S. Indraratna, 1998, p.83).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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