N&E Provincial Councils must get police powers..!!!

N&E Provincial Councils must get police powers

The people versus the militarised state
February 18, 2012, 5:25 pm



by Kumar David


A variety of reasons are adduced for and against giving police powers to provincial councils, in particular councils in the north and the east. The universal opposition is that an elected PC with a Tamil majority will use these powers to divide the country. This is delusory, but the chauvinists who say so come close to hitting a certain nail on the head. Sinhalese who are not chauvinists but feel the same are engaging in knee jerk reaction to 30 years of civil war without reflecting on the nature of the prevailing state-system in the country; the discussion in this article may be of interest to them.


Those who support the transfer of police powers, including the leadership of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), lay emphasis on many matters, two are significant; there is an explicit and deliberate violation of the constitution by the government in obstructing the transfer of stipulated powers, and second there will be improved relations between the local people and a police force, presumably staffed largely by Tamils, and drawing its authority from a local government. The first is correct in terms of the Provincial List (Schedule 9) of 13A, and the second points to the LTTE experience as what happens when people are ruled by an alienated administration. Nevertheless the TNA has hit the nail rather askew because of its class nature; it is accustomed to posing its critique legalistically, not in a radical conceptual framework that goes to the heart of the matter.


The Sinhala-Buddhist State


I mean no offence to Sinhalese people or to the Buddhist public when I call the existing state-form Sinhala-Buddhist; I use it as a precise "scientific", description. The reason successive central governments have baulked at the transfer of police powers to Tamil majority or Tamil plurality provinces is because such a transfer will trigger the erosion of the hegemony of this state-form, initially at the periphery and eventually throughout the country. My third point is that a Tamil political leadership that settles for a package that does not include police powers is settling for a system of governance under the hegemony of a Sinhala-Buddhist state-form.


Whatever else a Tamil political leadership compromises on, if it compromises on this issue it deserves to lose the confidence of its people. I have no hesitation in saying that a no-deal option of breakdown in negotiations and return to protracted political struggle is better, in the long run, for the Tamil people than a shoddy deal which gives away this crucial piece. I am not a Tamil nationalist; I speak here, as always, as a Marxist. Has not bankrupt LTTE militarism proved narrow nationalism does not comprehend broader political strategy and ends in disaster? It is obvious that Tamils as a community must not capitulate on the question of the state; whatever else they are prepared to give away at this point in time. Many Tamils, after so much suffering, are tempted to throw in the towel on this slightly abstract state-form construct and get on with other things; understandable but a mistake; eventually they will lose more.


I now need to explain why I call the state in Sri Lanka Sinhala-Buddhist and secondly to explain why a simple thing like the transfer of police powers to the N and E Provincial Councils will begin the erosion of this state-form. I do not intend to expand my brief beyond the N and E, or comment on devolution of police powers in general, or discuss other provinces.


Historically, the nature of a state is the outcome of a process of evolution. Logically, it is structured by the characteristics of constitution, government, military, hegemonic ideology, balances of classes and the economic system. To say that on every one of these counts the state in this country is a manifestation of Sinhala-Buddhist hegemony would be patently false. For example, Lanka’s bourgeoisie and elite include a generous admixture of Tamil big capitalists, medium and small business people and professionals. On most other counts the status is different. The nature of a state must be judged as a whole and its principal determinants evaluated as a body.


The historical process of the last 64 years tells an obvious story and the evolution of the state in relation to the national question does not need much recounting. In 1948 the ex-colonial state was elitist and liberal democratic; Tamil propertied classes and elite enjoyed considerable excess of wealth and privilege in proportion to their number. However, not only in Ceylon but all over the decolonised world, for reasons that cannot be recounted here for reasons of space, the post-war decade, in the context of a global economic boom and Cold War, was a period in which the vernacular petty bourgeoisie came into its own. Since it was vernacular, a petty bourgeois, and reacting to grievances, this was also a period of rising ethnic tension. Known as the 1956 Sinhala Only phenomenon, the terminology underlines the associated cultural renaissance. This was the stuff of ethnic polarisation and over time seeped into the DNA of the state.


There was an extended period of legislative change; political enslavement of upcountry Tamils (1947-48), land colonisation, official language acts, competition for government jobs and professions, new constitutions and secessionist Tamil responses thereto, and then racial pogroms. Through these the DNA of the state mutated definitively - executive, administration, constitution, and armed forces. I cannot in a paragraph do justice to all but only highlight a few; the Sinhala-Buddhist constitutions of 1972 and 1978, the comprehensively mono-ethnic military, alienation of Tamils from the centre and their flight after the carnage of 1983, and eventually a secessionist civil war. Look, let’s not argue about right and wrong, let’s keep that for another time. All I ask you to go along with for now is that Ceylon changed over a period of thirty years (1948-1978) from bourgeois democratic post-colonial to a Sinhala-Buddhist state-form. Some of you may think its good; that’s beside my point.


Militarization of Tamil areas


Again I don’t want to argue about whether, once we get a Sinhala-Buddhist state the Tamil minority would inevitably rebel and then their homelands (I do not mean the secessionist use of the word) would become the seat of a repressive military occupation, or whether after a secessionist war sparked by that same state-form, the government would unavoidably send in the military to enforce tight control. Leave the morality of the two versions to one side and just agree with me, that as a factual matter, there is tight militarization and control of the Tamil areas quite different from conditions in the rest of Lanka. Grant me the obvious, whatever your views on its justifiability; the Tamil areas are militarised under the command of a Sinhala army.


So far I have made two points: (i) the state-form in Lanka is manifestly Sinhala-Buddhist hegemony, (ii) Tamil areas are under the control of a Sinhala army. I make no emotive comments, just facts. Now comes my punch line; if police powers are granted to elected provincial councils in Tamil majority or Tamil plurality provinces, the rolling back of (ii) will begin and eventually (i) itself will be jeopardised. This is the crux of the matter; this is why Rajapaksa type governments will not and cannot grant police powers to these councils. And conversely, if the TNA settles for a package sans these powers, it would be an act of treachery to its own people.


Why am I so sure that if police powers are granted to provincial councils elected by the Tamil people it would be the beginning of the end for militarization of Tamil areas? The reason to my mind is straightforward; the provincial police would not be under the jackboot of the army, it would derive its powers from provincial authorities, who in turn would be answerable to the electorate. Imagine a white-van abduction, a grease devils visitation, breaking up an anti-Rajapaksa political rally, beating journalists. Well the police will be forced to investigate properly, they will have to enter premises where abductees are alleged to be held, they will go to magistrates for warrants thereby releasing the judiciary too from subservience to militarism. Dichotomy between the centralised Sinhala military and a police force answerable to an elected Tamil council will take shape.


Think about it; at this moment, devolution of police powers will be the single most effective catalyst in fracturing monolithic and repressive militarization. Get the N and E police out of the grip of the Defence Ministry, make them provincial forces, let the division of power be instrumental in public answerability, and the monolithic edifice of the instruments of repression will crack.


If you are willing to come this far for the purpose of breaking monolithic state repression and replacing it with more diffuse and less onerous repression, it’s good enough for me. (Until the state itself withers away there will always be repression). Whether you agree with my proposition that this will eventually spell demise of the Sinhala-Buddhist state is another matter; but don’t hold your breath, they will fight to the bitter end rather than devolve police powers.



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