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Bread & Circuses by Cicero

Mixed signals have heralded the second anniversary of the United National Front Government led by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.

Even as the split in the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress a constituent party of the Government points to the tenuousness of the power structure the news from Oslo that the LTTE has agreed to a federal solution to the National Question offers hope that Sri Lanka's long agony might yet be ended.

However this should surely entail a national consensus, or even a social contract, to which not merely Sri Lanka's major political parties but also the interest groups representing the major communities and religions should be partners.

History (our old friend and monster) must be mocking Sri Lanka if after all this futile blood-letting we are to go back to a federal solution. It was after all the first of the modern Tamil political leaders, G.G. Ponnambalam, who advocated balanced representation which was instantly dubbed 'Fifty-Fifty' by the then extremist Sinhala elements.

What Ponnambalam sought, however, was balanced representation vis-a-vis the Sinhalese and all the other minority communities, such as the Tamils, Muslims, Malays, the Indian Tamils and the Burghers who then formed a sizeable proportion of the yet to be born Ceylonese nation. Rejecting this claim (which was mischievously construed by Sinhala opinion as Fifty for the Sinhalese and Fifty for the Tamils) the Soulbury Commission instead gave Ceylon a Westminster-type constitution with two chambers (the House of Representatives and the Senate) and a clause in the Constitution prohibiting Parliament from enacting any law discriminatory of a minority community.

Disillusioned by Ponnambalam's alliance with the first UNP Government of Prime Minister D.S. Senanayake S.J.V. Chelvanayakam, who was Ponnambalam's most able deputy broke away and formed the Federal Party which sought a federal state within an unitary Ceylon.

But Sinhala opinion again interpreted this as a stepping stone for separatism and pressurised both the SLFP and UNP governments of the time not to give even a semblance of power to the Tamils in the North and the East.

This is how both the Regional Councils proposed by Prime Minister S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike and the District Councils proposed by Prime Minister Dudley Senanayake were destroyed on the rocks of intransigence. This only exacerbated Tamil feelings until the youthful Tamils became steadily disenchanted with the moderate Tamil leadership of the TULF (the final incarnation of the Federal Party) and took to arms.

The LTTE agreeing to a federal state is therefore a major breakthrough but it immediately places an onus on the major parties to enter into a process of self-examination. All the Left political parties, except for the JVP, will accept such a solution which will tend to isolate the JVP and the Sihala Urumaya.

It is the SLFP which will have to face the challenge squarely. While President Kumaratunga will be faced with a predictable dilemma her brother, Mr. Anura Bandaranaike has been making hostile noises against his former party, the UNP, and his classmate the Prime Minister to whom he professes undying admiration. But a federal state will almost be tantamount to the Regional Councils proposed by Prime Minister Bandaranaike.

The other irony, of course, is that a federal state will have to incorporate the boundaries of the North and the East, the very issue on which J.R. Jayewardene in 1957 opposed the Regional Councils and led the abortive march to Kandy which was stopped in its tracks by that great maverick S.D. Bandaranayake who incidentally celebrated his 86th birthday this Monday.

So while Jayewardene's nephew Ranil Wickremesinghe is ready to accept federalism can Bandaranaike's daughter and son cry foul ? Can the SLFP by its control of the Executive Presidency (itself a Jayewardene legacy) afford to mobilise extremist Sinhala Buddhist forces to oppose what has unfortunately been dubbed the 'final solution' to Sri Lanka's agony ?

This is where a social contract or compact is called for.

If the LTTE can not be defeated militarily and if it is ready to accept a federal state it should surely be given the chance in the light of Sri Lanka's monumental incapacity since Independence to solve the National Question. Whether it is atavistic phobias, archetypal fears, dynastic ambitions or anybody's political future, the national interest should predominate.

The onus also falls on the LTTE. It should demonstrate by its actions that archetypal Sinhala fears are baseless that they can share power within a unitary state where the personality of all the communities of the country can flower to the benefit and enrichment of all.

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