ODE TO THE HOME-GROWN

A recent book said to be coming our way from the NGO-factory conveyor belt, apparently refers to the 1972 Republican constitutions as a document coming out of a 'constitutional revolution' that was authoritarian. Apparently, though the bid to fashion an autochthonous constitution is regarded as one that was bold and idealistic, it is also berated as being a brash move that wasn't well thought out which hence led to a trend that culminated in the authoritarianism that was to follow in the next decades.

The whole idea of a constitutional revolution is apparently decried in the book. But what takes the cake is the assertion that the trend of authoritarianism that we are told was a direct result of the '72 constitution, finally led to what is referred to as 'the Bonapartist regime' of the Rajapaksas in the here and now!

This is typical of NGO tracts which are supposed to be academic treatises! There is always the rather transparent agenda, which is to vilify the regime by giving the diatribe that results from an 'academic paper', a pseudo-academic veneer of respectability.

Despite this, it is worth asking if there is any merit to the arguments made about autochthonous constitutions and constitutional revolutions so called. What's implied in the attacks that are aimed against the '72 constitution, is that when the British left, they bequeathed a constitutional document that embodied the better aspects of democracy and good governance -- but all this was lost to us due to our own hasty home grown constitutional experiment.

That all of this wisdom comes to us at this time when the President has said that solutions to our own issues must be home-grown is more than a little curious. Academicians of this type do not like home-grown solutions and the types that work in the NGO circuit in particular are paid to foist imported formulae on us.

You could say that importing 'solutions' is the raison d'etre for their life's work as academics! So, read between the lines of this new NGO document decrying the autochthonous '72 constitution, and it can be seen that through a circuitous route, these people are casting what they think is a water tight narrative against our own home-grown solutions. That narrative makes use of an artificial construct -- the ostensibly failed 1972 constitutional experiment.

The reality however is very much at variance with this new narrative of a post '72 constitutional dystopia. The '72 experiment was necessary, and the brand new constitutional document helped us revert to the status quo ante, before the British through the colonial doctrine of divide and rule, left a legacy of an artificial advantage that accrued to minorities. These are facts no doubt that are hard to stomach, particularly for those who swear by Jennings and the pantheon of British constitutionalists.

Those who say that '72 signified a brash and ill thought of constitutional revolution also say that the British were so good as to leave behind constitutional safeguards for minorities. In reality, the British bequeathed to the post independence generation, the yawning communal divide.

How so? The policy of divide and rule did it - and the practice of manning the civil service almost exclusively with the Tamil elite, served to marginalize the Sinhalese and foster an underclass mentality, with overtones of the odious practice of South African apartheid - i.e.; minority rule over majority.

Independence, the 1956 revolution, and the '72 Republican constitution finally reversed all that. Of home-grown things, the 72 experiment was among the best the boldest and the most practical.

Naturally, there are convulsions when a polity reverts to the status quo ante, in this case the status quo ante prior to colonialism, but these convulsions are cathartic. In other words, if there is conflict as a result of doing the right thing, so be it - there would have been more bloodletting and misery if the patently unjust (Tamil minority dominance over a Sinhala majority) was allowed to continue. All that can be said in the final analysis is that home-grown is best, and no amount of NGO casuistry is going to change that.