WHITE ELEPHANTS AND WOOLY HEADED HUMANS

Lalith Weeratunge's recently tweeted social media parleyed assertion that the Provincial Councils are white elephants has been rebutted in some quarters by various columnists writing in the regular bash-the-progressive web spaces.

The main line of argument is that Provincial Councils are a white elephant, yes (well at least THAT'S conceded) only because there is no shrinkage of powers at the Centre, as the Central Government has refused to cede the powers that have been lawfully and 'constitutionally' devolved to the provinces.

This is the classic ex post facto argument that seeks to give some colour to a white elephant by changing the complexion of the entire issue.

It is absolutely ridiculous that the persons who pride themselves as former civil servants and professionals etc., who make such claims do not realize that by saying that the Central Government has refused to 'shrink to accommodate' they have already conceded that what the provinces can do, the Central Government can keep doing.

Their position is about as good as claiming that if you hire new staff to do the same job that the old staff was doing, that's called 'efficiency.' Since these critics are giving new meaning to the word efficiency, they might want to consider that hiring nine new sets of staff, giving them offices, equipment, perks, cars, staff quarters and all of that entails expending public money, which belongs to the taxpayer.

This is not duplication or triplication of work but it is triplication times three, and the very fact that these 'experts' want the state to 'shrink' in order to accommodate the provinces is the most self evident indication that the Provincial Councils are a white elephant as they do the work that's already being done by somebody else! That there should be Provincial Councils to do the work that the Centre has to shrink in order to create, is as pointless as suggesting to the rustic Sri Lankan villager for instance that he or she needs an extra belly to accommodate kiri peni, after doing justice to his rathu haarley buth, karawala, and kiri hodi.

Provincial Councils have been created artificially, superfluously and insidiously not to accommodate more work, but to satisfy king sized egos of people that thought they should decide this country's destinies from overseas. People who cannot call a spade a spade and say that the PCs are useful are dunderheads plain and simple, and when they try to create a contrary narrative to contradict the patently obvious, they look more foolish than before they set out with their custom created justifications.

What is ludicrous is to see so many people that are prepared to bend over backwards to accommodate something that burdens the taxpayer, and contributes towards collective impoverishment just because they are so enamoured with the received wisdom that somehow devolution is a magic wand that tames rabid Tamil nationalists in the diaspora. There is no clamour for Provincial Councils after all among the Tamil people of any region and they do know that the government agents that were part of the existing structure of administration before Provincial Councils were superimposed on the existing administrative mechanism can do a very good job of serving as a conduit between them and the relevant agencies of state.

There are none so blind as those that refuse to see, and though that's well worn cliche it serves to give about an accurate a description as one can find about those who are so ingratiating of the orthodoxy that they cannot expect the obvious which is that the PCs are a white elephant. They must always concede that point that they in fact are, as they do - R M B Senanayake has conceded it, Jehan Perera has conceded it, but they however need to relentlessly seek the qualifier, either to the effect that the state government is not shrinking (!) or that the symbolic value of PCs is greater than the real value! A charlatan can be seen a mile away, and a Sri Lankan Provincial Council no matter how well dressed up to please -- will be always be quite useless despite those who want to live the lie that they are the best thing since independence.