Sri Lanka: Language of Communication

[Harold Schiffman]

Language of Communication



N Sathiya Moorthy

Enough has been written over the years about Province-centric power
devolution as a tool to end the ethnic strife in Sri Lanka – and, both
in terms of the perceived benefits and purported defects of such a
scheme. All such discourses have remained in the realm of political
science and theories, little relating them to the people for which
power and power devolution are otherwise intended.
It is no different elsewhere, but given the particular situation
prevailing in Sri Lanka, there is no denying the fact that any power
devolution model should be aimed at addressing the concerns of the
larger population in general and the minority Tamil community in
particular. The continuing ethnic war and violence owe to the past,
when the Tamils felt less than equal – and were also made to feel so.
The Sri Lankan State cannot pass on the blame to the Sinhala polity,
yet the willingness to revisit the past and make amends needs to be
acknowledged, nonetheless.

In this background, a political package has to address those concerns
that are lingering from the past. The Tamils for their part however
need to understand the current situation. Their socio-economic
circumstance is not similar to the one prevailing in the mid-Fifties
or the early Eighties, two landmarks in the contemporary history of
Sri Lanka. It was the time when non-secular laws, putting a premium on
birth (as Sinhalas) and language at birth (Sinhalese) became the
corner-stone of State-sponsored measures aimed at differentiating
perceived equity from long-held beliefs about equality. Today, the
situation has changed drastically and there is all-round agreement
about the need for evolving some parity between social equity and
political equality.

The current discourse  on power devolution is a part of the process.
This is different from the outright denial of equality for the Tamils,
by certain sections of the southern polity, including a dwindling
segment of the Sinhala elite. It was this combination that was behind
the perverse behaviour of the past. The Sri Lankan State, since
Independence, had sort of started off with a reversed set of
priorities but achieved none. On the political front, the Tamils were
made to feel unequal. On the socio-economic front, the rural
population became restive to the point of rising in revolt against the
established State order under the JVP banner – not once, but twice in
two decades.

If the Tamils of the North and the East had not joined the JVP
insurgency, particularly in the late Eighties, Tamil militancy for
political equality had already begun consuming their energies, and
rendered them a focus, cause and goal. Definitions of such political
equality however differed. It is this difference that branded
individuals and groups as moderates and extremists, the latter taking
the name of 'terrorists' as days were allowed to roll into months, and
months into years. It was not as if social equity did not play its
part among the Tamils, consumed as they have since been by aspirations
for political equality. If anything, the call of 'Tamil nationalism',
whatever the reason and justification, echoed a similar call for
'Sinhala nationalism'. Competitive 'nationalist calls' have since
become the centre-piece of arguments based on equality and equity, for
traditionally left-leaning youth from both the communities, with a
streak of militancy already ingrained in them.

      The adoption of Buddhism, often identified with the
Sinhalese-speaking people, as the State religion of Sri Lanka through
the First Republican Constitution did not help matters, either. The
question remains if Buddhism as State religion would have made any
great difference to the Tamils' psyche had it not been for the
circumstances in which it was done. Alternatively, the question also
emerges if certain sections of the Sinhalese-speaking society in the
country added to the confusion and confrontation by identifying
religion with language – and timing it for the wrong hour in the
nation's history. Buddhism is not exclusive to Sri Lanka, Sinhalese
is. Yet, a 'Sinhala Buddhist' identity was created, if only to posit
against the Tamil linguistic identity, deliberately confusing it with
a non-Buddhist identity, as well.

It is true that there are not many Tamil-speaking Buddhists as there
are Sinhalese-speaking Buddhists in Sri Lanka. Neither are all
Sinhalese-speaking sections of the Sri Lankan population exclusively
Buddhists. In spite of re-conversion, there are Christians and Muslims
on the island who know only Sinhalese. Like the Tamil-speaking
Buddhists, their numbers is relatively small. At the turn of
Independence, the Tamil elite did share the top rungs of politics,
public administration and society with their Sinhala counterparts.
They already had a burgeoning middle class, dependent on the
Government for jobs, but their Sinhala counterparts were yet to
emerge.

In the absence of a 'Sinhala-Only law' of the kind enacted in 1956,
the presence of educated Tamil-speaking people in all sections of
governance, that too across the island, helped address individual
Tamil queries and concerns at the administrative level, across the
board. The reverse was true of the Sinhala population settled in Tamil
majority areas.  That the embedded linguistic population had no
problem learning the 'local language' went without saying. It was in a
later era, hatred for the system turned into an aversion for a new
language. A stage thus came when learning an alien language like
English, or appreciating film music in an unknown language like Hindi
became acceptable – but not the learning of, and respect for each
other's language. The symbol became the tool, and there was no way one
could go back on the same. In an era before the implementation of the
'Sinhala Only' law, the Sinhalese may have suffered at the hands of
Tamil officials in their midst but with no knowledge of their
language. The roles have been reversed since.

To be fair to the Sri Lankan State and the majority Sinhala polity,
efforts have continued to be made since the late Eighties for
restoring the equal status originally enjoyed by Tamil as an official
language of the island-nation. If it has not borne fruit, it is not
without reason.   Allegations of governmental insincerity
notwithstanding, the inadequacy of available tools and personnel
cannot be over-looked, either. To think that it was all the making of
a single generation should be a lesson for the future, and not just in
and for Sri Lanka.

It is a chicken and egg situation. For the mood, motivation and
methodology to work at the ground level, on the language front, Sri
Lanka needs a political solution capable of ushering in permanent
peace on an early date, ensuring its continuance for a substantial
length of time. At the political-level however the existence of
equality for languages at all levels of governance, and in practical
and discernible ways, has become a pre-condition for the return of
permanent peace.The seeming deadlock can be resolved in one simple
way, and the only simple way possible under the circumstances. With a
political consensus having evolved in the 'Sinhala South' over the
need for and justification to Provinces-centric power-devolution, an
early and meaningful implementation of the scheme would remove the
present irritants, for which no other cure seems to be visible on the
horizon.

Purposeful power-devolution would ensure that much of the work for the
common man with the Government, be it in the political or police
administration, would be handled by locals with their known knowledge
of the local language. It would be as true of the Sinhalas of the
South as it would be of the Tamils in the North and the East. This
does not mean that the two-language policy should be rendered
ineffective, or the case for English being the link language between
the Centre and the Provinces, should be given a go-by. Recruitments
for the Central Government services, for postings in all parts of the
country and overseas, could be based on a scheme of proportional
representation, based initially on language.

Schemes exist elsewhere, for a third to a half of all officials
recruited by the Central Government for its employment and
requirements in the Provinces has to be from outside the Province.
These officials would have to learn the local language at recruitment.
For being effective, they would also be expected to pick up the local
language, for greater interaction with the political masters of the
Province – which in turn would be based on greater interaction with
the local population. In turn, a similar scheme working in the
reverse, for coopting experienced Provincial Government officials for
filling vacancies in the Central Government, either on a permanent or
a re-transferable basis, would help. They would learn the languages by
themselves, or could be induced to do so, by making a series of
Language Tests mandatory at every stage in promotions.

Such schemes have worked elsewhere, helping to balance 'linguistic
nationalism', born out of negative impulses, and 'constitutional
nationalism', which should be a positive way to address genuine
concerns and avoid after-effects. There is no reason to suspect why it
should not work in Sri Lanka, where there is a greater and imminent
need for similar measures – on all fronts. The language, as they say,
is where you begin, and begin to talk!

--------------

The writer is Director, Chennai Chapter of the Observer Research
Foundation (ORF), a policy think-tank, headquartered in New Delhi. The
views expressed here are those of the writer's, and not of the
Foundation's. email: sathiyam54 at hotmail.com

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