What is Sinhala ‘majoritarianism’?

We all know what havoc terrorism is capable of inflicting but the question now is to examine the term ‘Sihala majoritainism’ which a writer projects as a precursor of terrorism. Unfortunately ‘majoritarianism’ is not a term found in any English dictionary and nor is it associated with the political vocabulary in any other country. Thus it is all the more important that we understand this term as it appears endemic to Sri Lanka and its conflict.

Ironically the term they use in other countries to describe ‘majoritarianism’ is ‘democracy’ as the term is meant to denote the will of the majority. Thus it is only in Sri Lanka that this term democracy is pejoratively twisted to call ‘majoritarianism’. Out of the 193 nations, that inhibit this world, only about 9 percent could claim a perfect degree of homogeneousness while a greater number of nations, 64 percent, have a majority/minority situation. In another 27 percent of the countries the major ethnic or religious group is less than 50 percent of the total population. Thus it is a fact that the democratic manifestations of about 90 percent of the nations in this world could follow a pattern of leaning towards a majority but yet there is no allegations of ‘majoritainism’ in any of those countries as it is here in Sri Lanka.

Anti majority propaganda

India has a Hindu majority; Australia an occidental majority and Malaysia a barely 50 percent Malay majority. There are reverberations of India being a Hindustan, Australia telling its minorities to ‘accept or quit’ the country’s Christian civilization and Malaysia instituting Bumiputhra laws to strengthen the Malay community. Yet we have not heard of situations where the minorities have taken to arms against the majorities in those states aided and abetted by an anti majority propaganda in the form of ‘majoritarianism’. But here in Sri Lanka we have been experiencing terror in its worst form with constant allegation of the majority being responsible for everything bad that takes place in the country.

This is a special feature in the post-independent era and in a way an insidious attempt to justify terrorism and untoward activity in that era. In this regard they cite the only concession granted to the majority (and also to the minority) in the post independent era, that of restoring their language rights, as the cause of the country’s problems, in order to buttress their argument. The fact that the Sinhalese are the majority is not of their choosing and hence it would not be fair to hold them responsible for that crime of being the majority in Sri Lanka.

Civilized society

The fact however is that the colonial Ceylon was administered by a minority of English speaking elites riding slip shod over the rights of the indigenous majority. But since independence, reforms favouring the majority were inevitable and this situation was vehemently resented and resisted with all that might by that privileged elite who ran the country up to then. Hence this ‘majoritarianism’ was pejoratively coined by the powers that be to look down upon the coming transition to majority rule. It was a propaganda facade created to protect the interest of ‘minoritiarisation’ that was in practice up to then. Thus we see that most of these allegations leveled against the majority in the post independent Sri Lanka is more an attempt to preserve the status quo of the colonial Ceylon by elements of vested interests. In a civilized society it is every man that stands equal to one another and not every community.

Tamil expatriates

Events of July ’83, though unfortunate, did not occur on their own but as a result of separatist violence by the LTTE since 1975 and anti Sinhala propaganda worldwide by the Tamil expatriates. Therefore the irony is that those who were so prepared to condemn the July ’83 were not so readily forthcoming in their criticism of many LTTE atrocities during those 35 years of conflict.

Therefore ‘majoritarianism’ is a concept espoused by those who wanted to propagate ‘minoritarianism’ in this country and also we know that this country was pummeled for 35 years, not so much by majoritariansm but rather by ‘minoritarianism’ and the terrorism associated with it.

Allegation of majoritariansm had only been an excuse to indulge in that orgy of violence.

Sri Lanka has been through hell for 35 years and during that time all such vague terms such as ‘majoritarianism’, ‘ethnic conflict’ and ‘political solution’ were used rather loosely to exacerbate that situation.

Today it is the wish of the people of Sri Lanka that this period of acrimony and divisive thinking be put behind for an accommodative future. Therefore the grievance and allegations of a community or group have to be specific, relative, objective and most of all assimilative.

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